Is a corn oyster REALLY an oyster? In their most self-indulgent and least food-related episode yet, Nicole and Julia take you inside the world of the popular historical doll series American Girl, and their much less popular series of cookbooks. In addition to learning about dolls and some specific American Girl characters, you’ll also learn what it was like to cook and dine on the Minnesota frontier in the 1850s and richy-rich upstate New York in the early 1900s. And, finally, maybe, you will learn what the heck fruit soup is. (We still don’t know either.)

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to Sources:

• “Trying Meals from the American Girl Cookbooks,” Darling Dollz

• Samantha’s Cook Book: A Peek at Dining in the Past with Meals You Can Cook Today, ed. by Jodi Evert and Jeanne Thieme

• Kirsten’s Cook Book: A Peek at Dining in the Past with Meals You Can Cook Today, ed. by Jodi Evert and Jeanne Thieme

• “What Pioneers ate on the Oregon Trail,” Tasting History with Max Miller

• What Pioneers Ate, Notes From The Frontier. Dec 4, 2019

• Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America, by Susan Williams

• “Victorian Dinner Parties,” Shmanners Podcast

We’ve had cooking shows as long as we’ve had TV (and even before that, if you count radio!) But have you ever asked yourself, “Self, why do I like watching someone ELSE roast a chicken and say “BAM”?” Well, as it often turns out on this show, many people have many hot opinions on that. Join Nicole and Julia on this channel chase from radio to public TV to cable TV to YouTube and beyond as they learn about the history and some early pioneers of cooking shows.

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to Sources (including video clips featured in the episode):

• The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture, edited by Kathleen Lebesco, and Peter Naccarato.

• "TV Dinners: Culinary Television, Education, and Distinction,” by Isabelle de Solier

• Television Cooking Shows: Defining the Genre, by Lori F. Brost (dissertation)

• Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows, by Kathleen Collins

• As Easy as Pie: Housework, Temporality, and Postfeminist Popular Culture, by Elizabeth Nathanson (dissertation)

• “The Essence of Cooking Shows: How the Food Network Constructs Consumer Fantasies,” by Cheri Ketchum

• The Taco Liberty Bell

• Videos we watched:

  • • Julia Child Flipping a Potato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6s6rVAkFrE&pp=ygUbanVsaWEgY2hpbGQncyBmdW5ueSBtb21lbnRz

    • Joyce Chen: https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_7E8DABA5A896477C9E230E4A4EC9F681

    • The Galloping Gourmet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqxw-_lCNk0&t=287s&ab_channel=LemonCooking

    • Emeril Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbn_kwMRCJM&ab_channel=ShaqC

    • Emeril and Julia Child make burgers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V9ELWibils&pp=ygUWZW1lcmlsIGFuZCBqdWxpYSBjaGlsZA%3D%3D

Alternate episode title: I’ll Farmer Your Fannie

Do you look at your kitschy, 90’s, chicken-themed measuring cup set and wonder why we use measuring cups at all? We can thank the “Mother of Level Measurements” for making it cool to use measuring cups, the basic recipe format, and so much more. Join Nicole and Julia as they follow Fannie Farmer from her humble beginnings to being the absolute alpha girlboss that we still know and love today. And if you love rambling tangents, then this is the episode for you.

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media.

Links to Sources:

• Veit, H. Z., Knuppel, J., Railton, B., & Eyler, J. (2018, December 4). The rise of cookbooks in America. The Saturday Evening Post.

• Willan, A. (2021). Women in the kitchen: Twelve essential cookbook writers who defined the way we eat, from 1661 to today. Scribner.

• Fannie Farmer and the modern recipe, Tasting History with Max Miller

• Farmer, F. M. (1998). The original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1896. H.L. Levin Associates.

• Shapiro, L. (2008). Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.