Covering <i>Gastronomica</i>

When I joined the Gastronomica Editorial Collective in 2018, I took on the role of cover art liaison. This wasn’t a formal appointment, but because I have long appreciated the visual components of Gastronomica, I thought I could contribute by participating in discussions about potentially eye-catching and expressive covers for the journal.Over time this role has expanded to include conducting research for covers that do not have a clear favorite among the images provided by an issue’s authors. Diving into photo collections is a familiar mode of research and one I’ve carried out for many projects as a museum curator, where objects, documents, photographs, and other archival materials are the main building blocks of exhibitions and other types of museum programs created for the public. However, finding images that relate to the content of specific journal articles is only part of the quest: the photo / artwork must be available at a high resolution for crispness and clarity on the page and must also fit within, or be cropped without losing essential elements, to meet the size and orientation requirements for the Gastronomica cover. Landscape-oriented images prove difficult; portrait formats are preferred.Typically, I search for images that are available from public collections, particularly those that have straightforward processes for securing permissions, and, importantly, that are free of charge. That last requirement can be limiting, but happily there are collections of historic photographs and prints in public archives, libraries, and museums that are in the public domain. When a contemporary image is called for, we also search Flickr Commons and other online sources that are likely to carry images more closely aligned with today’s food issues and topics. And, occasionally, we have persuaded photographer friends or family to supply a particular image, as I did for the cover of the Editorial Collective’s first issue, Volume 19, No. 2, the “egg cover,” by Carl Fleischhauer1. At some point, I suppose, an editor may opt for an AI-generated image, but the current cover art liaison is firmly (quaintly?) old-school about photographs.While browsing archival collections, I often run across striking images that don’t fit the journal’s immediate needs, so I make note of the appropriate links and sources and move on. For example, an image made in 2014 by photographer Carol M. Highsmith caught my eye, but the dimensions are all wrong for the journal’s cover. I made a note of it just in case a future article needed a photograph of a roadside chile stand in the American Southwest. This photo shouts optimistic commercial enterprise: the freshly painted structure with decorative flourishes—dancing red and green gendered chiles—presents a stunning contrast to the surrounding arid and desolate landscape.For this anniversary issue, I revisited my notes on potential photographs for Gastronomica and selected a few that I had flagged because they depict food markets and vendors in various cities at the turn of the twentieth century. They are all from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection at the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC. Founded in the late 1890s by William A. Livingstone, Jr., a Detroit businessman, and Edwin H. Husher, a photographer and photo-publisher, the company made its mark by securing the exclusive rights to a process developed in Switzerland for converting black-and-white photographs into color images and printing them using photolithography. This process made possible the mass production of color postcards and prints that appealed to American consumers at the time. Livingstone convinced the prominent American landscape photographer William Henry Jackson to join the company, resulting in thousands of negatives depicting cities, towns, buildings, and other landscape features to be added to the company’s holdings. As sales of photographs and postcards declined during World War I, and with cheaper printing methods becoming more widely available, the Detroit Publishing Company went out of business in 1932. The Library of Congress acquired their collection in 1949.2I imagine the selection of images here will be of interest to food studies students, scholars, and general readers alike. While these images seem not to have been given the photochrom treatment, the hi-res black and white scans from the original negatives offer much to explore and it’s worth taking time to read the scenes in each photograph. Note the vendors—all men, including some men of color who are characterized as “typical vegetable men” in one official caption. Their wares—mostly fruit and vegetables, but don’t miss the chickens—suggest relationships or arrangements with growers and producers not pictured. Of special note are the carts and contexts—a large market building in Havana, various city streets, a beach in New Jersey, all places where customers are likely to be found and in need of provisions. The prevalence of horses evokes a sense of pre-automotive streetscapes and street foods, while the scene from Baltimore raises questions about a neighborhood in transition, perhaps recently damaged or under construction, or the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire in 1904? The social dimension of food procurement is also suggested in several of the images as customers eye the offerings or, in the case of clams on Mulberry Bend in New York City, observe a sampling. Although the Detroit Publishing Company did not provide detailed descriptions for the photographs, much about food and commerce can be gleaned from the views themselves and, as always, through additional research (perhaps an assignment for food studies students?). But for now, take a moment to appreciate Gastronomica’s twenty-five-year commitment to visual communication and explore some views of food on the streets at the dawn of the twentieth century. And while these aren’t candidates for covers right now, their content and visual power to evoke food and social spaces, community and commerce, and perhaps even someone’s supper, are welcome within our pages.