The story…about Old World habits clashing and ultimately melding with new American ones, is familiar. But Ms. Ziegelman is a patient scholar and a graceful writer, and she rummages in these families' histories and larders to smart, chewy effect.
The director of the forthcoming Culinary Center at New York City's Tenement Museum embarks on a cultural and culinary tour of the building at 97 Orchard St., which serves as the museum's principal display. Ziegelman (co-author: Foie Gras: A Passion, 1999) offers the stories of five immigrant families who lived in the building sometime between 1863, when it opened, and 1935. The author's research is both astonishing in its dimensions and enlightening in its presentation. She begins with a German family, then follows with Irish, Jewish (from Prussia, Germany and Lithuania) and Italian families. Each chapter includes some of the recipes fundamental to that family. Readers will learn the procedures for making things like hasenpfeffer (rabbit stew), krupnik (a sweet alcohol), fish hash, oyster patties, stuffed pike, pickles, challah and zucchini frittata. Ziegelman digs out the personal history of each family, but she is most interested in their cultural milieu. She notes the forces-some unfriendly, others welcoming-that greeted the new arrivals, and includes a splendid section on the cuisine offered at Ellis Island. The author also examines how the food of the immigrants altered the eating habits of Americans (yes, there was a time when we disdained Italian food and didn't know what a bagel was), charts the rise of the delicatessen and describes the advent of Crisco. Scattered throughout are well-placed details that continually brighten the narrative, including a 1920 public-school menu, a portrait of the pushcart culture that thrived for years, the origin of schmaltz (the delectable grease from goose skin or chicken skin) and 1860s restaurant slang ("shipwreck" = scrambled eggs, "oneslaughter on the pan" = porterhouse steak). A tasty, satisfying stew of history, sociology, cultural anthropology and spicy prose. Author appearances in New York
Ziegelman (Foie Gras: A Passion) puts a historical spin to the notion that you are what you eat by looking at five immigrant families from what she calls the "elemental perspective of the foods they ate." They are German, Italian, Irish, and Jewish (both Orthodox and Reform) from Russia and Germany--they are new Americans, and each family, sometime between 1863 and 1935, lived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Each represents the predicaments faced in adapting the food traditions it knew to the country it adopted. From census data, newspaper accounts, sociological studies, and cookbooks of the time, Ziegelman vividly renders a proud, diverse community learning to be American. She describes the funk of fermenting sauerkraut, the bounty of a pushcart market, the culinary versatility of a potato, as well as such treats as hamburger, spaghetti, and lager beer. Beyond the foodstuffs and recipes of the time, however, are the mores, histories, and identities that food evokes. Through food, the author records the immigrants’ struggle to reinterpret themselves in an American context and their reciprocal impact on American culture at large. (July)
Social history is, most elementally, food history. Jane Ziegelman had the great idea to zero in on one Lower East Side tenement building, and through it she has crafted a unique and aromatic narrative of New York’s immigrant culture: with bread in the oven, steam rising from pots, and the family gathering round. — A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All
“An engaging and delicious slice of life on the Lower East Side. And the recipes found in this book, though originating from various cultures, all have the air of comfort foods and home.” — Joan Nathan, author of Jewish Cooking in America
“What do just-arrived immigrants see as they gaze around a new land, and what do their native-born neighbors see as they newcomers make their presence felt? More practically: How do people begin the work of putting food on their tables amid unfamiliar streets and languages? These questions couldn’t be more timely. Nor could Jane Ziegelman’s penetrating exploration of them. You will come away with a renewed sense of what it means to be an American.” — Anne Mendelson, author of Milk and Stand Facing the Stove
“A truly fine idea. It not only opens a window to view the ways in which our nation’s immigrants cooked and ate, it broadens and enriches our understanding of the entire immigrant experience. This book is an impressive contribution to American cultural history.” — Nach Waxman, Kitchen Arts & Letters, New York City
“Jane Ziegelman brings us into the kitchens of five women whose home cooking not only fed their families and their neighborhoods but became part of the culinary DNA of America itself. Drawing on wonderfully evocative primary sources, Ziegelman describes how they contributed to the complexities of ethnic identity, class, and religion in a tumultuous city. Beautifully written and full of insights, 97 Orchard makes it clear that the story of New York is overwhelmingly a story about buying, selling, cooking, eating, and sharing food.” — Laura Shapiro, author of Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century
“In this compelling foray into forensic gastronomy, Ziegelman pulls the facade off the titular 97 Orchard Street tenement. The result is a living dollhouse that invites us to gaze in from the sidewalk.With minds open and mouths agape, we witness the comings and goings of the building’s inhabitants in the years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. By focusing on the culinary lives of individuals from a variety of ethnic groups, Ziegelman pieces together a thorough sketch of Manhattan’s Lower East Side at a time when these immigrants were at the forefront of a rapidly changing urban life. The food facts she uncovers are sure to interest and astound even those outside the culinary community, and guarantee that the reader will never look at a kosher dill pickle, a wrapped hard candy, or even the delectable foie gras the same way again. Ziegelman cleverly takes this opportunity to show us that in learning about food, we’re actually learning about history—and when it comes to the sometimes surprising journey some of our favorite meals have taken to get here, it’s fascinating stuff.” — Booklist
“This whole book is a celebration of food, language, and of the mutual aid and comfort that these brave pioneers shared with their tenement neighbors and the citizens who took them in.” — Julie Wittes Schlack, The Boston Globe
“Blending history, sociology, anthropology and economics, spiced with recipes, Ziegelman offers a looks at the Lower East Side and the immigrants who made it legendary.” — Chicago Jewish Star
“It is an eye-opening exploration of the social and economic history of those who thrived and survived, in spite of significant odds, on New York’s Lower East Side. VERDICT Recommended for those seeking up-close and personal—as well as edible—insights into the daily lives of late 19th- and early 20th-century ‘new Americans.’” — Library Journal
“A welcome addition to the canon inspired by the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. . . . [Ziegelman] dishes delectable morsels of ethnic gastronomy.” — New York Times
“Ziegelman puts a historical spin to the notion that you are what you eat. . . . Ziegelman vividly renders a proud, diverse community learning to be American. Through food, the author records the immigrants’ struggle to reinterpret themselves in an American context and their reciprocal impact on American culture at large.” — Publishers Weekly
“Highly entertaining and deceptively ambitious.” — New York Times Book Review
A welcome addition to the canon inspired by the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. . . . [Ziegelman] dishes delectable morsels of ethnic gastronomy.
