American food culture has evolved through a rich interplay of foreign adaptation and home-grown invention. The food gathering and cultivation methods of native peoples; America's successive waves of colonial and immigrant populations; and 20th-century revolutions in agriculture and cooking technologies–all have shaped our culinary heritage.

"Not by Bread Alone" explores the influences and inventions that have shaped American food habits over the past two hundred years. On view in the Carl A. Kroch Library from June 6 to October 4, 2002, the exhibition highlights rare books, photographs, menus, and other early documents that trace the history of gastronomy in America.

Food and eating habits are a compelling tool for examining culture. Culinary histories illuminate national and ethnic identities and evolving gender roles, thereby shedding light on shifting social boundaries, changing patterns of family life, and national aspirations and values. The food habits of European colonists and Western homesteaders, for example, testified to the difficult and often primitive conditions of rural and frontier life. By contrast, at the end of the 19th century, America’s expanding economy and growing upper class fueled desires for elegance and self-indulgence with respect to food. By the early 1900s, labor-saving kitchen devices created more leisure time, allowing for a greater enjoyment of food as entertainment. In the mid-20th century, revolutions in agriculture and food technology transformed eating into big business, separating most Americans from food production entirely.

The exhibition presents items selected from Cornell Library’s growing collection of rare books and manuscripts devoted to food history–works that uncover some of our forgotten domestic practices, as well as the cooking and eating experiences of earlier generations.

Katherine Reagan

Curator