Episode
Tea, Cake & the American Revolution with Nancy Siegel
- Published
- Jul 4, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2699
- Processing state
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- https://the-british-food-history-podcast.captivate.fm
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Summary
Happy 4th of July to my listeners in the USA…and all of those around the world who also celebrate the day! It’s a big one because the US is celebrating 250 years of independence this year. And to mark this special day, I have a special guest, Professor Nancy Siegel, and we are going to talk about the roles food and drink – especially tea and cake – played. Nancy Siegal is Professor of Art History and Culinary History at Towson University, Maryland. She specialises in American landscape studies, underrepresented women artists of the 19th century, print culture, and culinary history of the 18th and 19th centuries. Lucky for me, Nancy was in London, visiting the British Library at the same time I was in London, so we got to record this conversation in person in the breakfast room of Nancy’s hotel, the Harlingford Hotel – a big thank you to them. Nancy has an excellent book that isn’t out until the autumn, but I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at it, called Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America , published by Johns Hopkins University Press. In that book, Nancy documents the roles food and drinks, especially tea (and its trappings) played in the colonists of North America wanting to sever their ties with Britain, and how food was used to help distance themselves culturally from the British – at first the colonists very much identified as British. We talk about the tax on tea and the Boston Tea Party, tea alternatives, culinary activists such as the women of Edenton, giant independence cakes, Amelia Simmons, and how the people of the new USA used food and drink to culturally distance themselves from the British – amongst many other things. Those listening to the secret podcast get LOADS of bonus material where we discuss George III’s botanist,…