DVD 1: What We Eat: Old World Influence

Milk’s Leap Toward Immortality (The Story of Cheese)
People have been making cheese for over 5,000 years. Cheese has many advantages over milk. It is easy to travel with, takes up less space, and lasts longer. In America, cheese making was a skill that was passed from mother to daughter. Selling cheese gave women an independent source of income and helped them educate their daughters. As we learn how cheese is made and how over 2 billion gallons of milk are used to make cheese in California each year, we discover the major role women played in that industry’s development. Clarissa Steel is known as the mother of the California cheese industry.

Taking the High Grounds (The Story of Coffee)
The first serious cultivation of coffee as a cash crop took place in Yemen during the 1400’s. Islamic pilgrims spread it throughout the Muslim world. This program looks at the discovery of coffee, its ability to control the economy of major nations and its role in both the American and French Revolutions. A coffee tree, brought to the Americas by a French Lieutenant, flourished when he planted it in Martinique. Coffee went on to become a major crop in the Western Hemisphere.

Simple Pleasures (Mediterranean Foods in the Americas)
The staples of the Mediterranean diet- wheat bread, wine and olive oil- were not present in the Americas before Columbus. When the Spanish colonists settled in America, the foods they brought with them from the Mediterranean were blended into the foods available in America and a new hybrid cuisine was developed. This program looks at the history of the foods of the Mediterranean and how they affected people in Europe and the Americas.

Here’s Looking at You, Kid (The Story of Wine in the Americas)
This program looks at the importation of winemaking skills to America by the Spanish colonists, who were concerned that they had entered a world created by a devil that had no use for wine and its relationship to Christ. In 1524 grapevines were brought from Europe and planted in Mexico, but the weather proved to be too harsh. Cultivation of grapes in South America was more successful, but early attempts at wine making in the Colonies were dismal. Not until the Franciscans moved North in California with cuttings from Mexico did wine-making find its place in America. After the Gold Rush of the 1800’s, Chinese laborers worked the vineyards that would some day establish America as one of the premier wine making countries of the world.