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Narrator: You're listening to a Towson University podcast.

[Music]

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Mark Ginsberg: Welcome to On the Mark, where we have candid conversations about the meaningful and consequential work happening right here at Towson University. I'm Mark Ginsberg. It's my honor to serve as president of Towson University. And on this podcast, I'm pleased to introduce you to members of our university community who are engaged in high-impact teaching, research, and also student success initiatives. As the back-to-school buzz quiets down, many Americans already are looking forward to the holiday season, as well as to so many of the delicious fall flavors. From weekly tailgate cookouts to traditional sit-down holiday meals, today's episode will focus on how food, that's right, how food has been used as symbolism throughout history, but also how it connects us all within our society.

And I'm joined by an expert in art and culinary history from Towson University's College of Fine Arts and Communications, Dr. Nancy Siegel. Nancy, thank you for joining me. Dr. Siegel serves as assistant dean and as a professor of art history and culinary history, and she has curated highly acclaimed art exhibits and authored a number of important publications on food history. She earned her PhD in art history from Rutgers University and is the author of a recent 2026 book called Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America, just being published by Johns Hopkins Press. Nancy, thank you for joining with me, and we're going to have a fascinating conversation. I should say before I even asked Nancy a question, she came into our studio today with a beautiful cake made from a recipe from how long ago?

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Nancy Siegel: This is an 1829 recipe.

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Mark Ginsberg: 1829.

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Nancy Siegel: Yep, adapted for a modern kitchen that is based on a 1796 recipe.

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Mark Ginsberg: I'm just so sorry we don't have video or even the smell test so people could get the aroma of this beautiful cake.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely. It's pretty good, right?

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Mark Ginsberg: Pretty good.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: It's better than pretty good. So, please know if you're listening, we're enjoying a wonderful feast here in the studio this afternoon. So, Nancy, let me ask you just an opening question because it really is an important one as we begin to talk about the role and how food has influenced society and how society influences food. What drew you to this relationship, the relationship between food, art, and history? You've been studying this for a long time.

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Nancy Siegel: I've been studying this for a long time. I've been eating for a long time.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, we all have. I love to eat as many of us do.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely. And for me, it all came together in a project I was working on a number of years ago that focused on a Hudson River School artist named Thomas Cole.

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Mark Ginsberg: Uh-huh.

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Nancy Siegel: And he created this drawing of a scene in the Allegheny Mountains, which was the basis for a painting and then an engraving in a widely disseminated book. And then potters in the Staffordshire District of England took that image and they put it on the bottom of a soup plate, and it was part of a very popular series that was sent just to the United States.

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Mark Ginsberg: On the bottom of a soup plate?

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Nancy Siegel: On the bottom of a soup plate.

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Mark Ginsberg: Of all things.

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Nancy Siegel: And so it was part of a dinnerware series called the American View series.

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Mark Ginsberg: Huh.

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Nancy Siegel: And it capitalized on Americans' love of the landscape occurring in the 1820s, 1830s, when the tourist industry was really developing. And so I was finishing this project, and I was looking at the bottom of the soup plate, and I thought what would have been served in this soup plate. And as I pondered that...

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Mark Ginsberg: Hmm. Great question.

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Nancy Siegel: It was the same time that the French government decided not to support American troops in Iraq, and so two members of Congress said, "Well, then you can't call French fries French fries in federal cafeterias."

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Mark Ginsberg: Oh, I remember that. Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: You got to call them freedom fries.

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Mark Ginsberg: Right.

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Nancy Siegel: And while I thought that was one of the most absurd ideas I had heard.

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Mark Ginsberg: Crazy. Yeah, crazy.

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Nancy Siegel: I thought what's the origin, and so that's how that project begins.

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Mark Ginsberg: Rooted in history.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely. And the answer is it's a cup of Liberty Tea and a slice of Election Cake, which I brought you today.

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Mark Ginsberg: Election Cake. So, for a long time, we've been using food, not just to satisfy our appetite, but as symbols.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, absolutely. And it's part of the language of the new nation as well. And Jill Lepore talks about how language and nation are so intertwined. And that's what happens in this project. It's really the ways in which food is used as a vehicle, either as means of protest around the time of the Boston Tea Party, for example, and then it's a means of activism. So, when colonists decided to refuse to drink imported tea, women would make their own concoctions from well-known herbal varieties and label them things like Liberty Tea.

