NYS Teachers Summer Institute: Slow Food/Fast Food: Free Resources

A Taste for Science, an online exhibit by Cornell University shows how modern home econmics brought modernity to the kitchen, and is a part of the rich collection of home economics material called  HEARTH.

History and Legends of Food

Want to know what "hopping johns" are, or how many eggs are in an egg cream?

This informative (and fun) website has little known tidbits, recipes, and the history of American foods!

Need help figuring out weights and measures in Grandma's heirloom recipes? This chart will help you understand those oftimes cryptic measurements and instructions.

Not by Bread Alone: America's Culinary Heritage
Highlights from the Rare and Manuscript Collections are featured in this electronic exhibition (2002). Explores the influences and inventions that have shaped American food habits over the past two hundred years.

HEARTH, Home Economics Archive
Online texts from Home Economics

Human Ecology Photographs
Images of food preparation, laboratories, and instruction methods at the Cornell University College of Human Ecology, 1900-1968.

Hotel School Cookery Subject Guide
Lists and links to top resources available at the Nestlé Library in Statler Hall.

Google's great for finding freely available resources, but it's not always easy to distinguish the treasure from the trash.  One suggestion for finding authoritative websites on fast food/slow food topics is an advanced Google search in .edu domain.  There might still be some junk here, but you'll generally find excellent free resources from colleges and universities across the country.

To do this, simply add  site:edu to the google search box along with your search terms.  Give it a try!

The New York Public Library owns one of the largest historical collections of menus in the world, held in the Rare Books Division. Begun by a donation from Miss Frank E. Buttolph and continued until her death in 1924, the collection has been augmented by other gifts over the years. The Buttolph Collection is strongest for the period between 1890 and 1910 with thousands of menus online.
Enter here to search the NYPL Menu Collection Database

The University of Washington's historic Menu Collection offers over 600  menus, placemats, and other graphic materials from many of the Puget Sound area's most famous restaurants and dining facilities in the years between 1889 and 2003. Restaurants in all styles and classes of trade are represented, from lunch counters to first class gourmet fare.

Cornell University's Nestle School of Hotel Management's Menu Database collects menus from a wide variety of restaurants; everything from fine dining to quick service.

This excellent bibliography created by the Library of Congress on Food History lists works in the 19th, 20th and 21st century in the interdisciplinary field of the history of food.

Offers subject headings, titles and citation information on primary and secondary materials; and at the bottom offers links to numerous web sites for additional information.

A wonderful resource.

Food and agricultural systems, and the movements which arise around them related to issues such as health, justice, equity, security, sustainability, and cultural preservation, offer many opportunities for the study of society and place. The local foods movement, which incorporates all these issues, presents a particularly rich area of inquiry and insight. Our Local and Regional Food Systems reference guide indexes many different initiatives and resources, including curriculum materials.

This culinary food timeline shows the history of food and eating.  As it shows, most foods we eat are not invented, they evolve.

From 17,000 BC to 2009, this timeline shows the evolution of what we eat, and also offers recipes!

Includes links to excellent references.

The History of Eating Utensils

Knives, chopsticks, forks and spoons in a searchable database.

From the Rietz Food Technology Collection, housed in the Anthropology Department, California Academy of Sciences.