Focus on Immigration and Food

I'm thrilled to have been selected, along with 24 other educators, to participate in the three-week seminar "Recipe for America: New York, Immigration and American Identity through Food Culture. " The Institute is organized by The New York Public Library and funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities.  We will be looking at the lives of 19th and 20th century immigrants through lectures, readings, pictures, menus, and other resources in the NYPL's collection.  I plan to share resources and ideas with my teacher colleagues teaching immigration.

Sausage factory on the east side ; Habib Assi the Syrian chef ; Where the Polish Jews do their shopping. (1900), NYPL 

What is a “Family” Cookbook?

I have been trying to answer this question.  As the keeper of the CCD cooking collection for New York City, I am in charge of acquiring and maintaining the City’s premiere collection of children’s cookbooks.  Each year, we receive x dollars to augment the collection, to keep it current and growing.  I am considering the genre of so-called “family cookbooks” to round out the collection (the collection also contains literature related to growing food and nutrition).  The fact that this year we will receive an increase in funding for this collection.  That combined with the fact that the production of children’s cookbooks is relatively limited, I am considering what to fill my shopping cart with, while keeping our collection focused and useful for our community.  My own personal children have always happily partook of the food that was prepared for them, be it an improvised dish or prepared from a standard cookbook for our entire family or guests. Why a family cookbook? Our library serves grades prekindergarten through fifth, so our cooking collection is really designed for the students and their families.  So, the question is, what defines a “family” cookbook?  Is it portion size?  Is it “kid-friendly” food (whatever that means)?