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Mark Ginsberg: Hmm. Hmm.

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Nancy Siegel: And so now food is imbued with this sense of political agency.

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Mark Ginsberg: Fascinating. Fascinating. I was going to ask you later on about the Boston Tea Party because that may be among the most infamous of events that has to do with food. But let me ask you as we get into and dive into this really interesting topic, that when historians study food, my guess it reveals something about history that is not revealed in other ways.

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Nancy Siegel: It does. And I think my background as an art historian, the work that we do tends to be so interdisciplinary that we look at an object from myriad perspectives, and so the idea of adding culinary aspects into this just made perfect sense for me.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, and food is a staple. It's something we all have in common. But it is also, and reading your work, it's fascinating to me that it's more than something we have for nourishment, something we have for sustenance. It expresses something important about us, about our culture, about our being, about our family, about our community. How do you study that? What does it reveal? It's fascinating to think about.

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Nancy Siegel: One of the things that I love about using food as a vehicle to talk about American history is that it's so universal. Everybody eats.

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Mark Ginsberg: Everybody eats.

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Nancy Siegel: And so the language of food, the way that it's used in similes and metaphors or in satirical political prints, it's easily recognizable. And so I think that it breaks down so many different barriers of class and culture, and it also allows for easy conversations. I think sometimes in my classroom...

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Mark Ginsberg: Interesting.

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Nancy Siegel: ...when I want to have a good discussion about something that might be troublesome or a topic that I think, "I don't know if students are really going to want to engage in this," I bring food into that, and it breaks down these barriers. And everybody's certainly happy to talk about this, their own traditions, things that are on their table, foods that their grandmothers made or things that they travel across the world to go back to and taste parts of their own history.

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Mark Ginsberg: Now, we may not all have access to the same level of food or the same kinds of foods, but we all have in common food as an essence and an important part of life.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: Right. So, it's a nourishing factor, and it's not just nourishing our body, but it nourishes our minds. It nourishes our soul. And it also informs how we think about our place within society.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, for sure. And it's an expression not just of ourself, but also of our culture.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, absolutely.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: Let's go back to history. I was reading something you wrote recently, and I'm going to quote from an article that was recently published by you that, and sorry for the long quote, but I think it exemplifies what you're talking about with history. "In a post-revolutionary environment, increasing numbers of citizens...," women in particular, you mention, "...purchased expensive sundries such as sugar and gold leaf and citrus and candied fruits for the recipes they crafted, but they crafted them to honor the struggle for political independence." And this was written during the post-revolutionary time in America. How symbolic.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely. These are women that I call culinary activists. There were so many ways in which women were not allowed to be part of a political structure, but this was one really powerful demonstration. And so oftentimes when I lecture, I ask people, "How many people here read the Constitution?" And nobody raises their hand. And I say, "That's okay, but how many people here are patriotic?" And lots of hands go up.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: "Or you feel like you believe in democracy?" and hands go up.

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Mark Ginsberg: Sure.

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Nancy Siegel: And I say, "Well, how do you demonstrate that? How have you absorbed those ideas if you haven't read this founding document?"

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: And so I think it's through the sort of everyday patterns of life of making an Election Cake, a Washington Pie, a Federal Cake, a Jackson Jumble. I've got over 1,200 of these honorific recipes, and I think the abundance of this speaks to this was a language that was literally consumed by individuals who had so much at stake with the early republic being successful. It was such a time of turmoil internationally.

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Mark Ginsberg: Right.

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Nancy Siegel: And so much was at stake that democracy had to succeed. And so these were demonstrations for me that people really believed in this.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: They wanted it.

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Mark Ginsberg: And even going back to the time of the Boston Tea Party, you mentioned in another article you wrote that at those times, during those times, that ingesting tea from the British East India Company, which was the manufacturer of the tea, was considered poisonous. Not poisonous physically, but poisonous politically. It had a real symbol.

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Nancy Siegel: Right. And so even there, the language of food becomes so strong.

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Mark Ginsberg: So strong.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. Interesting, the choice of words you just used, the language of food. What food represents, not what food necessarily is, but what it represents.

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Nancy Siegel: Sure. And in so many of these recipes that I have, it's not the ingredients that make them political. It's in the title. It's in the language of them...

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: ...that gives them this political appetite, as I said.

