Roundtable

The Rest Is History

Orange juice, mac and cheese, and Aristotle.

By Jaime Fuller

Friday, June 01, 2018

Fruit Displayed on a Stand, by Gustave Caillebotte, c. 1881. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Fanny P. Mason Fund in memory of Alice Thevin.

• Why read Aristotle today? (Aeon)

• Historic diet tips that are no longer fashionable: “Two raw eggs beaten in orange juice to create…a ‘creamy drink fit for a King’s table.’ Most important of all, don’t skimp on the ‘wonder foods’…including yogurt, powdered skim milk, brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, and blackstrap molasses.” (Timeline)

• This week in unexpected headlines: “Skeleton unearthed of man crushed by huge rock in Vesuvius eruption.” However, “archaeologists have not found the victim’s head.” (The Guardian)

• The forgotten black cemeteries of Canada. (The Walrus)

• The Handicapped Homemakers Project: “In an era when it was being widely promised that ‘miracle kitchens’ of push-button appliances and automated gadgets would ‘liberate’ women from household drudgery, these programs insisted on treating housework as work—and more, work that was vital to the economic well-being of the nation.” (Places Journal)

• The history of macaroni and cheese: “To understand the evolution of macaroni and cheese is to realize that pursuit of the ‘cheapest protein possible’ has been a long-standing quest of the American food system.” (Smithsonian.com)

• Gloria Stoll Karn, prolific pulp artist. (Hyperallergic)

• Kerry James Marshall on Charles White. (Paris Review Daily)

• A “refreshingly guilt-free account of getting sloshed through the ages.” (The New York Times Book Review)

• The women kept out of explorer history—and off Antarctica: “There had been no women aboard any of history’s most infamous polar ventures, though it wasn’t for their lack of trying: Three women applied to join Shackleton’s fated 1914 expedition, and many explorers’ wives sailed with them on their trips, though the women never set foot on land. Constrictive Victorian gender roles had had a lasting influence on exploration.” (Catapult)

• This week in obituaries: Richard Peck, the accidental inventor of the fuzz tone, a man who went to the moon and later painted moonscapes, and “a slave’s granddaughter who opened a North Carolina restaurant that proved so successful she caught the attention of presidents, publishers, and sports stars.”