An engaging and delicious slice of life on the Lower East Side. And the recipes found in this book, though originating from various cultures, all have the air of comfort foods and home.
This whole book is a celebration of food, language, and of the mutual aid and comfort that these brave pioneers shared with their tenement neighbors and the citizens who took them in.
In this compelling foray into forensic gastronomy, Ziegelman pulls the facade off the titular 97 Orchard Street tenement. The result is a living dollhouse that invites us to gaze in from the sidewalk.With minds open and mouths agape, we witness the comings and goings of the building’s inhabitants in the years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. By focusing on the culinary lives of individuals from a variety of ethnic groups, Ziegelman pieces together a thorough sketch of Manhattan’s Lower East Side at a time when these immigrants were at the forefront of a rapidly changing urban life. The food facts she uncovers are sure to interest and astound even those outside the culinary community, and guarantee that the reader will never look at a kosher dill pickle, a wrapped hard candy, or even the delectable foie gras the same way again. Ziegelman cleverly takes this opportunity to show us that in learning about food, we’re actually learning about history—and when it comes to the sometimes surprising journey some of our favorite meals have taken to get here, it’s fascinating stuff.
Social history is, most elementally, food history. Jane Ziegelman had the great idea to zero in on one Lower East Side tenement building, and through it she has crafted a unique and aromatic narrative of New York’s immigrant culture: with bread in the oven, steam rising from pots, and the family gathering round.
Blending history, sociology, anthropology and economics, spiced with recipes, Ziegelman offers a looks at the Lower East Side and the immigrants who made it legendary.
Jane Ziegelman brings us into the kitchens of five women whose home cooking not only fed their families and their neighborhoods but became part of the culinary DNA of America itself. Drawing on wonderfully evocative primary sources, Ziegelman describes how they contributed to the complexities of ethnic identity, class, and religion in a tumultuous city. Beautifully written and full of insights, 97 Orchard makes it clear that the story of New York is overwhelmingly a story about buying, selling, cooking, eating, and sharing food.
A truly fine idea. It not only opens a window to view the ways in which our nation’s immigrants cooked and ate, it broadens and enriches our understanding of the entire immigrant experience. This book is an impressive contribution to American cultural history.
What do just-arrived immigrants see as they gaze around a new land, and what do their native-born neighbors see as they newcomers make their presence felt? More practically: How do people begin the work of putting food on their tables amid unfamiliar streets and languages? These questions couldn’t be more timely. Nor could Jane Ziegelman’s penetrating exploration of them. You will come away with a renewed sense of what it means to be an American.
In this compelling foray into forensic gastronomy, Ziegelman pulls the facade off the titular 97 Orchard Street tenement. The result is a living dollhouse that invites us to gaze in from the sidewalk.With minds open and mouths agape, we witness the comings and goings of the building’s inhabitants in the years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. By focusing on the culinary lives of individuals from a variety of ethnic groups, Ziegelman pieces together a thorough sketch of Manhattan’s Lower East Side at a time when these immigrants were at the forefront of a rapidly changing urban life. The food facts she uncovers are sure to interest and astound even those outside the culinary community, and guarantee that the reader will never look at a kosher dill pickle, a wrapped hard candy, or even the delectable foie gras the same way again. Ziegelman cleverly takes this opportunity to show us that in learning about food, we’re actually learning about history—and when it comes to the sometimes surprising journey some of our favorite meals have taken to get here, it’s fascinating stuff.
Highly entertaining and deceptively ambitious.
New York Times Book Review
Ninety-seven Orchard was an address shared by five immigrant families who lived in one tenement building at different times from the end of the Civil War up to World War II. Ziegelman, who will direct the Culinary Center to open at New York's Tenement Museum, which is the actual 97 Orchard building, documents, in a manner not often found in such social histories, their struggles to adjust to a new way of life in America. Interspersed among the tales of each group are culinary details and specific recipes that add vividly to the flavor and texture of the descriptions of the hardscrabble life these families—German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian—experienced. The multitude of gastronomic details, from the origin of snack shops called delicatessens to the growing popularity of something called macaroni, are painstakingly described. It is an eye-opening exploration of the social and economic history of those who thrived and survived, in spite of significant odds, on New York's Lower East Side. VERDICT Recommended for those seeking up-close and personal—as well as edible—insights into the daily lives of late 19th- and early 20th-century "new Americans."—Claire Franek, MSLS, Brockport, NY