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Mark Ginsberg: So, speaking of ingredients, you've curated recipes.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: Tell us a little bit about the curation of those and the discovery of those and how you've chosen what to curate.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, sure. So, I'm not a baker by trade. I should have paid more attention in chemistry class, clearly. But I...

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Mark Ginsberg: All of... Many of us are in that category, by the way, Nancy.

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Nancy Siegel: [Laughter] I love this idea of adapting these historical recipes for a modern kitchen because so many people have said, "Oh, I'd love to make this cake," or "How could I do this?" And what's fascinating is that many of these early recipes from the late 18th century, early 19th century, give minimal instruction. They'll provide some ingredients. They don't always have the amounts. They won't necessarily list in what order or how to bring these recipes together, how long to cook them.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: It suggests that women were learning from their mothers or servants. There was somebody in the house. And so these recipes could be schematic because they had memory to serve them.

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Mark Ginsberg: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

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Nancy Siegel: And as we find recipes later in the 19th century being more elaborate and a very systematized sense of measurement, it also tells us that people have moved away from home, that we've moved from a rural to an urban environment.

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Mark Ginsberg: Interesting. Yeah, yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: We need more instruction. And so even the addition of illustrations in cookbooks serves as a modern YouTube video so that you could see what success would look like. And so on the one hand, yes, it's a recipe you can make at home, but it also tells us so much about literacy trends, trends and transitions from rural to urban America. It tells us a lot about class structures. It tells us about the economics of what would have been available at the market. So, something as innocent as a recipe really is loaded...

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Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

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Nancy Siegel: ...with a wide history that it can tell us.

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Mark Ginsberg: So, as a historian, not just a chef, but literally a historian of the culinary arts, you're learning not just about recipes, you're learning about the people behind them.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

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Mark Ginsberg: You're learning about what their life was like. You're learning about what the context of humanity was during the time when those recipes were developed. Tell us a little bit about how those recipes, I guess it's a question, do they differ much from today's ingredients? Are they similar? What was cooking like in the 17th, 18th century compared to what it is now?

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Nancy Siegel: Well, I'll give you a little example.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. I've always wondered that, by the way.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, well, I'm happy to shed some light on that, actually.

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Mark Ginsberg: [Laughter]

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Nancy Siegel: So, what's considered the first cookbook that is published in America is written by a woman named Amelia Simmons, and it's called American Cookery, it's a very long title, so I'll just say American Cookery.

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Mark Ginsberg: And about what time period was that?

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Nancy Siegel: This is 1796.

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Mark Ginsberg: 1796, one of the first cookbooks in America.

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Nancy Siegel: That's written in America, absolutely. And we have a long history of importing British cookbooks, and so there's a long tradition of this.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: But this is the first one that's written in America, and it's published in Hartford, Connecticut, and it has a lot of just standard recipes you would find in any British cookbook. But then, just a couple months after this comes out, an Albany edition from 1796 is published, and Amelia Simmons includes recipes for Independence Cake, Federal Pancakes, and Election Cake, and this changes the course of culinary history in terms of the politics and food. And so her recipe for Election Cake includes 30 quarts of flour, 10 pounds of butter, 14 pounds of sugar, 12 pounds of raisins.

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Mark Ginsberg: Ten pounds of butter?

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Nancy Siegel: I mean, it's enormous. And it tells us that something like this was meant to feed a crowd.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

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Nancy Siegel: And so events.

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Mark Ginsberg: Good point.

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Nancy Siegel: Right? Rituals.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yes. It wasn't for an individual or a small family.

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Nancy Siegel: No. These are for public gatherings.

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Mark Ginsberg: Public gatherings, yes.

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Nancy Siegel: So, it means that Election Day or Independence Day was so important that members of a community would come out to gather together, and women would make these cakes, and they would serve the populace, and it was a wonderful way that they could celebrate. Something like making an Election Cake also means that you had the means to buy the sugar, the cinnamon. It calls for a quart of brandy...

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Mark Ginsberg: Whoo!

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Nancy Siegel: ...a pint of wine. I mean, this is good stuff. Three dozen eggs, 12 pounds of raisins, and you have to realize that before the mid-19th century, when we are cultivating grapes that could be seedless, grapes had to be individually pitted and then dried to become raisins.

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Mark Ginsberg: That's a lot of work.

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Nancy Siegel: So, it was a really lengthy process.

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Mark Ginsberg: That's a lot of work.

