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Family Tree Food Stories

Family Tree Food Stories

Written by: Nancy May & Sylvia France
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Family Tree, Food & Stories podcast will take you on a mouthwatering journey through generations of flavor! We're digging up and sharing the juiciest family secrets, hilarious dinner table disasters, and the heartwarming moments that make your favorite foods, meals, and relationships unforgettable. From Great-Grandma's legendary cheese crust apple pie to that questionable casserole your Uncle Bob swears by. With Family Tree, Food, and Stories, we're serving a feast of laughter, tears, and everything in between. So, are you ready to uncover and share those unforgettable stories behind every bite and create some new memories along the way? Join our growing family of food enthusiasts and storytellers as we Eat, laugh, relive the past, and learn how to create new memories together because. . . every recipe has a story, and every story is a feast.Copyright 2026 Nancy May & Sylvia France Relationships Social Sciences
Episodes
  • The Founding Fathers’ Dinner Table Was a Lie: Food of The American Revolution

    The Founding Fathers’ Dinner Table Was a Lie: Food of The American Revolution
    Jul 16 2026
    George Washington, Rented Pineapples, America’s First Food Flex. What the rich really ate, and who actually made it.What if the Founding Fathers’ dinner table was less about elegance and more about power, performance, and people history forgot? Similar to today's power rooms.In this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories, Nancy May and Sylvia France continue their America 250 Revolutionary food series by sharing the dinner table with America’s colonial gentry. At first glance, these tables looked grand: French-style service, groaning boards (you'll learn what that is later in the show), turtle soup, Madeira wine, fancy sugar, rented fruit, and summer ice cream served, all while much of the country could barely keep drinking water safe and cool.But behind all that fancy food, there was a more real and sharper story. George Washington’s daily breakfast really was very simple: cornmeal hoecakes, for a reason. Thomas Jefferson often treated meat more like a condiment than the main event. The rich weren't always eating completely different foods from everyone else. They were eating the same basic ingredients but with more expensive toppings, imported luxuries, and better marketing. The wild part is that they even created the appearance of luxury by renting fruit to make it look even fancier.Nancy and Sylvia also dig into the harder truth behind elite Revolutionary-era dining: the Founding Fathers did not cook these meals. But who did? Highly trained enslaved chefs and cooks, including James Hemings, Hercules Posey, Edith Fossett, and Fanny Hern, were the culinary talents behind many dishes and techniques later credited to the households of many Founding Fathers. Sadly, many of these fabulous chefs and cooks have only become footnotes in much of our history. But we're sharing here in this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories. This episode explores food, status, slavery, memory, myth, and how some recipes outlive the names of those who cooked them. It is a rich, funny, uncomfortable, and deeply human look at what America’s elite really ate, and who actually ate and fed them.5 Key Lessons & TakeawaysThe rich were not always eating totally different food.Washington’s meals were simple for a health reason.Colonial dinner parties were often pure theater. Wealthy tables were designed to impress, intimidate, and advertise status.The history of The Groaning Board: What was it?Some foods were locked up because of their value.The dinner table was a true "war room." Major political conversations and Revolutionary decisions happened over private meals, including strategy discussions and postwar bargains. The table was not just where people ate. It was where power negotiated with dessert nearby.The real culinary experts were often erased, but the recipes survived.Listen to the full episode at Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com, then join us in the Family Tree Food Stories Facebook group and tell us: whose recipe in your family deserves to have their name remembered?Because every meal has a story, and every story is a feast.What to do Next?Listen to “America Was Built on Beer, Bread, and Stolen Coffee” at Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com, then join us in the Family Tree Food Stories Facebook group and share the food story your family still carries.Because every meal has a story, and every story is a feast. Even those we make every day.Additional Links Shared:❤️Yaupon Tea, family-owned. When British tea just won't do.Book: My Family Tree, Food & Stories Journal Awarded #1 New Release on AmazonInstagram Story updates 📸Facebook Family Tree Food Stories GROUP👍TikTok: Family Tree Food Stories👇Share Your Story With Nancy & Sylvia!: Leave us a voicemailYou can send us a DM on Facebook.About Your Award-Winning Hosts: Nancy May and Sylvia France are the powerhouse team behind Family Tree, Food & Stories, a member of The Food Stories Media Network, which celebrates the rich traditions and connections everyone has around food, friends, and family meals. Nancy, an award-winning business leader, author, and podcaster, and Sylvia, a visionary author, foodie, and business leader, combine their expertise to bring captivating stories rooted in history, heritage, and food. Together, they weave stories that blend history, tradition, and the love of food, where generations connect and share intriguing mealtime stories and kitchen foibles.If you missed the first time around... now's your time to listen to Family Tree Food & Stories and get inspired to make better use of what’s already in your kitchen. Then visit our page to share how you're using your leftovers this year. Waste less. Cook smarter. Tell the story behind your fridge."Every Meal Has a Story, and Every Story is a Feast." (tm) is a trademark of Family Tree Food & Stories podcast (c) copyright 2026, all US and International Rights Reserved. @familytreefoodstories, @familyfoodstories, @riseyaupon, #FamilyTreeFoodAndStories #FoodPodcast #FoodHistory #...
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    26 mins
  • America Was Built on Beer, Bread, and Stolen Coffee: Food of the American Revolution (Part #2)

