Uncategorized

British Assault on the Home of Pie a la Mode

admin

“The British are coming” is the warning shouted in Washington County as the British TV Chef Gordon Ramsey comes to the historic Cambridge Hotel this week. Ramsey is expanding his Fox TV shows beyond cooking to remaking hotels in a new program called Hotel Hell. The concept of the show is “help fix struggling, privately owned hotels, inns and bed-and-breakfasts in destination towns across the U.S.”

“The Cambridge Hotel holds 126 year history of housing local celebrations and so seems to have a very permanent part in the memory of the people of our community,” explains General Manager Shea Imhof. “Often folks stop in to see us and share pictures and stories from their 1960&#8242-s wedding or speak to how the whole family gathered for an elders passing. These memories are made stronger by sharing them in the setting in which they were made which is in part why we strive to exist.”

Today, the Cambridge Hotel is a hotel run by the Imhof family. It is best known for inventing pie a la mode, (French for “according to the fashion&#8221) apple pie with vanilla ice cream. In the 1890s, Professor Charles Watson Townsend dined regularly at the Cambridge Hotel. He would frequently end his meal with an ice cream topped apple pie, which another diner called “pie a la mode.”

While dining at the famous Delmonico’s restaurant in Manhattan, Townsend requested his favorite dessert and was met with blank stares from the waiters. Townsend was quoted as saying &#8220Call the manager at once. I demand as good service here as I get in Cambridge.&#8221 Townsend was overheard by a newspaperman from the New York Sun, who reported in the next paper about Delmonico’s working to recreate the dessert served in Cambridge Hotel. The story was repeated and pie a la mode became a standard menu item at restaurants across the country.

Townsend died in 1936 at the age of 87 and his New York Times obituary notes that he &#8220inadvertently originated pie a la mode.&#8221 There are some conflicting reports including Barry Popnik’s The Big Apple that mentions the dish appears to have been first served at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. However this being a New York History site, we are going to stick with the Cambridge Hotel as the inventors of pie a la mode.

The other little tidbit is that apple pie isn’t American, it’s British. There were no apple trees or pies in America before the British settled according to a recent Historic Foodways blog posting from Colonial Williamsburg.

It may be just dessert that a British Chef is helping to remake a historic American hotel best known for pie a la mode.

Sean Kelleher is the Historian for the Town of Saratoga and Village of Victory in the Upper Hudson Valley. He served as the Director of the Washington County Fair Farm Museum, and worked with a number of Champlain, Hudson and Mohawk Valleys historic sites on grant writing, interpretive planning, and marketing.

Lawrence Gooley: Occupy Movement History Lessons

admin

Despite the wisdom of elders and some noted quotations (“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it”), we are often caught up in another axiom that defines insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.” It struck me recently that followers of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement should read pertinent history to avoid the results of the past when issues of the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent have surfaced.

As for the two opposing arguments, that the extreme wealth of the 1 percent should have limits, and that the 99ers are waging class warfare against our wealthiest citizens &#8230- timely, new, and forward-thinking, right? Think again.

If you enjoy history, you’ll probably enjoy this headline from 105 years ago, appearing in The New York Times of January 6, 1907: “The Country’s Wealth: Is 99 percent of it in the Hands of 1 percent of the People.” Similar stories appeared in many other publications.

What happened then is happening again today: supporters of the 99ers are speaking out on behalf of the unemployed, the underemployed, the underpaid, and the poor. The other position is defended by those who feed off the 1 percent (the “trickle-down theory”) and so must serve as their bullhorn.

And as usual, the 1 percent itself remains largely silent, content to have others speak for them. Depending on how it all plays out, they’ll be either less rich or more rich … but still rich.

Those siding with the 1 percent have declared the Occupy Wall Street movement as “class warfare against the wealthy.” Were they using a new catchphrase to encapsulate such a huge issue? Hardly. A catchphrase, yes, but new? Check out these three quotations.

Pro 99: “The cry of class warfare was raised against us by the government and wealthy classes as pure propaganda in the hope of enlisting sympathy of the public against labor.”