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Nancy Siegel: A lot of work. And when I make these recipes, I try to make them as they are originally printed. I mean, not this one because I wasn't going to, you know...

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Mark Ginsberg: Ten pounds of butter is a lot of butter.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely. That was a lot. But I like to do it without the use of electronics, so...

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Mark Ginsberg: I see.

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Nancy Siegel: I'll do this by hand.

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Mark Ginsberg: Try to replicate not just the ingredients, but the process.

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Nancy Siegel: But the process, yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: These were strong individuals. I mean, it takes a lot of physical power to be able to cream this butter and all this sugar and the mixing and all of this. So, it's quite a feat. It's a real undertaking to dedicate yourself to making something like this.

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Mark Ginsberg: I was reading something else that you wrote as I was preparing to talk. This is fascinating, by the way. What a fascinating conversation. Another piece you wrote, you said that recipes, during that period of time, in particular, utilized ingredients and developed the relationship of the ingredients as the recipe itself. That – this is the important part – that function as a means to celebrate self-governance and also acknowledge the structures of a new nation.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, absolutely.

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Mark Ginsberg: Something you wrote. Tell us about writing that and what you were trying to express.

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Nancy Siegel: So, I think what's really important about that is the idea of an American cuisine is really obtuse, and so it's an amalgamation of different sources, right? French, Spanish, Caribbean, African. All of these come together in what we consider American cuisine. And so for me, this idea of when we think about recipes, or even Amelia Simmons in her cookbook, includes recipes for corn cake and pumpkins. So, she's using what are called "Native ingredients," and there she's appropriating Indigenous foodways. And so there's so many relationships between Indigenous botanists who saved colonists from death because they shared their knowledge about herbs and plants to eat or to stay away from. Our American cuisine also appropriates a lot of ingredients from the African diaspora and the Caribbean tradition. So, things like rice and okra and peppers and all these things coming together. And so to call something, when somebody says to me, "Well, is there really something as an American cuisine?" And I say, "Yes, it is. But it's not defined by any one structure or class or culture or country. It really is this blending."

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Mark Ginsberg: So, the melting pot we talk about in America is literally, literally the pot.

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Nancy Siegel: It really is.

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Mark Ginsberg: It literally is. You also wrote, speaking of the ingredients just for another second, and I'm going to quote you that, "Revolutionary food was imbued with political meaning, political meaning in revolutionary America, whether it's the intercultural aspects or any aspect of it, food was more than food."

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

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Mark Ginsberg: And remains that way, I expect.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, my gosh. Indeed. And so today, when I think about 4th of July celebrations, I always...

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, good example, right?

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Nancy Siegel: I always go into the Giant that's just up the street up York, and they look at me kind of askance, but I'm in there with my phone taking pictures of the table that has all the red, white, and blue cookies and cupcakes.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, I was going to say. All the symbolic stuff.

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Nancy Siegel: All of that. And so we do the same thing.

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Mark Ginsberg: But let's talk about that a little bit.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: I'm thinking about we're entering into the October period. Halloween will soon be with us. You'll go into the Giant, and you'll see orange and black cookies, and you'll see costumes that are imbued with representations of food. How is it that holidays and food and symbolism and even Thanksgiving coming up in a couple of months, how does that all fit together from a historical point of view?

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Nancy Siegel: It's a great unifier...

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Mark Ginsberg: Great unifier, yeah, yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: ...but it's also part of a great divide, right? So, if we look at the tradition of Thanksgiving...

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Mark Ginsberg: Interesting, yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: ...well, that has a really fraught history. And so when we think about Indigenous cultures, we think about cultural appropriation, we need to be aware of where our food comes from, right? Literally. And giving service and appreciation to those origins.

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Mark Ginsberg: No, it's a great issue to talk about. Another question I wanted to ask you is how is it that the menus historically, as well as in contemporary times, but also dining customs more generally, what does it tell us about social class?

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, boy. How many hours do you have? [Laughter]

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Mark Ginsberg: I thought that'd be a really interesting thing to talk about because it sure seems to me like there is a great divide, and that's why I thought of it when you just mentioned it.

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Nancy Siegel: There is, and it's so interesting. Even if we think about like the students who are in the union and they're grabbing something to eat.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, here at Towson University.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah, here at Towson University, grabbing something to eat and there they go. It's a way in which it creates conversation, it creates community, and I love that. So, it doesn't matter sort of what donut they're eating, but the fact that they take the time to sit down together is important. And so when we think about menus or menu plannings and the idea of multiple courses in a meal, which is seen still as very upper class, right?

