ST. LOUIS — If you want to know about a people, look at the food they eat.
The new book “A Culinary History of Missouri: Foodways & Iconic Dishes of the Show-Me State” traces the history of Missouri from the precolonial Native Americans to the present day by examining the foods that were eaten here over hundreds of years.
Each new addition to the diet represents a mini-evolution. Something changed, something was added — or lost — to alter the way Missourians cooked and ate.
The book was co-written by longtime local food historian Suzanne Corbett and Deborah Reinhardt, the former managing editor of AAA Midwest Traveler and AAA Southern Traveler. They split the writing duties, Corbett said, with Corbett tackling the culinary history of the region from before the colonial time through the first part of the 20th century, and Reinhardt covering the last hundred years.
They wrote the book, Corbett said, because “food defines who we are, where we came from. We define ourselves through food. If it wasn’t for a steady food source, St. Louis or any city would not have maintained itself. If you don’t have a good food supply, you’re gone. You’re dead.”
In the earliest days, residents of the area survived on nature’s bounty — which was indeed bountiful. Fish and game were plentiful, nuts such as black walnuts and fruit such as pawpaws — known as “the Missouri banana” — grew heavily on trees. When early French colonists realized the fertile area was especially suitable for growing wheat, they turned the region into a busy exporter of flour.
According to the book, the French brought with them an obsession with fine cooking and the tableware on which to serve it. Spanish colonists came next, briefly, but they encouraged slaveholders to settle in the area. The African population that was brought with them, in turn, expanded the area’s cuisine with new ingredients, such as okra, and a firm grasp on Southern ways of cooking.
“Those slaves brought their foodways that changed the way people ate,” Corbett said.
The most important driver of culinary change in this region and others is improvements in transportation, she said. Before there were trains, people were limited to eating what they could produce themselves or ship a short distance without spoiling.
The advent of trains made it possible to eat foods from different regions of the country. Meanwhile, as thousands of Americans began their great migration west in covered wagons, a new wave of taverns and restaurants sprang up to feed the hungry travelers.
Trains, too, made their impact. Pullman dining cars served fine meals on fine china on the trains themselves, while travelers could expect an excellent meal at the Harvey House restaurants they encountered along the way. The more people traveled, the more they were exposed to sophisticated dining.
The book includes more than 80 recipes depicting what Missourians ate from the early 18th century to today, from a fry bread recipe from the Osage Nation and a French recipe for chicken poached in white wine all the way up to toasted ravioli and a cheese dip made from Budweiser and Provel.
Among her favorite historic recipes in the book is the one for chicken pie, a favorite in the 1800s that was sometimes served by Missourians who thought turkey was too “Yankee-fied” for Southern diners. Another is Queen of the Pantry Pound Cake, which was named for the flour served at the White House during the Truman administration. Bess Truman’s grandfather had owned the company.
Corbett spends part of her time working as a food interpreter at a number of historic sites, frequently dressing in costume and discussing what foods were served during a particular time, and why. For people who come to her classes or events, it is a way of discovering their own past.
“People are seeing things that they’d forgotten or had never known existed. They never knew how to roll out a pie crust — you don’t just buy Pillsbury. People didn’t realize how long it would take to stew a chicken or to make a jar of pickles,” she said.
Everything that was old is new again, Corbett said, citing James Beard award-winning chefs who now get excited over such ingredients as acorn flour and beef cheeks, ingredients that their own great-grandparents probably used.
“If you look at the new chefs today, look behind you. Chances are you’re going to find it in an old book of grandma’s receipts (recipes),” she said.
