Digital Librarian: a librarian's choice of the best of the Web Digital Librarian is maintained by
Margaret Vail Anderson, a librarian who lives in Cortland, New York.
Chocolate & Zucchini - ”Blog written by Clotilde Dusoulier, a 26 year-old Parisian woman who lives in Montmartre and shares her passion for all things food-related -- thoughts, recipes, musings, cookbook acquisitions, quirky products, nifty tools, restaurant experiences, ideas, and inspirations.” Her book, Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen was published in May 2007.
Chowhound - “Community of people who doggedly seek out amazing food and drink experiences, then humbly share their finds with the world...”
The Price of a Four-Star Rating - By Katy McLaughlin, Wall Street Journal, October 6-7, 2007. "As online food sites become increasingly influential in the restaurant business, chefs and owners are plying bloggers with free meals to get good write-ups."
Champagne's Dreams by Craig Winnecker, Wall Street Journal, July 21-22, 2007. Champagne with the code NM (Négociant-manipulants) is made by a large producer, champagne with the code RM (récoltant-manipulants) is the grower's own champagne and is usually cheaper.
Sanford D'Amato: Sicily Lands in Wisconsin by
By Raquel Pelzel, Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2008. Has recipes for Beef and Beer Stew and Potato, Apple and Asiago Fricco.
CheeseNet - "Internet's cheese information resource."
Chili Pepper Institute - New Mexico State University. headed by Horticulture Professor Paul Bosland. You can buy seeds at the Chile Pepper Shop, including Bhut jolokia, discussed in The World's Hottest Chili by Stan Sesser, Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2008.
Fat-Guy.com - Steven Shaw's reviews of New York restaurants. Shaw is a "lawyer, food critic and regular guy who spends an alarming percentage of his disposable income on dining out."
FindArticles.com - Free online article-search service allows you to search for (and read) articles published over the last 1 to 2 years in more than 300 reputable magazines and journals. You can view publications by subject or by name.
Fleischmann's Yeast - Includes bread recipes (traditional and for bread machines).
Florida Gift Fruit Shippers Association - Has a list of members. Honeybells, technically known as minneola tangelos, look like bell-shaped oranges but are actually a cross between a Duncan grapefruit and a Dancy tangerine. Available in January only. Some shippers include
Al's Family Farms - Vero Beach. Indian River Citrus, Honeybells, Gift Baskets, Vidalia Onions, Pecans, Cakes, Tomatoes.
Dereus Groves - Lakeland (863-688-8893 or 800-311-7455)
Food and Wine Oral History Project - "ROHO scholars have interviewed nearly two-hundred winemakers, chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, marketers, shop owners, educators, researchers, industry leaders, organizational officials, and writers that have helped spark the intellectual development of a Bay Area food and wine identity in the latter half of the twentieth century."
Food Maven - Arthur Schwartz, newspaper food editor at New York Daily News and host of the daily talk-radio program called "Food Talk" on WOR 710 AM. His Food Maven Index is "a comprehensive index of all the recipes and wine buys posted on the site." Latest information and recipes will be posted on the Maven's Diary.
Food Migration - Cynthia Meyers. Archives back to October 2004
The Food Section - Weblog about food, wine, and travel created by Josh Friedland in July 2003.
Food Timeline - Edited by Lynne Olver, Morris County (NJ) Library, the timeline links to multiple recipe sites and would be useful for school research.
Commentary - "The Commentary began as a column written and distributed by Joseph Planta, via e-mail in June 1999. He wrote over six hundred columns delving into such current affairs subjects as politics, show business, and anything and everything in-between. In September 2003, The Commentary was re-launched as a web-based publication, also featuring guest contributions." online interviews include:
Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman - 19 December 2008. "New York City chef Andrew Carmellini and his wife, writer Gwen Hyman talk to Joseph Planta about their book Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories From a Life in Food (Bloomsbury, 2008)."
Jeffrey Alford - 27 October 2008. "Food writer Jeffrey Alford discusses his recent book, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China (Random House, 2008), with Joseph Planta. Alford co-wrote the book with his wife Naomi Duguid."