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: We tend to go to a restaurant and if you get an appetizer and a main course, ooh, boy, you're really settling in for a good hour and a half. And so I think that the casualness maybe that we experience more today. I do find that people are more interested in sitting around a table once again.

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Mark Ginsberg: Mmm.

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Nancy Siegel: There is a real interest in not being quite so busy that they can't sit down and have a conversation and break bread, or in our case, right, break Election Cake.

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Mark Ginsberg: Break Election Cake, as we're doing here today.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, to extend that just this moment, it strikes me that food also is a way to maintain a sense of identity. And what I mean by that is here we live in a community in Baltimore where we have people literally from all over the world. We're at a major metropolitan public research university with more than 20,000 students. We have students from more than 80 countries who are students at our university. And when you walk into apartment complexes, you walk into our student apartments, what you wind up doing is smelling a variety of incredibly enticing smells, but all very different.

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Nancy Siegel: Right.

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Mark Ginsberg: How is it that food is helping people to maintain a sense of identity, as well as to learn about new cultures and new identities?

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Nancy Siegel: Because it's the first thing that nourished you when you were born.

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Mark Ginsberg: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

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Nancy Siegel: And it is so elemental. And so walking into a dorm or a student's kitchen and smelling those aromas, you're smelling home, you're smelling identity.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

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Nancy Siegel: And oftentimes as an icebreaker in my class, when I go through the roster and meet all the students...

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Mark Ginsberg: Yes, yes.

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Nancy Siegel: I say, "What's your favorite thing to eat?" Or "What's your least favorite vegetable?" Right?

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Mark Ginsberg: Mmm.

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Nancy Siegel: And the students are really [Laughter] happy to share that information, but so many of them talk about food from their own tradition. And they sit up a little taller and they speak a little louder, and they're really proud about that. And they should be. And it's a wonderful way to express who you are because that's something that you literally can share with the person next to you and say, "This is who I am." Right? And so when someone replies with, "This is delicious." Now you're unified, right? Now you're a community.

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Mark Ginsberg: And it's pretty disarming.

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Nancy Siegel: Yeah. It's lovely.

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Mark Ginsberg: On the other hand, let's look at the other side of that equation for a second. When those food traditions disappear in a community, when there's a binding towards the middle, when people become so socialized that those traditions disappear, or when food becomes even more commercialized, which is another topic to think about.

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Nancy Siegel: Oh, yeah.

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Mark Ginsberg: How is that reconciled historically? You've looked at things over 200, 300 years, and I imagine this is a recurring theme also.

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Nancy Siegel: It absolutely is, and I liken this to languages that also disappear, or generations, right? Who come to the United States.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, good point.

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Nancy Siegel: Right. And so there's who are we? What is our identity? And I'm so tied to this idea about language and food and culture. So, I think they're all really tied together.

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Mark Ginsberg: Very much tied together. So, the maintenance of a cultural identity, but also the risk of that cultural identity disappearing.

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Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

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Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, yeah. And another factor in here, we're talking about culture, but let's talk also about cross-generational things. I'm thinking about my own family. My grandmother had a wonderful recipe for lima bean soup that my sisters and I still make. And when we make it, we don't make it, to be honest, and I hope no one in my family is listening, we don't make it because we love it, but we make it because it brings back memories. It connects us to the generations before us. How have you seen that?

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Nancy Siegel: It's so interesting. I'll give you an example from my own family, that when my own grandmother had come into this country, she brought very few things with her, and she brought her candlesticks, and she brought her bread-baking bowl, this big metal bowl. And for years and years, I would only make bread out of that bowl, and it made me feel connected...

[00:23:42]

Mark Ginsberg: Mmm.

[00:23:42]

Nancy Siegel: ...and that I had a sense of identity. And so kitchen implements, for example, they're powerful icons of who we are.

[00:23:53]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

[00:23:54]

Nancy Siegel: And just like those recipes. Or I think smell is so powerful.

[00:23:59]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

[00:23:59]

Nancy Siegel: And there's so much memory tied to that, that I can be walking somewhere, and I can smell the aroma of my grandmother's vegetable soup.

[00:24:09]

Mark Ginsberg: Exactly.