Pro the 1 percent (regarding tax loopholes for the wealthy): “… to collect the taxes, the administration now seeks to attack the rich and the thrifty. This becomes part and parcel of the class warfare which has been waged … to gain popular favor with the masses.”

And finally, pro 99, who are characterized by some media as lazy, shifty, and troublemakers: “A peculiarity of all professional agitators of class warfare in the United States is their personal aversion to toil. Many of them never did a day’s work at manual labor. They know no more about the working people of America than a pig knows about Christmas, yet profess to be the tireless champions of the working class … and have hit upon a plan for feathering their nests without ever laying an egg. They just cackle and collect.”

Those quotations are from 1920, 1937, and 1949, respectively, but they sound like excerpts from today’s 24/7 “news” broadcasts. The OWS folks might be well served by researching protests of years past to prepare for arguments made against the movement. We’ve been here before.

Perhaps by knowing the questions that have been asked so many times in the past, along with the answers that were given, there might be hope for a different outcome.

But for observers who look at history to see what has gone before us, it’s hard not to subscribe to another famous axiom: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” General translation: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Photo: NY Times headline, January 6, 1907.

Lawrence Gooley has authored ten books and dozens of articles on the North Country’s past. He and his partner, Jill McKee, founded Bloated Toe Enterprises in 2004. Expanding their services in 2008, they have produced 19 titles to date, and are now offering web design. For information on book publishing, visit Bloated Toe Publishing.

Frick Collection Director Charles Ryskamp’s Bequest

admin

Over the course of fifty years-from the 1950s until his death in 2010 at the age of eighty-one-former Frick Collection Director Charles A. Ryskamp (1928-2010) assembled an extraordinary personal trove of European drawings. Reflecting on his pursuits in 2009, Dr. Ryskamp remarked, &#8220I have always believed that giving, as much as acquiring, is the principle of my collecting.&#8221

This spirit of sharing is embodied in a group of ten superb drawings that he bequeathed to the Frick, selected from among his large and varied collection by Anne L. Poulet, Director Emerita, and curators Colin B. Bailey and Susan Grace Galassi.

Other sheets were donated to The Morgan Library & Museum, where Dr. Ryskamp served as Director from 1969 to 1987, or auctioned at Sotheby’s for the benefit of Princeton University, where he began his career as a professor of literature. The works bequeathed to the Frick enlarged the museum’s holdings in drawings them by nearly a third, while complementing the permanent collection’s focus on landscape and figural subjects.

This winter and spring the Frick celebrates Charles Ryskamp’s generosity-and discerning taste-with an exhibition of the works from his bequest. The drawings, which have never before been shown at the Frick, will be presented in the Cabinet, a space created by Dr. Ryskamp during his tenure as Director from 1987 to 1997 and intended especially for the display of works on paper. The installation is accompanied by two oil-on-paper studies of clouds by John Constable, which Dr. Ryskamp was instrumental in bringing to the Collection. A Passion for Drawings: Charles Ryskamp’s Bequest to The Frick Collection wasorganized by Katie L. Steiner and Nicholas Wise, Curatorial Assistants, The Frick Collection.

Illustration: Pierre-Joseph Redoute (1759-1840), Plum Branches Intertwined, 1802-4, watercolor on vellum, 31.9 x 26.3 cm, The Frick Collection, bequest of Charles A. Ryskamp, 2010- Photo: Michael Bodycomb.

This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

admin

Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top weblinks about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.

Subscribe! More than 2,300 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

Students Write About Place, Win Class Trips

admin

Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV) has announced the winners of its first student writing contest. Three winning writers and their classmates will visit the places they wrote about with costs covered by a THV Explore Award.

Aayushi Jha, a fifth grader at Main Street School in Irvington, is the elementary school winner. Her essay, Tug of War, describes an experience aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Aayushi’s teacher, Susan Wallace, responded to the announcement with this note, “WOW! We are so THRILLED! Thank you so much for offering this opportunity to the future
environmentalists and writers of the world!” You can read Aayushi’s essay online.

