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97 Orchard: An Edible History Of Five Immigrant Families In One New York Tenement (2010)

by Jane Ziegelman(Favorite Author)

3.61 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0061288500 (ISBN13: 9780061288500)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Smithsonian

review 1: After touring the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side, I was hungry for more information about the courageous immigrant families who occupied this visually and historically fascinating former tenement house. This book was just the ticket. With a readable mix of history, recipes, family struggles and immigration policy, I prolonged my tour from the museum on through the decades learning how immigrants helped each other with "culinary charity" and shared old world cooking traditions. Can't say enough about the readability and fascinating food history of our country told through this book. Rich, interesting and recipes too!
review 2: the premise of this book is great, but it didn't deliver for me. while i found the sections dedicated to the food and the people ... moreinteresting, the flow of the book was not great - i found it choppy and abrupt. i also found that ziegelman spoke more generally about groups of people (jewish, irish, italina immigrants), than individuals or families. i enjoyed that she included some newspaper excerpts from the times she had researched. i found, particularly in the later sections, a focus on negative stereotypes that really took away from the read for me. i am not naïve to these beliefs having existed at the time (and still existing in places), but i felt the inclusion of these types of commentary to not serve much of a purpose because ziegelman did not spend much time building upon the many challenges and struggles faced by new immigrants to america. (i'm not sure if i am making sense here?) perhaps she tried to do too much with this book? while this is not a recipe book, there are a few recipes included, and many times you may find yourself getting drooly reading about the food. so while there were good moments in the book, the not-so-good moments outweighed them. less

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