J.B. MacKinnon - 25 June 2007. "In The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon have written an often funny, engrossing, and remarkable look at the food they ate in a year when they decided to eat food only grown within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver home."
Sprucing Up Your Cocktail - Wayne Curtis, The Atlantic, November 2012. "Spruce has also found its way into at least one spirit: Rogue Spruce Gin, made in Oregon. It's been on the market for six years and is now available in 31 states. By definition, gin is flavored chiefly with juniper berries (the word gin derives from genever, the Dutch word for juniper). But given its northern heritage, the spirit marries quite well with spruce."
Elizabeth Driver - Expert on culinary history. She won the Tremaine Medal for 2007. She wrote Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825-1949 (c2007) and A Bibliography of Cookery Books Published in Britain, 1875-1914 (c1989).
Expensive Tastes - Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2007. "A year or two out of grad school, I asked for some tutoring in whiskies from a restaurateur whose selection of single malts was vast. He went to the shelves behind the bar and with a sly smile pulled down a bottle of Laphroaig. After explaining to me that it was pronounced la-FROYG, he said simply: "Learn to drink this, and everything else will be easy."
M.F. K. Fisher (1908-1992) - Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher
Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher - Columnists for the Wall Street Journal. They write the Tastings column about wine. Here are some of their recent columns:
2005 Burgundy Shows How Good This Famed French Red Wine Can Be - March 8, 2008. The Joseph Drouhin Volnay at $37.99 is described as "Very Good. Best value. Smooth and lovely, with great fruit and very attractive blueberry-blackberry tastes. Rich, yet light on its feet. Quite romantic and nicely complex." The Maison Champy "Vieilles Vignes" at $39.95 is described as "Very good/delicious. Best Value. Rich but not overly fruity, with black-tea astringency and plenty of earthiness. Some bittersweet chocolate. Classy and restrained, with many layers of interest."
The Pursuit of Perfection: In 2007, These 15 Wines Hit Just the Right Note; What Makes It 'Delicious' - December 28, 2007. There were two bargains on the list: the Bernardus Winery Sauvignon Blanc 2005 ($13.50) described as "Filled with fruit, with richness and mouthfeel, especially in the middle and back of the mouth. A wine of finesse and some stature, even as it retains its varietal taste" and the Michael-David Winery Incognito Viognier 2005 (Lodi) at $18.99 described as having "real clarity, with peaches, almonds and pure, clean tastes of good fruit. Sophisticated and memorable."
OASIS - Operational and Administrative System for Import Support (OASIS)
is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration "system for processing and making admissibility determinations for shipments of foreign-origin FDA-regulated products seeking to enter domestic commerce." The entire FDA site is searchable. A search for Shigella, for example, retrieves over 1400 results. A search for olive oil fraud retrieves "Extra Virgin" Olive Oil Substituted with Soybean Oil or Similar Substance and information on inspection of Vegetable Oils.
Gallica - Text and image digitization project undertaken by the Bibliothéque Nationale de France has a number of books relating to cooking. Search (recherche) for these subjects (sujets): Livres de cuisine , Cuisine française. Texts in the collection, listed chronologically, include:
Le cuisinier Taillevent (circa 1518-1520)
Le viandier - Taillevent (1314?-1395)
Le cuisinier parisien (1838)
Le cuisinier des bénédictins de Bernay en 1623
Le cuisinier roïal et bourgeois (1705)
Le cuisinier impérial, ou L'art de faire la cuisine et la pâtisserie pour toutes les fortunes (1806)
Bibliographie Gastronomique (1890) - By Georges Vicaire (1853-1921). Slatkine Reprints, Geneve-Paris, 1993. Avec une préface de Paul Ginisty. La cuisine, la table, l'office, les aliments, les vins, les cuisiniers et les cuisinieres, les gourmands et les gastronomes, l'économie domestique...
