The Gilded Age is renowned for a variety of reasons, including its culture of conspicuous consumption among the newly rich. In the domain of food, conspicuous consumption manifested itself in appetites for expensive dishes and lavish dinner parties. These received ample publicity at the time, resulting later on in well-developed historical depictions of upper-class eating habits. This book delves into the eating habits of people of lesser means. Concerning the African American community, the working class, the impoverished, immigrants, and others our historical representations have been relatively superficial. The author changes that by turning to the late nineteenth century's infant science of nutrition for a look at eating and drinking through the lens of the earliest food consumption studies conducted in the United States. These were undertaken by scientists, mostly chemists, who left their laboratories to observe food consumption in kitchens, dining rooms, and various institutional settings. Their insistence on careful measurement resulted in a substantial body of detailed reports on the eating habits of ordinary people. This work sheds new light on what most Americans were cooking and eating during the Gilded Age.

Tracing the course of the history of cooking and dining in McLean County and the Bloomington-Normal area takes us back 180 years. Early settlers from the Southern states and parts of the Northeast brought with them divergent tastes, but irrespective of their culinary leanings they generally made do with foods they either raised or collected themselves. Later on, newcomers from Ireland and Continental Europe established homes in various parts of the county. As a result, area foodways increased in complexity, and a variety of new food-related industries developed. Residents made beer, candy, ice cream, pickles, sausages, soda water, and vinegar. They manufactured stoves and refrigerators, milled flour, baked various types of bread, packed pork, and canned tomatoes. Bloomington companies distributed produce and groceries throughout Central Illinois. Still, many families beyond the city limits produced and processed nearly everything they ate and only occasionally visited a grocery store. By the end of the second millennium it was hard to find locally produced food in McLean County, let alone people with many food-related skills. The areaa s telephone directories listed no cheese shops or fishmongers. Skilled butchers and bread bakers barely existed. A couple of artisanal confectioners still had shops in Bloomington, but you could forget it if you wanted to buy milk from a local dairy. Finding groceries and fresh produce outside of a chain supermarket was a challenge, not to mention locating a chef-owned restaurant.

Die Beitrage zur Altertumskunde enthalten Monographien, Sammelbande, Editionen, UEbersetzungen und Kommentare zu Themen aus den Bereichen Klassische, Mittel- und Neulateinische Philologie, Alte Geschichte, Archaologie, Antike Philosophie sowie Nachwirken der Antike bis in die Neuzeit. Dadurch leistet die Reihe einen umfassenden Beitrag zur Erschliessung klassischer Literatur und zur Forschung im gesamten Gebiet der Altertumswissenschaften.