Historical Eating

My Possessed mystery novels are half-historical, and feature a present-day heroine, Pat Montella, whose chief hobby is cooking. It stands to reason that Pat would eventually become fascinated with historical recipes, and that I'd have to delve more into that branch of research for each book.

In POISON TO PURGE MELANCHOLY, Pat learns what goes into elaborate 18th century dinner parties. You have to love an era that believed in two dessert courses. Research for this involved not only studying colonial cookbooks and experimenting with recipes, but eating out at Philadelphia's City Tavern and all of Historic Williamsburg's taverns. One must suffer for one's art.

But it's not all fancy viands. Pat's latest adventure, FEAR ITSELF, takes place partially in 1933. I had to research what immigrant Italian families on the poor side of town ate in the midst of the Great Depression. My parents were my main resources here.

My dad and his brothers' did odd jobs for the macaroni factory down the street and were paid in pasta and Parmesan. Not having meat, their mother varied her tomato sauce each night--sometimes adding onions or lentils or peas, or whatever beans were on sale that week. Once in a while his dad would bring home a chicken for Sunday dinner. One chicken to feed a family of 10.

My mom's family was smaller--only 5--but also poorer. My grandmother would scramble an egg or two in tomato sauce to make a sort of lumpy stew. (My mom used to make this for me for lunch sometimes. With decent sauce and grated cheese, it's actually a great warm meal on a winter's day.) If they could get bologna, my grandmother would fry it with egg to make it go farther. My grandpop eventually got a job at a bakery. I'm guessing he brought home bread, but my mom only recalled the warm donuts.

Just this month, I found a great blog on the subject of eating through history called Four Pounds Flour. Historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman covers topics from importing in the early 19th century to the roots of the Jello shot. Once in a while, she bravely engages in culinary living history, such as eating like a poor 1877 tenement dweller for a week, or her "Drink Like A Colonial American" day.  I highly recommend this blog, especially for all you historical fiction writers out there who spend tons of time researching wardrobe, vehicles, houses, etc., but take food for granted.

Besides, food research is fun.

I think I'll have go have eggs in tomato sauce for lunch. Find the recipe on Miss Maggie's Facebook page.

Mangia,
Elena

Buy a Book, Feed the Poor

Learning history isn't much good if you don't apply the knowledge to today's problems. That's the whole point of my Possessed Series. Each novel has two mysteries, one historical, one present day, and hopefully a bit of insight about what we've learned, or haven't, between the two eras.

I set FEAR ITSELF in my hometown simply because my best historical resources were here, namely people who were alive in 1933 and willing to talk my ears off about it. I couldn't include every story, but I think I got a handle on what life was like in a poor Italian neighborhood in Norristown, PA during the Great Depression.

This week I found myself wondering if I'd done justice to the modern day setting. While running some errands, I drove along a street I haven't been down in a while. At one intersection, I saw a long line of people. I remembered there was a food bank in that building. Never had I seen a line that long at that food bank. This was the early afternoon, so that also meant those folks didn't have day jobs. It reminded me of the bread lines I'd seen in 1930s photos while doing research for FEAR ITSELF.

Also this week, I heard that an "Occupy Norristown" protest is scheduled for Saturday. My first reaction was to wonder what there was to protest against in Norristown. We don't have a financial district. In fact, for a small city of 30,000 residents, we have pitiful few bank branches left in town. We had more in 1933. That goes for Main St. businesses too. Back then you had your choice of 5 movie theaters, 2 five-and-ten stores, 2 department stores, at least 4 large food markets, as well as two shopping districts of stores with every kind of goods and service imaginable. After FDR took office and the economy picked up, we had a slew of local factories and mills who started hiring again. Today most of the large businesses have closed. The rest moved out of town, most nowhere near public transportation. We do have some small independent stores on Main St., but our downtown is a ghost of its former self.

I'm pretty certain the richest 1% of America can't be found my hometown.

From researching my town's newspaper archive, I know that, as bad as things were in 1933 here, everyone tried to pitch in to help anyone poorer and hungrier. These days at least two of our Congressmen are talking about slapping the poor with higher taxes.

I've decided, to do my small part, I'm going to give10% of my FEAR ITSELF royalties (including ebooks) the local charities in Norristown that seem to be doing the most good for our poorest residents--like that food bank with the long line. This town helped my ancestors weather hard times in the Great Depression, so I'm giving back. If you want to help
Find a local Independent Bookstore and help your own economy.
Order from Amazon.
Order from Barnes & Noble.

Peace,
Elena

The Forgotten Man at the Bottom

Even if you only catch national news on the fly while switching channels between ESPN and Disney, you probably noticed that this week everyone's talking about the economy and whether or not we're headed for another Great Depression.

The historical part of my novel FEAR ITSELF is set in the first week of March, 1933. The main reason I chose that week was the infamous "bank holiday" that officially began on March 5th and shut down all U.S. banks. In my mind, I pictured that as a really scary thing--no credit cards, no ATMs, no way to access your money. No knowing how long that would be the case.

Then I asked my parents about it. "We didn't even notice," Mom said. "We didn't have enough money to put in the bank."

A difficult concept to wrap my brain around: No savings, except maybe a few bucks squirreled away behind a picture frame now and then. More likely only the coins in your pocket to get you through each day.

That's not to say that poor people weren't affected by the Depression.  This is where the theory of trickle down economics has any validity at all--not in times of prosperity, but in times of loss. When speculation bubbles burst, the loss gets passed down the ladder to the poor. They're the first to lose their jobs, their means of transportation, and their homes. And because they have so little, the percentage of what they do lose is huge. Less workers, less mortgages, less loan payments all mean less profit, so eventually the wealthy also lose money and the situation, at last, can be called a Depression. Someone finally takes a look at the economic structure and finds the weak links.

In 1933, banks were some of these links. No computers then. At best, this meant human errors often went undetected. At worse, lack of consistent record keeping made corruption and fraud easy. FDR called a "bank holiday" so Federal inspectors could audit bank records. Once a bank passed audit, they could reopen. Since Saturday March 4th was the president's inauguration, many banks were persuaded to close early on Friday the 3rd, giving the inspectors a long weekend to get started.

As some of you know, I start my historical chapters with period quotes. Here are a few of my favorites from FEAR ITSELF:

"All the really important millionaires are planning to continue prosperity."

 Arthur Brisbane, Nov. 26, 1929

"These really are good times but only a few know it."

Henry Ford, 1930

"There is not an unemployed man in the country that hasn't contributed to the wealth of every millionaire in America."

Will Rogers, Nov. 1931

"These unhappy times call for the building of plans...that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."

FDR, campaign speech, April 1932

So, are we headed for another Depression now? Don't ask the bankers or Wall Street. Ask the forgotten people at the bottom of the pyramid. Many of them will tell you we're already there.

Elena