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Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald

WELCOME

 

 

Want to know more about historic New England foodways? You can do so while also learning about the day-to-day life of a 19th century mill girl. The National Park Service, together with the Center for Children's Books, has developed an information-rich online resource called Books to Parks geared to middle school children, teachers, and parents. Among the books in the program is Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson. It's the story of a thirteen-year-old girl who goes to work in one of the Lowell mills after her family loses their farm. There's lots about food in the book. We were invited to write about "Food in New England" in Lyddie's time. Click the "Lyddie" link below our picture to read more.

 

Wouldn't it be fun to bake a 19th century recipe? We think you'd love Mrs. Bliss's Ginger Nuts! Lately we've been researching the identity of Mrs. Bliss, author of the 1850 cookbook, A Practical Cook Book. The result of our research, along with research into the lives of two other culinary writers, is an article titled "A Book of One's Own: New Light on Three New England Cookbook Authors," which has just been published in the Spring 2025 issue of the renowned British food journal, PPC (Petits Propos Culinaires). But back to those Ginger Nuts. These are great little molasses cookies with a spicy bite. You can find them (see link below our picture) and other easy-to-make historical recipes on our blog!  

 

 

Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald’s three books on New England and American food history have been widely acclaimed. Their latest, United Tastes: The Making of the First American Cookbook (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), has been recognized as a key work of culinary and regional history.

“one of the best researched . . . works written about any American culinary topic”
--Andrew F. Smith
--Editor-in-Chief, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

 

“one of the best books about Connecticut history in a generation”
--Walter W. Woodward, Connecticut State Historian
 
"detailed and fascinating"
--Choice
 
"an original contribution to the literature on postrevolutionary culture and society"
--Journal of American History 
 
"Stavely and Fitzgerald have found so many connections, have thought to ask so many of the right questions, have managed to see so much and have packed so much scholarship into this book with so light a touch"
--Petits Propos Culinaire
 
"readers will find themselves eagerly positing which cookbooks they want to give the United Tastes treatment to"
--New England Quarterly
 
"for both seasoned food historians and those unaccustomed to thinking of how politics might inform what comes onto a dinner plate, United Tastes is a refreshing and illuminating read"
--Connecticut History Review
 
Beyond these laudatory reviews, United Tastes is the winner of the BRUCE FRASER AWARD for 2017, from the Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH).
 
"United Tastes is lively and erudite in equal measure, and a
particularly valuable contribution to the literature of Connecticut history"
--award citation, Connecticut History Review


An earlier book by Stavely and Fitzgerald, Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England (University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), was called

“an excellent and original attempt to go deep into the detail of New England’s cooking heritage”
--Times Literary Supplement

 

“[an] unexpected gem in the ocean of works on food”
--Library Journal

and

“nothing less than a meditation on the evolving New England mind through the prism of its foodways”
--British Food in America


Stavely and Fitzgerald made their debut with America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking (University of North Carolina Press, 2004). This was praised as

“[a] careful, scholarly account [that] emphasizes social change and its influence on gastronomy”
--Times Literary Supplement

Another reviewer commented that

“to read this book as a sort of dictionary of New England foods is a joyful experience”
--H-Net


America’s Founding Food has been deemed a “classic tome” (Choice) and was awarded a 2005 Best of the Best from University Presses selection by the American Association of University Presses.

Stavely and Fitzgerald have also contributed to the Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets.

They have written for and been interviewed by many media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Providence Journal, the Baltimore Sun, Slate, and Yankee Magazine. The have spoken at Plimoth Plantation, the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island historical societies, and a great many local historical societies, libraries, museums, and interest groups throughout the Northeast.

They live in Jamestown, Rhode Island.

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