[00:24:09]

Nancy Siegel: I worked for years and years to try and replicate that, and the day that I felt like [Gasp] this was it, I just cried in my kitchen because I felt like she was there with me.

[00:24:20]

Mark Ginsberg: That's a really good... And she was.

[00:24:22]

Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

[00:24:23]

Mark Ginsberg: She was in very important ways.

[00:24:24]

Nancy Siegel: Yeah. And so I think the fact that everybody has this collective memory, we all share something universal...

[00:24:33]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

[00:24:34]

Nancy Siegel: ...about how food makes us feel.

[00:24:36]

Mark Ginsberg: I wonder if you can maybe speak about this in a historical context, that the binding together of generations, and let me say this, generations for sure, but even families who are disparate, who are apart.

[00:24:50]

Nancy Siegel: And that's where these handwritten recipe books are so important because you'll find notations of add two eggs, not three, or you'll find notations of it being gifted from one individual to another generation to another generation. And so some of the archival research that I've done will have handwritten-receipt books – that's just the French word for recipe – handwritten-receipt books that span three or four generations of women.

[00:25:20]

Mark Ginsberg: Interesting.

[00:25:21]

Nancy Siegel: All handwritten, and they all have little gloops or glops of batter or stains, and I love that because it means those recipes were made, yeah.

[00:25:29]

Mark Ginsberg: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Do you see a resurgence of older recipes coming back? Are we seeing this kind of historical regeneration and rebirth?

[00:25:38]

Nancy Siegel: I think so. And I think the locavore movement, Farm to Table as well.

[00:25:44]

Mark Ginsberg: Farm to Table's a good idea, yeah.

[00:25:46]

Nancy Siegel: Right.

[00:25:47]

Mark Ginsberg: Good...

[Crosstalk 00:25:47]

[00:25:47]

Nancy Siegel: So that there's such a connection to the land and where our food comes from.

[00:25:50]

Mark Ginsberg: That's historical too, I would think.

[00:25:52]

Nancy Siegel: It's very historical.

[00:25:53]

Mark Ginsberg: In revolutionary America, it was food to table.

[00:25:56]

Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

[00:25:57]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. From the field to the table.

[00:25:59]

Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

[00:25:59]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

[00:26:00]

Nancy Siegel: And so I definitely think that there's still a tradition of people make Washington Cake on President's Day, on Washington's birthday.

[00:26:06]

Mark Ginsberg: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:07]

Nancy Siegel: So, a lot of this still continues today.

[00:26:10]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. Here in Maryland, we have the famous Foods of the Eastern Shore.

[00:26:15]

Nancy Siegel: Yes.

[00:26:16]

Mark Ginsberg: Right? What is the cake? I'm blocking on it.

[00:26:19]

Nancy Siegel: Oh, the Smith Island Cake.

[00:26:20]

Mark Ginsberg: Smith Island Cake's a good example.

[00:26:21]

Nancy Siegel: Yes.

[00:26:21]

Mark Ginsberg: Finding generations of Smith Islanders in the Chesapeake Bay by food.

[00:26:26]

Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

[00:26:28]

Mark Ginsberg: Good example.

[00:26:28]

Nancy Siegel: Yeah. And when I first moved to Baltimore, which was, I think, maybe 18 years ago, all I wanted to do was just explore. I mean, of course, I went to the museums. I'm an art historian first.

[00:26:41]

Mark Ginsberg: [Laughter]

[00:26:41]

Nancy Siegel: And I still keep, on my phone, I keep a list of restaurants that I always want to try. There's such incredible diversity, and there's also amazing commitment from chefs in this city. They are utilizing local ingredients, native ingredients, things like the pawpaws coming back. Conversations about food that people really want to have now, and they want to know they're farmers.

[00:27:08]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

[00:27:08]

Nancy Siegel: And I think that's exquisite. The explosion of the importance of going to the farmer's market, all of that, it really is monumental.

[00:27:20]

Mark Ginsberg: Let me ask you a personal one. We don't have too much time left.

[00:27:21]

Nancy Siegel: Yeah.

[00:27:22]

Mark Ginsberg: I'm curious, you've been a student of history and a student of culinary history. Has that changed the way you eat personally?

[00:27:31]

Nancy Siegel: Wow, is that...

[Crosstalk 00:27:32]

[00:27:32]

Mark Ginsberg: How has it influenced your personal cuisine?

[00:27:36]

Nancy Siegel: Well, I eat a lot more of historical recipes, that's for sure.

