Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans

Review

"Nourishing Networks' multi-sensorial immersion into the Crescent City foodscape illuminates the sounds, aromas, sights, textures, and flavors of "grocery-making" via street vendors and public markets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Young's clear, dynamic prose and imaginative recounting of NOLA denizens' food stories highlights their creativity and perseverance in the face of shifting policies of food provisioning." -- Amy Bentley, author of Inventing Baby Food: Taste, Health, and the Industrialization of the American Diet"In Ashley Rose Young's fascinating examination of the historic food markets and independent food vendors from New Orleans' colonial era to the present, we discover the highly skilled people who have fed this city for generations. She introduces readers to the powerful "public food culture" that lies at the heart of community life and the city's legendary cuisine. These worlds provide daily food and regional specialties to New Orleanians and tourists alike, but also present vivid narratives and iconic French and creole street cries that today still advertise a vendor's wares. This important food economy reveals the resiliency of New Orleans' networks of exchange, barter, and aid which have survived the Civil War, Katrina, and Covid." -- Marcie Cohen Ferris, author of Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South"In Nourishing Networks, Ashley Rose Young serves up a rich gumbo of history and culture that will fascinate New Orleanians and those who have a deep appreciation for Creole culture. She takes us straight to the heart of nineteenth-century America, where food wasn't just sustenance - it was the soul of public life. With the precision of a historian and the soul of someone who truly understands good food, she captures the grit and grace of New Orleans' public food culture and how it evolved over time. If you care about where our culinary traditions come from, this book is essential reading." -- Dickie Brennan, restaurateur/chef

About the Author

Ashley Rose Young is the American History Curator in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress. She is also a Smithsonian Research Associate and was formerly the Historian of the Smithsonian Food History Project at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. A curator and public historian, she has written for the New York Times and and Washington Post, among other outlets.