Shelf Life

The NYC Culinary Standard

The second half of the nineteenth century was filled with culinary opportunities and influence. The rising immigrant population combined with the emergence of a middle class further diversified the US. French cuisine was globally recognized as the culinary standard for the upper-class. The Hand-Book of Practical Cookery (1869) by Pierre Blot integrated French techniques with native ingredients like bear, turkey, and pumpkin. Pierre Blot emigrated from France to the US, wrote several cookbooks, and eventually started his own cooking academy in the city. Blot emphasized French culinary standards and influenced many professional cooks and housewives on what fine dining and “proper” food was. Blot was not the only one to capitalize on New York’s opportunities. New York City’s cosmopolitanism, it’s influence on national cuisine, and a growing interest in culinary education helped shape the values of professional cooks and housewives across the country.

New York’s Culinary Influence

The success of New York City is its foodways that played a key role in the city’s success. Its place as the American economic center and cosmopolitan culture helped it promote what good food was. NYC had a centralized position in production in addition to its distribution of the foods of the country. Positioned on the east coast between the European nations and the rest of the US, both travelers and immigrants could visit NY first in their travels back and forth. In the 1890s, NYC controlled two thirds of the country’s imports and exports.  Even manmade access points helped the city provide its nation with even more products. Railroads allowed the city to receive and sell fresh produce like apples, peaches, and melons from distant southern states. In addition, “the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 had opened the port of New York to the agricultural wealth of the Midwest”. Businesses could establish headquarters within the city and still have access to markets far beyond the edges of NYC thanks to these effective transit options. A growing immigrant population strengthen the city further. Immigrants opened their own businesses, introducing the city to parts of foreign cultures. Entire streets and even larger areas of the cities acted as safe havens for immigrants with similar backgrounds to reside and even establish businesses to market towards their peers. The diversity of the city allowed one to “visit” different regions without leaving the city. New York’s expanding food access allowed this cookbook to promote a more diverse array of recipes and ingredients, year-round, from further places in the country. “The appetite of the metropolis thus became the appetite of the nation.”

The Influence on National Cuisine

Since the 18^th century, French Cuisine was considered the best in the World. This cuisine was not treated like other foreign tastes. During the Gilded Age, most foreign foods were seen as strange or exotic at times. Pierre Blot emphasized this highly revered cuisine by publishing articles on culinary topics, degrading American cuisine in comparison to the “superior” French cookery in his works. In addition, elite restaurants in the city promoted French menus which further elevated opinions of the cuisine. For example, NYC’s top restaurant at the time, Delmonico’s, set a standard for what fine dining meant. French techniques, French staff, and an obvious desire to only market to the upper-class further elevated these establishments. French restaurants utilized the native ingredients of New York in the cooking while emphasizing the importance of applying their French skills in the cooking process. “Delmonico’s consistently followed the only recognized haute-cuisine, French, albeit with some admixture of American methods of preparing local foods.” Imitation and execution of such high end, upper-class dining reinforced the superiority of these restaurants. Long drawn-out courses highlighted each night to separate French dining further compared to the “rushed” American dining practices. Magnificent dinner parties from French chefs reinforced high societies views on the cuisine. Having a present French Chef was one of the more obvious and direct ways to advertise an “authentic” meal.

Promoting the Skills of a Cook

At the same time, there was a rising interest in culinary education. In 1865 in NYC, Pierre Blot opened his own cooking academy to share his ideals with his students. His own French education helped quickly elevate his authority in the art of cooking. He unfairly compared American cuisine to his favored French cookery, and while well-received by the public at first his ideals fell out of favor by 1870. Blot helped open the doors for an expanding interest in culinary interest outside of the upper-class. Imitation of the upper-class dining practices was desired by the growing working class who strived to elevate their own social standings. Following Blot’s success, Catherine Beecher was among the many who began to offer culinary education to provide a valuable career in domestic economy. As valuable as smart culinary practices were, Beecher was among the many who began to standardize this education to many, especially those outside of the upper-class. These trailblazers in culinary education helped market their ideas and values to millions of women in America. Formalized culinary education eventually spread to places like Boston, where Fannie Farmer helped elevate the Boston Cooking School there to its height of success. By the turn of the century, more schools began offering culinary education and nutrition, which eventually expanded into a broader topic of home economics. Finance, chemistry, and nutrition were many of the topics that were emphasized in addition to cooking.

 

For Further Research:

Blot, Pierre. Hand-book of Practical Cookery. 1869. Arno Press, 1973.

Diamond, Becky Libourel. “Modern Cooking Schools.” Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of American’s First Cooking School. Westholme, 2012, pp. 177-206

Dirks, Robert. “Nutrition History.” Food in the Gilded Age: What Ordinary Americans Ate. Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy, 2016, pp 1-16

Dirks, Robert. “Rich and Poor and the Seasonality of Diet.” Food in the Gilded Age: What Ordinary Americans Ate. Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy, 2016, pp 67-98

Freedman, Paul. “Delmonico’s: America’s First Restaurant.” Ten Restaurants that Changed America. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016, pp. 2-48

Lobel, Cindy R. “The Empire of Gastronomy: New York and The World, 1850-1890.” Urban Apetites: Food and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014, pp. 169-199