[00:27:40]

Mark Ginsberg: Uh-huh.

[00:27:41]

Nancy Siegel: I've always been a very curious eater.

[00:27:45]

Mark Ginsberg: Ah.

[00:27:45]

Nancy Siegel: There isn't anything that I won't try.

[00:27:48]

Mark Ginsberg: You'll try most things.

[00:27:49]

Nancy Siegel: I'll try just about anything.

[00:27:50]

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, I like that. I like that.

[00:27:51]

Nancy Siegel: Because I like the story that's behind it.

[00:27:54]

Mark Ginsberg: We'll have to go out to dinner together. I like the same thing.

[00:27:55]

Nancy Siegel: Oh, absolutely.

[00:27:56]

Mark Ginsberg: [Laughter]

[00:27:56]

Nancy Siegel: And because food is a history, everything that you eat has a narrative attached to it.

[00:28:02]

Mark Ginsberg: Right. Right.

[00:28:02]

Nancy Siegel: And so my sense of curiosity always wants to find out what is that story that's being told behind this dish. So, now I just eat a lot more.

[00:28:11]

Mark Ginsberg: Well, Nancy Siegel, thank you so much. Fascinating conversation.

[00:28:13]

Nancy Siegel: Thank you.

[00:28:14]

Mark Ginsberg: Food brings history to life. We haven't even talked about art because we could have spent the next hour talking about food and art and how that interrelates.

[00:28:21]

Nancy Siegel: Right.

[00:28:22]

Mark Ginsberg: And would you come back another time and let's have that conversation?

[00:28:24]

Nancy Siegel: I happily will.

[00:28:25]

Mark Ginsberg: That would be great.

[00:28:26]

Nancy Siegel: And I have slices of Election Cake for everybody. I wish everybody could just come on in and grab a plate.

[00:28:29]

Mark Ginsberg: [Laughter] I wish you all could join us right now and have a piece of this beautiful...

[00:28:32]

Nancy Siegel: Absolutely.

[00:28:32]

Mark Ginsberg: And it really is a beautiful cake.

[00:28:34]

Nancy Siegel: Thank you.

[00:28:34]

Mark Ginsberg: It's a beautiful cake. Nancy Siegel, the author of the current book, Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America, a professor here of art and culinary history at Towson University. Nancy, thank you so much. You'll be doing some tours and being able to meet the public about these issues, tell us about that before we finish.

[00:28:53]

Nancy Siegel: Oh, sure. Absolutely. So, I do travel around, and I do lectures and tastings of I make a lot of these historical recipes.

[00:29:01]

Mark Ginsberg: Oh, my.

[00:29:03]

Nancy Siegel: There'll also be a documentary that's coming out in December.

[00:29:06]

Mark Ginsberg: Yes. Tell us about that.

[00:29:07]

Nancy Siegel: It's called Feeding the American Revolution, and it's done through WMHT, which is a PBS station. And I'm hosting the show and I get to go around all these great historical sites, and we cook and we talk about food and politics. What could be better?

[00:29:20]

Mark Ginsberg: I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to see it.

[00:29:23]

Nancy Siegel: Thank you.

[00:29:25]

Mark Ginsberg: And it's coming out when?

[00:29:24]

Nancy Siegel: It'll be... The premiere is December 8th and then you'll be able to watch it free on the PBS app.

[00:29:30]

Mark Ginsberg: Well, we'll look forward to seeing it.

[00:29:32]

Nancy Siegel: Great.

[00:29:32]

Mark Ginsberg: And once again, Dr. Nancy Siegel, my guest, a professor of art and culinary history at Towson University and the author of the recent book, current book, just coming out from Johns Hopkins Press, Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America. We'll see you next time on On the Mark.

Thank you for listening to On the Mark. If you like what you've heard, please give us a follow or leave a review. It helps ensure that we can keep bringing you more candid conversations about the consequential impact of higher education. And if you have feedback about our podcast, feel free to send me a message at onthemark@towson.edu.

[Music]

Narrator: Founded in 1866, Towson University is a top-ranked comprehensive public research university recognized as Maryland's number one public institution by the Wall Street Journal. As Greater Baltimore's largest university, TU proudly serves as an engine of opportunity for nearly 20,000 students, the state of Maryland and beyond. Explore more than 190 top-ranked undergraduate and graduate degree programs and make our momentum yours at towson.edu.