Smith, Andrew F. 1946–

PERSONAL:

Born June 26, 1946, in Burbank, CA; son of Charles and Margaret Smith; married Tatiana Kling (a teacher), 1982; children: Kelly, Timothy. Education: Loyola University of Los Angeles, B.A., 1968; University of California, Riverside, M.A., 1971, doctoral study, 1972.

ADDRESSES:

Office—American Forum for Global Education, 120 Wall St., Ste. 2600, New York, NY 10005. E-mail—asmith1946@aol.com.

CAREER:

University of California, Riverside, supervisor of teacher education, 1971-72; California Council for Social Studies, Sacramento, executive director, 1972-74; University of Denver, Denver, CO, director of Center for Teaching International Relations, 1974-78; American Forum for Global Education, New York, NY, president, 1978—. New School University, New York, NY, instructor, 1994—. Longview Foundation, member of board of directors, 1996—; affiliated with International Association of Culinary Professionals; member of editorial board, Association for the Study of Food and Society; historical consultant to media and food-related television productions.

MEMBER:

American Society for Journalists and Authors (member of executive council, 1998—), National Council for Social Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, Culinary Trust (board of directors, 2003—; chair 2006—).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best Book Award, John Whitmer Historical Society, 1997, and award for best biography, Mormon Historical Association, 1998, both for The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John C. Bennett.

WRITINGS:

The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1994.

Pure Ketchup: The History of America's National Condiment, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1996.

The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John C. Bennett, University of Illinois Press (Champaign, IL), 1997.

International Conflict and the Media: A Curriculum Guide, American Forum for Global Education (New York, NY), 1997.

(Author of introduction) Livingston and the Tomato, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1998.

Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1999.

Souper Tomatoes: The Story of America's Favorite Food, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 2000.

(Author of introduction) Centennial Buckeye Cook Book, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 2000.

(Author of introduction) John Cook Bennett, The History of the Saints, University of Illinois Press (Champaign, IL), 2000.

(Author of introduction) Eliza Call, The Young Housekeeper and Dairymaids Directory, J.G.K. Truair & Co., 2001.

Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne, preface by Henry A. Kissinger, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 2002.

Encyclopedia of Junk and Fast Food, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2006.

The Turkey: An American Story, University of Illinois Press (Chicago, IL), 2006.

Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea, University of Illinois Press (Chicago, IL), 2006.

(With Burt Wolf) Real American Food: Restaurants, Markets, and Shops plus Favorite Hometown Recipes, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2006.

(Editor in chief) The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

General editor of University of Illinois Press's food series; editor-in-chief, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America two volumes, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004. Author of introductions to new editions of several early-twentieth-century recipe books.

SIDELIGHTS:

The writings of Andrew F. Smith typically focus on culinary history. Earlier books include The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery, Pure Ketchup: The History of America's National Condiment, and Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America. In addition to these, he has also published a curriculum guide to international conflict and an award-winning biography titled The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John C. Bennett.

The Saintly Scoundrel in part explores John C. Bennett's "involvement with the Mormons, initially as an ardent advocate and then as a disillusioned dissident," summarized Newell G. Bringhurst in the Western Historical Quarterly. Bringhurst noted the biography also explores Bennett's role in a wide array of other activities, including his successful attempt to popularize the eating of tomatoes. Harold T. Muir, in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, called The Saintly Scoundrel "an important new volume of Mormon history." Bringhurst concluded that the book "is a significant scholarly contribution, an essential starting point in efforts to understand John C. Bennett and his times."

Smith once told CA: "Have you ever had the urge to pull a thread sticking out of a garment? For the past ten years of my life, I've been pulling intellectual threads and writing about the results. During the late 1980s, I ran across the legend of Robert Gibbon Johnson eating the first tomato in America in Salem, New Jersey. According to several versions, thousands of people showed up to watch Johnson die as he bit into the poisonous love apple on September 26, 1820. As each version had crucial differences, I decided to research the story to find out what really happened. After a year of exploration, I concluded that it was unlikely that this event ever took place. I wrote up my account of this example of how a local yarn became national legend and submitted it for publication in New Jersey History. Its publication encouraged me to explore the tomato history further. Specifically, I examined the question of how and when the tomato was introduced into what is today the United States, which in turn led to the publication of my first book, The Tomato in America.