“Climbing up Bonticou Crag, I split open the wilderness,” is the provocative opening line of Looking Topside Down, a poem about the Mohonk Preserve by high school winner Nicole Yang. The middle school winner is seventh grader Emilie Hostetter who wrote a poem about Minnewaska State Park called I Did Not Know. Nicole and Emilie are students of Janine Guadagno at Tabernacle Christian Academy in Poughkeepsie. You can read both poems here.

“We received many wonderful and inspiring pieces of writing,” said THV coordinator Debi Duke. “Although we could have only three winners, we’re looking forward to publishing more student writers throughout the winter and spring. Essays about Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val kill in Hyde Park, the replica of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon, and Muscoot Farm in Westchester County
are among those readers can watch for.”

National Park Service Recruiting Amtrak Guides

admin

The National Park Service will hold a volunteer recruiting session on Saturday February 4 at 1pm in the Erie Canalway/Peebles Island Visitor Center at 1 Delaware, Avenue, Cohoes or on Sunday February 26 at 1pm at Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites at 4097 Albany Post Road in Hyde Park.

Volunteers are provided uniforms and training on the history of the area, then are scheduled aboard the Adirondack or Maple Leaf trains to present various educational programs about the significant examples of the natural, cultural, and historical resources of each route.

Three national parks represented along the train routes are Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites, Saratoga National Historical Park (the Battlefield) and Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.

Email or call Volunteer Manager, Joe LaLumia at [email protected] (518) 573-8628 to reserve your seat and learn more about this exciting volunteer opportunity. Visit the National Park Service Trails and Rails website.

This Weeks Top New York History News

admin

  • Etta James, Dies at 73
  • NYPL Announces Freedom of Information Day
  • Andrew Cuomo to be Subject of Biography
  • NYC Historic Designation Won’t Stop Project
  • Fort Ticonderoga Receives Award
  • Book Features SUNY’s Oldest Campus
  • 2012 Another Tight Year for SUNY

    • Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top stories about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.

    Subscribe! More than 2,300 people get New York History each day via E-mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

    Radical Schenectady:Industrial Workers of the World at G.E.

    admin

    Dr. Gerald Zahavi, professor of History and Director of the Documentary Studies Program at the University at Albany and also Director of the Schenectady General Electric in the 20th Century Oral History and Documentation Project, will present a talk entitled “Radical Schenectady: Industrial Workers of the World at G.E.&#8221 on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 6:00 p.m., at the Schenectady County Historical Society, 32 Washington Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12305.

    The cost of the program is $5.00, free for Schenectady County Historical Society members. For more information, please contact Librarian Melissa Tacke at 518-374-0263, option 3, or by email at [email protected].

    The Schenectady County Historical Society is wheelchair accessible, with off-street parking behind the building and overflow parking next door at the YWCA.

    A New Contributer: Saratoga Historian Sean Kelleher

    admin

    Please join all of us here at New York History in welcoming our newest contributor Sean Kelleher. Kelleher is the Historian for the Town of Saratoga and Village of Victory in the Upper Hudson Valley. He has a particular interest in colonial history, being active as a reenactor for 34 years and has served as a Commissioner on the New York State French and Indian War 250th Anniversary Commemoration Commission.

    Kelleher worked for a decade at a public television station, in addition to assisting on documentaries for PBS’s American Experience and the BBC. As an educator, he was a New Hampshire Council for the Social Studies Executive Board member and the Director of the New Hampshire Teacher Training Institute for Character and Citizenship Education. As a historian, he served as the Director of the Washington County Fair Farm Museum, and has designed a number of interpretive panels in his community. As a consultant, he has worked with a number of Champlain, Hudson and Mohawk Valleys historic sites on grant writing, interpretive planning, and marketing.

    He writes about colonial history, the upper Hudson River, commemorations, and history education.

    This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

    admin

    Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top weblinks about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.

    Subscribe! More than 2,300 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.