What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?

"The National Archives to allow food in its museum space?"  That was one provocative tweet I read this summer.  That, plus...

Light box advertisement at the Navy Archives Metro stop

...the signs advertising "What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?" have intrigued me all summer.  Finally, this past Saturday I had a morning free to investigate this recent exhibit at the National Archives.

The National Archives

There I learned all kinds of fascinating facts about food and how the U.S. government has encouraged its cultivation, regulated its growth, inspected its manufacturing process and tried to shape the eating patterns of Americans. 

Using four broad themes of Farm, Factory, Kitchen and Table instead of a chronological order, this exhibition displays primary documents including letters, laws, diaries, photos, films, maps, petitions, patents and proclamations to illustrate the Federal Government's involvement in our food chain.

Near the start of the exhibit is this quote from Thomas Jefferson, "The greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture."  Jefferson, one of the first American food explorers who brought back new edible species for American cultivation, put his words into action when he successfully smuggled rice out of Italy in his coat pockets, a crime that was punishable by death had he been caught.

Would you willingly eat copper sulfate, boric acid, formaldehyde, coal tar or saltpeter?  Americans did exactly that at the turn of the 20th century for all of these were used as common food preservatives then.

What about carp?  Would this flyer from the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries entice you to eat that oily freshwater fish?












Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to inspire labor reform, but instead his book led to a public outcry over the meat-packing practices of Chicago stockyards.  In a letter he wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Sinclair joked, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

These are just a few tasty tidbits from this fascinating look at the government's role in American food.  For an online look at "What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?," go to http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/whats-cooking/ 

Better yet, come visit me in Washington, D.C. and we'll go see this exhibition together.  But hurry!  This exhibition closes January 3, 2012.