"As I researched the tomato, I uncovered two exciting stories. The first was that of John Cook Bennett who proclaimed that the tomato cured almost every known illness. I amassed so much fascinating information that I wrote a biography, The Saintly Scoundrel, which explores among many other topics, the early history of Mormonism. The second unusual story was the history of ketchup. I located hundreds of strange ketchup recipes without tomatoes but with mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, et cetera. As I had only been exposed to tomato ketchup, I found these recipes surprising. I decided to conduct further research, which ended up in my third book, Pure Ketchup, which examined the pure food movement and the industrialization of food. When I started researching popcorn, many friends ask why I was writing about a joke food. After extensive research, I found that popcorn had a most unusual history, and that it was tied in with the Depression, movie theaters, World War II, and inventions such as the microwave oven.

"Finally, I've always loved tomato soup. Like Andy Warhol, I was served it almost every day for lunch when I was a child. So to write a book on tomato soup was a delight that took me back to my own childhood as well as a chance to explore the canning industry in America. Souper Tomatoes: The Story of America's Favorite Food was the result of this exploration.

"The genesis of my other works followed similar paths. I located unusual stories and pursued them. I have found that threads are not isolated phenomena, but are interwoven into the fabric of our lives. Unraveling the stories behind common threads tells us something about ourselves as Americans and offers insight into what it means to be human."

As editor-in-chief of the two-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Smith approaches the entire range of foods in 770 alphabetically arranged entries contributed by chefs, cookbook authors, and food writers that look at food from every imaginable perspective, including ethnic, regional, cultural, and religious. Food innovators like Clarence Birdseye have individual entries, as do many famous chefs. Also included are articles on various food franchises, cooking utensils and appliances, foods represented by identifiable icons, Web sites, directories, and food-related organizations. An index aids in cross-referencing. Not every conceivable subject has its own entry, but many that don's are mentioned in others. Nearly forty pages are devoted to Native American foods, with subcategories and sidebars noting history and recipes, and Southern regional cooking is well covered. The volumes include black-and-white historical reproductions. Joyce Adams Burner wrote in the School Library Journal that "this is an encyclopedic smorgasbord where readers can either casually graze multiple offerings or choose a single topic and dig in."

The Turkey: An American Story is Smith's history of the bird, its domestication and use as a dish, and various preparation techniques. He also describes the unhappy life and death of a contemporary commercial turkey, and the constant "improvement" of the birds, to the extent that their broad breasts now prevent them from mating and even comfortably standing, much unlike the original wild birds, who procreated vigorously, as was noted by John James Audubon. Smith relates the true history of Thanksgiving, which really became a national celebration in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared the day of thanks. The myth of the first Thanksgiving was created after the U.S. Civil War, but it did become a significant way for immigrants to participate in their new American lives. Turkeys became nearly extinct because of over-hunting, but in the twentieth century, preservation efforts have resulted in increasing numbers of flocks.

Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea is a history of the humble legume that was once considered food fit only for the lower classes. But in the South, the peanut was used for its oil when whale oil became unavailable during the Civil War, and then for a great variety of uses as a food product. Smith accurately places George Washington Carver in the history of the peanut. He also notes the peanut's discovery by sixteenth-century European explorers. A reviewer for M2 Best Books wrote: "I have to admit to being quite staggered by the depth of information in this book. It's not just surprising that the history is so lengthy and diverse but that it has been made so interesting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, p. 687.

Courier News (Chicago, IL), August 11, 1999, Lisa Messinger, review of Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America.

Historian, winter, 2004, Richard H. Steckel, review of Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea, p. 851.

John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, Volume 18, 1998, Harold T. Muir, review of The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John C. Bennett, pp. 151-153.

Journal of Southern History, November, 2003, Donna R. Gabaccia, review of Peanuts, p. 1002.

Library Journal, February 15, 2005, Julie James, review of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, p. 160.

M2 Best Books, April 30, 2003, review of Peanuts.

Petits Propos Culinaires, Number 64, 2000, review of Souper Tomatoes: The Story of America's Favorite Food.

Press-Gazette (Green Bay, WI), January 11, 2000, Kristin Eddy, review of Popped Culture.

Publishers Weekly, November 8, 2004, review of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, p. 45; September 18, 2006, review of The Turkey: An American Story, p. 47.

School Library Journal, April, 2005, Joyce Adams Burner, review of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, p. 85.

Science News, October 12, 2002, review of Peanuts, p. 239.

Weekly Standard, November 27, 2006, Emily Yoffe, review of America's Bird.

Western Historical Quarterly, spring, 1999, Newell G. Bringhurst, review of The Saintly Scoundrel, pp. 88-89.

ONLINE

Andrew F. Smith Home Page,http://www.andrewfsmith.com (February 4, 2007).