La Cuisine Française: l'Art du Bien Manger (1906) - By Edmond Richardin. This edition contains 1600 "simple and easy recipes". Elizabeth David calls a later edition of this book, published in 1913, "one of the most imaginative and interesting collections in the French language" in the bibliography for her book French Provincial Cooking. [Search for her book in Google Books.] The Index starts on p. 940. From the title page: "Suivi de l'art de choisir les vins et de les servir à table et d'un chapitre spécial, orné le figures explicatives sur le découpage puis des Aphorismes de [Jean Anthelme] Brillat-Savarin en 20 compositions hors-texte de A. Robida [p. 317]. Préface d'André Theuriet de L'Académie Française. Édition accompagnée d'une érie de reproductions d'estampes d'après les maitres de la painture expliquées par Gustave Geffroy. Ouvrage adopté par le ministere de l'instruction publique et contenant les croquis gastronomiques de [Jean-Camille] Fulbert-Dumonteil, les formules pratiques permettant de préparer chez soi les plat renommés des grands restaurants et des maitres-cuisiniers, de curieuses préparations culinaires dues a des écrivains et des amateurs, des recettes locales le vieille cuisine française formant ensemble plus de 1600 recettes le tout recueilli et annoté par Edmond Richardin." Frontispiece: "La Destinée des Nations dépend de la manière dont elles se nourrissent" (Brillat-Savarin). "Les 1650 recettes contenue dans ce volume se divisent comme suit: 770 recettes de vielle cuisine francaise, 310 de cuisine moderne, 100 des grands restaurants, 90 des maitres cuisiniers [pp. 380-394], 200 d'écrivains et d'amateurs [pp. 1-392], 180 d'entremets et desserts [p. 825], 1 chapitre sur le service des vins [p. 283 & 883], 1 chapitre sur le découpage à table [p. 345 & 893]." There is a recipe for Cassoulet on p. 68, and one for Cassoulet à l'alsacienne on p. 298. Edmond Rostand's recipe for Les Tartelettes amandines is on p. 143.
La cuisine du siècle: dictionnaire pratique des recettes culinaires et des recettes de ménage: deux cents menus à l'usage de tous (1900) by Catherine de Bonnechère.
Barny Haughton (Glenfiddich Independent Spririt Award) "for his work supporing organic food, sustainable agriculture and community food education". See He likes his steak green by Fiona Sims, [London] Times, March 11, 2006.
Alex Renton (Food Writer award and the Glenfiddich Trophy) for his work in the Observer Food Monthly
Gouranyat & Son - Paris. See Paris: Goumanyat & Son Royaume, New York Times (Travel Section), November 18, 2007. "The shop's signature product is the noblest of spices: saffron, which the Thiercelin family has been buying, packaging and selling since 1809 when saffron was cultivated near their small farm in the Loiret region of France..."
Great American Potluck - Library of Congress. "The recipes on this web site are posted for the sole purpose of illustrating the American immigration experience. These recipes and their stories were collected from 2002 – 2006." Recipes are listed by title, category and region.
Core Historical Literature of Agriculture - Core electronic collection of over 800 agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science,forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science. A search for cookery returned 956 matches in 82 works. Examples of food-related titles include:
Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive - William L. Clements Library, Unversity of Michigan. "Contains thousands of items from the 16th to 20th centuries - books, ephemera, menus, magazines, graphics, maps, manuscripts, diaries, letters, catalogues, advertisements, and reference works." The collection is searchable in the Online Catalog.
Los Angeles Public Library Menu Collection Index and Images - "Database of menus from Los Angeles, other cities, steamships, airlines and banquets. Images of the actual menus are being added. The address and telephone number of the restaurant is given, plus the menu date, cuisine type, meal, and price range." A keyword search for French, for example, retrieves a number of images including several from Air France. (Air France October 4, 1961 menu with cover, dinner menu and breakfast menu). [Alternate search page]
Sinclair Jerseyana Cookbooks - Rutgers University Library collection is "the most comprehensive, most extensive compilation of New Jersey materials in existence. The Sinclair Jerseyana Collection includes a significant body of New Jersey cookbooks written and compiled by various local and regional groups active throughout the state during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Twentieth century publications make up the collection's largest category of materials, with its post WWII publications constituting its most active area of development."
Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia - Offers 679 excerpts from original sound recordings and 1,256 photographs from the American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-99) documenting traditional land use in the mountains surrounding Southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley. (Library of Congress American Memory Project.) Photographs include
Black walnut pumpkin roll cake made by Mae Bongalis and
Jenny Bonds' stack cake filled with apple butter. You can also hear Mae Bongalis talk about Making Chow-Chow. There are photographs and audio files on the topics of gardens, food preservation, foodways, canning, harvest, gathering and Morel mushrooms.
Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America - Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. Their culinary collection consists of nearly 16,000 books and houses the papers of famous chefs and food writers such as M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Alice Bradley and Elizabeth David. Searchable via the Hollis catalog. The library ecently acquired What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Soups, Pickle, Preserves, Etc. by Abby Fisher. "A former slave, Fisher is thought to be the first African American woman to author and compile her own recipes." See May 12, 2004. Press Release. Full-texts of some of the books in the collection can be found in
Women Working: 1800 - 1930, a digital collection focusing "on women's role in the United States economy." Search for food, cookery,cooking, kitchen, diet, receipts, recipes, Titles include:
Fare-Minded Arbiter - By Rudy Chelminski, Smithsonian.com, March 1, 2003. "Quelle surprise! Englishman Derek Brown presides over France's prestigious Michelin guide to haute cuisine." Brown is the editor of Le Guide Rouge Michelin.
Monell Chemical Senses Center - Philadelphia (267-519-4700). "Non-profit independent scientific institute dedicated to interdisciplinary basic research on the senses of taste, smell, and chemosensory irritation."
American Culinary Federation - "Premier professional chefs' organization in North America, with more then 240 chapters nationwide and 19,000 members."
Chefs Collaborative - "National network of more than 1,000 members of the food community who promote sustainable cuisine by celebrating the joys of local, seasonal, and artisanal cooking." With links to member restaurants and a Sustainable Seafood Primer.
Conseil National des Arts Culinaires (CNAC) - National Culinary Arts Council, funded by the French Government
Guild of Food Writers - "Professional association of food writers and broadcasters in the UK."
Arielle's Recipe Archives - Hand selected by Stephanie da Silva from the popular Usenet newsgroup rec.food.recipes. (The Soups section had 30 different pumpkin soup recipes.)
Dinner Co-op - Over 750 recipes (plus 3000 links to other resources) from Karen Zita Haigh and the Dinner Co-op at Carnegie Mellon University. Provides an index to the recipes.
Twice-Baked Potatoes - Tangy! Triple the recipe and freeze for later use. Quite similar to the Rebaked Potatoes recipe in the Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook by Mollie Katzen which calls for cayenne pepper instead of paprika and tops the potatoes with tomato slices sprinkled with cheese.
Epicurean Online - The Recipe Exchange contains 10,000 recipes submitted by readers
Meals For You - Allows you to view recipes sorted by preparation time, by cooking time, by total time, by calories, by fat, by percentage of calories from fat, by cholesterol, by carbohydrates, by fiber, or by sodium and provides shopping list of ingredients. Includes over 8000 recipes.
Recipe Archive Index - Amy Gale (no longer being maintained but of historical interest as one of the first recipe collections on the Internet)
Recipe Zaar - “Cooking community & recipe resource with +100,000 recipes & growing.”
RecipeSource - Formerly known as
SOAR: The Searchable Online Archive of Recipes, when it was started in 1993 by Jennifer Snider, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, this database now has over 70,000 recipes and it is by far the best recipe resource. It is searchable and browsable by region (
Africa & Middle East,
Asia & Pacific,
Europe,
North & South America) and type. The chicken and black bean salad, flavored with cilantro (coriander) and lime, is a very satisfying meal for a hot summer night.
Recipes from Najmieh Batmanglij - Persian recipes for Lentil Dip (Adasi), Yogurt & Cucumber Dip or Soup (Mast-o khiar), Noodle Soup (Ash-e reshteh), Saffron Steamed Plain Basmati Rice (Chelow), Smothered Rice (Kateh), Rice With Lentils & Dates (Adas Polow), Sweet & Sour Stuffed Chicken (Morgh-e tu por-e torsh-o-shirin), Fish Stuffed with Fresh Herbs (Mahi-ye tu por ba sabzi), Herb & Tamarind Shrimp (Ghalieh Maygu), Cardamom Rice Cookies (Nan-e Berenji) and Honey Almonds (Sohan asal).
