Musings by Marguerite Kearns

When I collaborated with my mother Wilma when living in Woodstock, New York, I grew used to her accumulation of books like the book with the green cover, Cooks, Gluttons & Gourmets: A History of Cookery by Betty Watson. My mom found plenty of these works. She bought them. We discussed them. Now years later, they are in stacks around my living space in Santa Fe. This work was published in 1962 and could be identified by the small black and white labels on the covers: “Wilma B. Culp, 1015 Pecan Drive, Lansdale, PA 19446-1719.”

Was it directly related to my grandmother Edna? Not really. It was one of many books that shed light on food and prior practices. Interesting? Yes. Directly relevant? No. But they were important. Now it’s up to me to get rid of the hundreds or thousands of works I read or should have read.

This work I’ve set aside as an example of the research conducted with my mom. Was it fascinating? Indeed. I read about medieval banquets, food spreads in Greek and Roman times, Thomas Jefferson’s kitchen, and the trouble I had with setting aside and never examining again delicious and stimulating dishes that wouldn’t have come my way had it not been for the suffrage and votes for women research leading to a book about my grandmother, her husband, and daughter Serena, my mom’s older sister who was born in 1905.

I would not have known about the food choices at Jamestown, Virginia, and how Thomas Jefferson was a gourmet when he lived in France, and he had black children as many other Southern plantation owners and politicians also did. The dialogue about this is deep and emotional. The research phase spent with my mother Wilma was deep and complicated. It was also very simple and related to suffrage or votes for women grassroots organizing. Did it involve my grandparents directly? No, but it was in the context.

Important? Yes. Now, magnify this over one thousand times.

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