COOKING UP HISTORY VIDEOS

These educational cooking videos were produced by A Taste of History with Joyce White in partnership with Hammond-Harwood House Museum in Annapolis, Maryland for use by students to nurture an understanding of food's role in shaping history, culture, and society.

This episode of Hammond-Harwood House's Cooking Up History series, Discovering Chocolate’s Secrets, is all about everyone’s favorite topic, chocolate and its history. While most people love to eat chocolate, many do not have any idea where it comes from or how it’s made. The goal of this short video is to help unlock these secrets and make clear how seeds of a tropical fruit are transformed into a luscious confection while also understanding a bit about chocolate’s fascinating history that goes back centuries.  

This video includes chocolate making demonstrations using a mano e metate, a tabletop electric melangeur (stone grinder), and a way for students to grind their own chocolate at home in a blender.  

This video is designed to enhance the grade 5 Maryland social studies curriculum standard that promotes the study of people of the United States and the world to acknowledge the diversity and commonality of the human experience but can be enjoyed by anyone at any age.

Want to learn a bit about Maryland’s dairy history and how to make butter? 

This fun and educational video, produced by A Taste of History with Joyce White, is designed for children, ages 6-10 years old--but with three cute helpers (2 super cute little girls and an equally adorable little dog), it can be enjoyed by anyone!   

Dairy is the perfect theme for March because it honors spring, a season associated with dairy production, and also recognizes HHH’s direct ties to the dairy industry in Maryland. The builder of the c.1774 house, Matthias Hammond, lived at Howard’s Adventure, a plantation located in Gambrills where there is little doubt dairy products were produced there, most likely by enslaved women. In addition, in 1913 the property became the dairy farm for the United States Naval Academy, was then home to the Horizon Organic Dairy Farm, and even now remains a dairy farm operated by the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks.  

This educational video is geared for children, aged 6 -10, but can be enjoyed by anyone, even adults. A brief history of butter and cheese is sketched, and instructions for how butter was made by hand in the 18th and 19th centuries is also provided. Instructions for making your own butter using multiple methods is also given. Finally, the types of cheeses imported into Maryland in the 18th and 19th centuries is explored, with a focus on Pineapple Cheese.