This August, traditional Fair fare such as deep-fried Twinkies, Snickers, and sticks of butter will be making room for even more old-school treats featured in the UI-sponsored Szathmary Historic Recipes cooking contest. Up for recreating 18th- and 19th-century desserts like Almond Cheese Cakes, Summer Mince Pies, and Mrs. Matson’s Marlborough Pies? Unintimidated by units ofContinue reading “Move over, fried twinkies: Iowa State Fair historic recipe contest”
Category Archives: DIY History
Transcription addiction
We’ve been in touch with one of our most faithful DIY History transcribers, Roger. He didn’t intend to get so drawn into the project when he first visited our site, but now he admits that “things like eating and mowing get in the way but I’ve managed to blow off most other things cause I’mContinue reading “Transcription addiction”
Transcribing Iowa women’s lives: the diary of a teenage girl in 1876
Now awaiting transcription at our DIY History crowdsourcing site is the late-19th century diary of Belle Robinson, a charming document of a girlhood in Iowa spent playing croquet, attending picnics, making taffy, and going nutting. And like another girl who lived in a little town on the prairie, Belle had literary aspirations. Included in herContinue reading “Transcribing Iowa women’s lives: the diary of a teenage girl in 1876”
The poetry of pudding
From the Szathmary cookbook collection, a rhyming recipe from an 1860 English cookbook: A Paradise pudding If you’d have a good pudding pray mind what you’re taught Take two pen ‘sworth of eggs when they’re twelve for a groat Take of the same fruit which Eve once did cozen When pared & well chopp’d atContinue reading “The poetry of pudding”
“It means a lot to me to see this picture”: connecting with historic photographs at DIY History
Along with transcribing handwritten diaries and letters, users at our DIY History crowdsourcing site can comment, tag and favorite historic photos at the University of Iowa Libraries’ Flickr site. Most frequently, we receive feedback on factual errors in our metadata, e.g. Flickr user Metaltype noticed an incorrectly identified typesetting machine in this image from theContinue reading ““It means a lot to me to see this picture”: connecting with historic photographs at DIY History”
DIY History: 30,000th submission, new collections for UI Libraries’ crowdsourcing project
Thanks to the public’s voracious appetite for historic cookbooks, the University of Iowa Libraries has recently reached a new milestonetemp for its DIY History crowdsourcing site: 30,000 pages transcribed. An English medical recipe book from 1704 contains the project’s 30,000th page, detailing a “remedy for a woman with child taken harm by fall or frightContinue reading “DIY History: 30,000th submission, new collections for UI Libraries’ crowdsourcing project”
A good beginning
Perhaps your New Year’s resolutions include a self-documentation project, like more frequent updates on Facebook, Twitter, or even a good old-fashioned diary? For inspiration, we present Iowa Byington Reed (1851-1936), an Iowa City native, teacher, seamstress, and housewife who wrote daily diary entries covering her life from age twenty to just a few weeks beforeContinue reading “A good beginning”
Food for body and spirit
On the last page of James Doak’s 1760s Art of cookery, following recipes for ketchup and pickled mushrooms, we find what appears to be a catalog of his library, an impressive collection for the time. He lists the classics: Shakespeare, Pope, Cato, Milton, the Bible, as well as some intriguing titles: Whytt on Lyme water,Continue reading “Food for body and spirit”
A soldier’s last Thanksgiving
An avid letter writer who was very close to his family, Nile Kinnick left a detailed record of the eventful period in his life when he left home to attend the University of Iowa, became a football star and Heisman trophy winner, and enlisted in the Navy to fight in World War II. In aContinue reading “A soldier’s last Thanksgiving”
Of brain bags and turtle toenails
Our voracious DIY History volunteers continue to transcribe their way through the Szathmary culinary manuscripts collection, turning up recipes like the ones for calves’ head soup and terrapins featured here. Local readers interested in recreating such historic dishes are invited to a kick-off meeting for our cooking club tomorrow; remote users, stay tuned for a blog where youContinue reading “Of brain bags and turtle toenails”