Top Secret Recipes - "Creating kitchen clones of America's favorite brand-name foods."
Ask - Search engine which allows you to type in complete questions. Try, for example, "Where can I find recipes from Breton Cuisine?" or "Where can I find recipes by Chef Jacques Pepin?" or "How can I find a good restaurant in Pittsburgh?"
Cook's Thesaurus - Lori Alden's cooking encyclopedia "covers thousands of ingredients and kitchen tools. Entries include pictures, descriptions, synonyms, pronunciations, and suggested substitutions."
Zagat Restaurant Survey - Rates restuarants based on patron comments. Ratings and reviews for America's top restaurants in 20 cities and regions
Sake - The best sake is made from polished rice: the outer layers of the rice have been milled away to remove bitter and sour flavors. Sake made with rice with 50% or more of the original grain removed is known as daiginjo, and that with 60% or less is known as ginjo, or 'special brew'. Junmai, or 'pure rice sake', is made only from rice, water, a mold called koji and yeast. Eric Felton, in his The Subtle Sorts of Sake, Wall Street Journal, February 10-11, 2007, recommends four brands of sake: Kirin-zan Daiginjo, Kuromatsu-Hakushika "White Deer", Takasago "Divine Droplets" and Hoyo Kura No Hana "Fair Maiden". See also Sake World “created, written and is updated by John Gauntner, widely recognized as a leading non-Japanese authority on sake.”
All-Clad Metalcrafters - Located in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh. See High-end pots that no one would pan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 15, 2000.
Bourgeat - Professional kitchen utensils. The Excellence line can be used on induction cooktops
Mauviel - Located in Villedieu-les-Poêles in Normandy, their Induc'Inox line is specifically designed for induction (multi-layered multi-layered stainless steel 18/10, high conductibility - distributes the heat evenly and quickly, 2 mm thick).
Marché International Rungis - Paris market is the "largest wholesale market in the world for fresh products."
NPR - Has a Food page. Food related stories include:
Olive Oil Fraud Rampant as Demand Skyrockets - "New Yorker contributor Tom Mueller near Genova, Italy, talks with Michele Norris about fraud in the olive oil industry." August 7, 2007.
TF1 - French television. Search for cuisine, gastronomie, chocolat, recette, gateau, etc. See also Julie Cuisine, a cooking show.
WGBH Forum Network - Live and archived webcasts of free public lectures in the Boston area. Provides a list of the Newest Lectures and browsable by partner and subject. Lectures include
French Women for All Seasons: Mireille Guiliano, writer - January 11, 2007. Guiliano is the author of the best seller, French Women Don't Get Fat, and French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes, and Pleasure.
Culture of food in rural China - Lecture by Ellen Oxfeld, Professor of Anthropology at Middlebury College, March 8, 2008. [61:00] “Oxfeld examines the embedded meanings of food in a very local village context (Moonshadow Pond Village, Mei Xian, Guandong) and the way food is used to create meaning and to create relationships.”
Psychology, Biology and Politics of Food - Professor Kelly D. Brownell. "Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 75 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2008."
Putting Food On The Table: What To Eat - New York University's Marion Nestle talks about her article in the September issue of Scientific American, called "Eating Made Simple." 5 September 2007.
Good News About Coffee - "Food ingredient expert Roger A. Clemens discusses research suggesting that coffee drinking has numerous beneficial health effects." 24 January 2007.
Vitis International Variety Catalogue - Database of grapevine collections in 126 institutions from 38 countries compiled by Dr. Erika Dettweiler, Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof, Siebeldingen, Germany. Includes over 1500 full-color pictures of leaves, clusters and sprouts. (See also the European Vitis Database.
Wine Spectator - Ratings and brief reviews of thousands of wines.
WineFiles.org - Wine, wine making and grape growing, including the business, technology and history associated with wine, with an emphasis on California. There is a database with citations, abstracts and links to articles in the technical, academic, trade and consumer wine periodicals. as well as newspaper articles, government documents, press releases, advertising brochures and other ephemera dealing with wine.