A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances

by Laura Schenone

Book Overview

Filled with classic recipes and inspirational stories, this book should make you think twice about the food on your plate. It recounts how American women have gathered, cooked and prepared food for lovers, strangers and family through the ages.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393016714
• ISBN13: 9780393016710
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 412 Pages
• Weight: 2.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 7.9" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

fascinating view on history and what people ate and why

I love this book. I bought it last year and was reading it when we moved and I lost it, so I had to buy it again. I love cooking and I love history and this book perfectly explains history through food, trends in food because of historical and societal pressures. I read another review that someone else felt it was insulting to women and I absolutely disagree; I feel it gives an interesting perspective and I can hardly put the book down. I did not enjoy the prologue though, and felt it was too sentimental, but maybe prologues are meant to be that way and I might appreciate it in the future. The photos are wonderful as are the recipes. This book has gotten me to think intimately about living and cooking in the past, without the romanticism that I have often instilled into my own ideas of what life may have been like and how it might have been better ... this book allows one to fully appreciate our modern luxuries here in America but also learn fascinating historical facts and more often than not it is amazing to read what people ate and why! I love this book! 1-2007 I just want to add that I still love this book and refference it and bought a copy for my sister who loves it!

Unique History Telling

After reading A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove, I couldn't help but feel a little ashamed about my own everday interaction with food. For example, every week I buy all the needed ingrediants for a salad or to use in my juicer and sure enough, one week later I'm throwing everything out, pratically untouched. This book was a kick in the pants of how lucky we are today to have such conveniences as fresh fruit and vegetables and sliced bread. It also showed me how much I take these items for granted. There are personal recollections and stories passed on through generations in this book that are absolutely fascinating and tell how people got by back in the day when not everything was so readily available. It also takes you through key moments in history. For example, During WWI and WWII the importance of planting Liberty and Victory Gardens. Another story talks of how in one particular Chinese family it was more important to a father that his little girl knew how to wash rice properly, considered a principal accomplishment of any Chinese female, than to go get an education. Another theme came up over and over again was the power of women's voices as mothers and homemakers who demanded fair pricing, strict sanitary guidleines, government funded programs to feed the poor. On top of all this there are recipes scattered throughout the book that are related to each era. Some you'll want to try and others....not so much. Great pictures included as well! Hope you enjoy!

This NEEDED to be written

If you enjoy a coziness factor in your life, you'll benefit from reading this book. It's fun and useful and educational. You'll come away with a new respect for the everyday love offerings dished out by Mom and Grandma and the matriarchs of generations and milleniums past. Little by little they all contribute to the building of a civilization.Wow! Inspiring reading about the over-looked contribution of everyday women and nurturers in our daily lives, and the food they give us. Very entertaining.

A Wonderful Book!

I found that, not only was Ms. Schenone's book entertaining and educational, it made me feel good about being a woman in a way no other book ever has. As I read the book, I kept thinking how interesting it is that no one has ever looked at the critical contribution that women have made through food, to the success and building of this country, in quite the same light!I enjoy cooking so I found that aspect of the book enjoyable. I also like history and Ms. Schenone's book does a superb job of tying the two together.I liked it so much I sent copies to all of my girl friends as well as female family members. I highly recommend it whether you are a "foodie" or a history buff.

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove

I picked this up for my wife at Christmas but began reading it and decided I'd keep it for a while!This is a beautiful book that offers so many images I haven't seen before, and the author's prose is so clean, and yet in many places so lyrical and personal. A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove weaves so many stories about how our mothers and grandmothers and their ancestors kept our cultures and traditions alive and yet also took part in the great events of our times and wrote a different kind of history in our nation. The author's own connection to and respect for her mother and grandmothers is given such warmth and life from the very beginning. When we see what women have done in the colonial days at Plymouth Rock to the Civil War and slavery, to the struggle to feed their families, through the worst of the industrial revolution to what nurses and volunteers did on the battlefields of the First World war, and on and on through the best and worst of the 20th century, Schenone makes such a powerful and honest impression. Anyone who enjoys American history or just food and cooking will lose themselves for hours here. This presents a perspective on the women in our lives and the unfolding of American history that deserves so much more attention--and also lovely personal writing about the author's life and experiences. And the recipes and photos are presented beautifully."