Prior to the dire introduction of the processed food era of the nineteen fifties, fresh fruit and vegetables, grass-fed meat, free-range eggs and simple homemade meals made for a hearty diet for the vast majority of this country's working population.
Was it possible to be considered a 'foodie' before this devastating attack on the country's diet made its rapid advance? What would a person's predilection in the pantry of life have looked like to have made him or her known as a fashionable early foodie?
Surely one would have had to have brought something far more exotic or unusually fine to the family dinner table to qualify as a connoisseur of 20th century American culinary fayre. Someone like Sonoma County writer Geraldine Duncann's late father, who favored the historical foods of ancient Rome and Europe of the Middle Ages.
An impassioned historian, cookbook and wine-country fiction writer, Duncann is herself a fascinating SoCo character, who attributes her incredible depth of knowledge of the origins of food to her parents' "intense interest in good food, long before the current 'yuppy' food renaissance and T.V.-inspired celebrity chef thing."
Having spent many years traveling the length and bredth of the British Isles, Europe, Mexico and the United States, California born Duncann studied the foods and folk traditions of every location. In between penning over a dozen cookbooks, her popular food column ran in the San Francisco Examiner and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for several years.
Renaissance food consultant and catering director for the early Renaissance Pleasure Faires in California of the 1960s and 70s, Geraldine Duncann became particularly fond of ancient and traditional English culinary fayre and continues to work extensively in researching the subject. Her latest books, "The English Country Kitchen". "Vegan and Vegetarian Southwest Recipes" and "Artichoke Extravaganza" are scheduled for release this summer.
Geraldine's new website The Questing Feast offers a wonderful, lively romp through recipes and tales and tidbits of an original foodie, with links to all of her literary offerings, including a recently published culinary mystery set right here in Sonoma County:The Valley of Zin.
Was it possible to be considered a 'foodie' before this devastating attack on the country's diet made its rapid advance? What would a person's predilection in the pantry of life have looked like to have made him or her known as a fashionable early foodie?
Surely one would have had to have brought something far more exotic or unusually fine to the family dinner table to qualify as a connoisseur of 20th century American culinary fayre. Someone like Sonoma County writer Geraldine Duncann's late father, who favored the historical foods of ancient Rome and Europe of the Middle Ages.
An impassioned historian, cookbook and wine-country fiction writer, Duncann is herself a fascinating SoCo character, who attributes her incredible depth of knowledge of the origins of food to her parents' "intense interest in good food, long before the current 'yuppy' food renaissance and T.V.-inspired celebrity chef thing."
Having spent many years traveling the length and bredth of the British Isles, Europe, Mexico and the United States, California born Duncann studied the foods and folk traditions of every location. In between penning over a dozen cookbooks, her popular food column ran in the San Francisco Examiner and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for several years.
Renaissance food consultant and catering director for the early Renaissance Pleasure Faires in California of the 1960s and 70s, Geraldine Duncann became particularly fond of ancient and traditional English culinary fayre and continues to work extensively in researching the subject. Her latest books, "The English Country Kitchen". "Vegan and Vegetarian Southwest Recipes" and "Artichoke Extravaganza" are scheduled for release this summer.
Geraldine's new website The Questing Feast offers a wonderful, lively romp through recipes and tales and tidbits of an original foodie, with links to all of her literary offerings, including a recently published culinary mystery set right here in Sonoma County:The Valley of Zin.
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