The Food of a Younger Land

This book is not an attempt to produce what America Eats might have been if it had been edited and pieces selected. Instead, it is a sampling of the broad and rich mountain of copy that the dying Federal Writers' Project generated for this, their final effort. I made selections of the most interesting pieces--poetry, short stories, essays, interviews, and recipes--because to publish all of it would have required several volumes. The reader can experience the archeologist's adventure that I had sifting through these unedited and unpublished manuscripts with all their blemishes, including misspellings, bad English, bad Spanish, and chaotic recipes that sometimes require a cook's imagination to make work. In the process, forgotten cuisines and a vanished world are unearthed. This is the fun of finding a seventy-year-old raw manuscript.