Download A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression AudioBook Free
The decade-long Great Melancholy, a period of shifts in the country's politics and social panorama, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America's romance with food was described by abundance. However the collapse of the market, in both metropolitan and rural America, kept a quarter of most Americans unemployed and undernourished - shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the nationwide larder. In 1933, as women battled to feed their families, President Roosevelt reversed long-standing biases toward government-sponsored "food charity". For the first time in American background, the federal government assumed, for a while, responsibility for feeding its citizens. The effects were wide-spread. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, "home economists" who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen rose to nationwide stature. Throughout the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping advertising campaign to instill nutritionary suggestions, the forerunners of today's Eating Guidelines for Americans. At the same time, expanding conglomerates launched packaged and processed foods, which resulted in a fresh American cuisine predicated on speed and convenience. This motion toward a homogenized nationwide diet sparked a revival of American regional cooking that persists to this day.
