Marketplace

Forgotten events, buildings, businesses and people helped shape Yakima. Vice dominated the city's early landscape when it was called North Yakima. Gambling halls and saloons like the Alfalfa Saloon bustled, while hotels such as the Sydney and Empire offered respite. Primitive circuses, underground tunnels, South Front Street opium dens and the arrival of a crossdresser named Nell Pickerell created further strife. City hall's understaffed police force and overcrowded jail complicated matters. Fires in 1890 and 1907 consumed several of the early structures--sometimes twice--keeping firefighters frayed. The Asian community thrived despite racial tensions until the forced evacuation of Japanese residents in 1942. Author Ellen Allmendinger uncovers what remains overlooked and veiled from sight.

For 100 miles along the western edge of Washington State, an unusual agricultural community hugs the Pacific shoreline. Bogs of bright cranberries stretch from the Long Beach Peninsula at the mouth of the Columbia River north to Grayland, Ocean Shores, and Copalis Crossing. Here, along this remote stretch of stormy seacoast, is a prime farming center for a fruit that grows in very few areas on earth. For countless centuries before pioneer settlement, indigenous peoples harvested the wild cranberries that thrived in boggy regions of the coast. When enterprising mid-19th-century settlers saw the possibilities for a vigorous cranberry farming venture, they faced many challenges before success could be achieved. Theirs is the story of hardworking, forward-thinking people who have become leaders in their field.

Dust for Blood

During World War II, a group of potato farmers opened the first migrant labor camp in Suffolk County to house farmworkers from Jamaica. Over the next twenty years, more than one hundred camps of various sizes would be built throughout the region. Thousands of migrant workers lured by promises of good wages and decent housing flocked to Eastern Long Island, where they were often cheated out of pay and housed in deadly slum-like conditions. Preyed on by corrupt camp operators and entrapped in a feudal system that left them mired in debt, laborers struggled and, in some cases, perished in the shadow of New York’s affluence. Author Mark A. Torres reveals the dreadful history of Long Island’s migrant labor camps from their inception to their peak in 1960 and their steady decline in the following decades.

Winner of the Joseph F. Meany Award by the Association of Public Historians of New York State.

A History of Connecticut Food aims to acquaint the reader with the long and storied relationship of the state's people and their provisions.

Each chapter will focus on a different crop, livestock, game, or prepared dish that Connecticut has either pioneered or made its own. Along with these brief histories, the book will feature traditional and modernized recipes. In short, A History of Connecticut Food will both inform the people of Connecticut about their culinary past and inspire them to explore it.

Centrally located between Ithaca and Cortland, New York, Dryden was once part of the Iroquois hunting grounds and lands until General Sullivan led a campaign to rid the area of hostile Indians during the Revolutionary War. Settled in the spring of 1797 by Amos Sweet and named for playwright and poet John Dryden, the town has become a leader of agriculture and business, with experimental agriculture fields and state-of-the-art dairy farms located on large tracts of land throughout the Dryden township. Dryden is surrounded by hubs of higher education, innovative industry, and agriculture.

Nevada County's tumultuous wine history includes several booms and busts, starting in the 1850s when gold prospectors brought the first grapevines in their saddlebags. Economic downturns, prohibition and war all tried to kill the fledgling wine industry, but it hung on thanks to gentleman farmers and members of the mining industry who supplied a thirsty clientele. Today, although the mines have gone quiet, wineries are thriving in the hills of the Gold Country, and the pioneering spirit lives on in their distinctive vintages and growing techniques. Join author Mary Anne Davis as she explores the family vineyards of the California foothills.

Florida cuisine: twelve thousand years in the making, discover the the state's unusual and distinctive food influences and dishes.

From the very first prickly pears harvested by Paleo-Indians more than twelve thousand years ago to the Seminole tribe's staple dish of sofkee, Florida's culinary history is as diverse as its geography. Influences as diverse as French, Creole, Spanish, Cuban, Greek, Mexican, Caribbean, and more season Florida's eclectic flavors. Learn how Florida orange juice changed the look of the American breakfast table and discover the state's festival-worthy swamp cabbage. Through syllabubs, perloos, frog legs and Tupelo honey, author Joy Sheffield Harris serves up a delectable helping of five hundred years of Florida cuisine--all with a side of key lime pie, of course.

The culinary history of Myrtle Beach reflects a unique merging of Native American, European, African and Caribbean cuisines.

Learn the techniques used by enslaved Africans created vast wealth for rice plantation owners; what George Washington likely ate when visiting South Carolina in 1791; how the turpentine industry gave rise to a sticky sweet potato cooking method; and why locals eagerly anticipate one special time of year when boiled peanuts are at their best. Author Becky Billingsley, a longtime Myrtle Beach-area restaurant journalist, digs deep into historic records and serves up both tantalizing personal interviews and dishes on the best local restaurants, where many delicious farm-to-table heritage foods can still be enjoyed.

Long before the era of the foodie, the little coal-mining town of Krebs set the standard for celebrating food in Oklahoma. Its reputation as the Sooner State's Little Italy began in the mid-1870s when Italian immigrants chased the coal boom to Pittsburg County, deep in the heart of the Choctaw Nation. After 150 years, Italians and Choctaw neighbors are now bound by pasta, homemade cheeses and sausages and native beer once brewed illegally in basement bathtubs and delivered by children from door to door. Stop by for a steak at GiaComo's, a Choc at Pete's Place, lamb fries at the Isle of Capri, gnocchi at Roseanna's or a gourd of caciocavallo at Lovera's--venues that have proven impervious to time and hardship. Join Food Dude Dave Cathey on a tour through this colorful and delicious history.

In the late 1800s, Georgia and the Carolinas produced millions of pounds of honey and created a lasting legacy within the industry. The uses for the sweet nectar go well beyond flavor. Bee pollination extensively benefits agricultural crops in the area. Elements from the beehive are commonly used in popular cosmetics, medicines and mead. Beekeepers also face serious challenges like Colony Collapse Disorder. Join author and beekeeper April Aldrich as she traces the delectable history of honey and beekeeping throughout the region, from ancient apiaries to modern meaderies and beyond.

New Jersey's bounty is ripe for the picking. The state boasts thousands of thriving farms, hundreds of CSAs, dozens of community farmers' markets and countless residents dedicated to the locavore lifestyle. Jersey food writer and chef Rachel J. Weston takes a seasonal tour of the state, showcasing the bounty that its down-to-earth farmers, creative artisan producers and innovative chefs produce for their patrons throughout the year. See how globally inspired cuisine representing New Jersey's diverse population is created and adapted using locally sourced products. Savor a juicy August peach, pucker up for a tart cranberry in October and nourish body and soul with local bok choy, asparagus and tomatoes. With local recipes for every season, this book shows why New Jersey is the Garden State.