    America Was Built on Beer, Bread, and Stolen Coffee: Food of the American Revolution (Part #2)
    Jul 9 2026
    How did ordinary families feed a revolution when tea was suspicious, water was risky, and coffee was worth stealing?From liberty tea and eight-pound bread to women-led food riots, this is the everyday kitchen rebellion that fed America’s fight for independence.In this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories, Nancy May and Sylvia France continue their America 250 Revolutionary food series by stepping into the everyday kitchens that helped feed our new nation. After the Boston Tea Party, British tea became more than a drink. It became a political statement. So colonial families brewed “liberty tea” from mint, raspberry leaf, sassafras, goldenrod, and other homegrown herbs.That's only the beginning, though. From New England’s eight-pound rye-and-corn bread to Southern cornmeal mush, Brunswick stew, Hoppin’ John, cider, small beer, oysters, eels, and even pigeon pie, this episode shares what common, or average Americans actually ate during the American Revolution.Nancy and Sylvia also dig into the home-front food rebellion, which most of us have rarely been taught. Women were real activists of the time. They led food riots, hoarded coffee, pushed salt shortages, used preservation tricks, and did the hard math to make sure their families didn't go hungry. They were the bargain hunters of the time.In this episode, Nancy and Sylvia also share the names of the nearly forgotten American cooks and chefs, as well as those who made sure everyone could have the recipe in the first American kitchen cookbook.This is part #2 of the Family Tree Food & Stories series about the food history of Revolutionary America from the people who lived it daily: the families who stretched scraps, boiled herbs, preserved meat, shared cups, fed voters, and built a national cuisine one plate at time.Some key takeawaysThe Boston Tea Party changed breakfast. After British tea became politically dangerous, many Americans turned to homegrown “liberty tea” that they made themselves.There was no single “colonial meal.” New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the South ate very differently because geography, soil, crops, trade, and culture shaped the table.Beer was not just for fun. Small beer and cider were often safer, and even children drank weak beer.Women held the home front together. Like they have for centuries during hard times.American cuisine was built from necessity, Indigenous crops, immigrant influence, and forgotten cooks. Corn, squash, beans, regional breads, stews, preserved foods, and Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery helped shape the earliest American food identity.What to do Next?Listen to “America Was Built on Beer, Bread, and Stolen Coffee” at Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com, then join us in the Family Tree Food Stories Facebook group and share the food story your family still carries.Because every meal has a story, and every story is a feast. Even those we make every day.Additional Links Shared:❤️Yaupon Tea, family-owned. When British tea just won't do.Book: My Family Tree, Food & Stories Journal Awarded #1 New Release on AmazonInstagram Story updates 📸Facebook Family Tree Food Stories GROUP👍TikTok: Family Tree Food Stories👇Share Your Story With Nancy & Sylvia!: Leave us a voicemailYou can send us a DM on Facebook.About Your Award-Winning Hosts: Nancy May and Sylvia France are the powerhouse team behind Family Tree, Food & Stories, a member of The Food Stories Media Network, which celebrates the rich traditions and connections everyone has around food, friends, and family meals. Nancy, an award-winning business leader, author, and podcaster, and Sylvia, a visionary author, foodie, and business leader, combine their expertise to bring captivating stories rooted in history, heritage, and food. Together, they weave stories that blend history, tradition, and the love of food, where generations connect and share intriguing mealtime stories and kitchen foibles.If you missed the first time around... now's your time to listen to Family Tree Food & Stories and get inspired to make better use of what’s already in your kitchen. Then visit our page to share how you're using your leftovers this year. Waste less. Cook smarter. Tell the story behind your fridge."Every Meal Has a Story, and Every Story is a Feast." (tm) is a trademark of Family Tree Food & Stories podcast (c) copyright 2026, all US and International Rights Reserved. @familytreefoodstories, @familyfoodstories, @riseyaupon, #FamilyTreeFoodAndStories #FoodPodcast #FoodHistory #AmericanRevolution #America250 #revolutionaryWar #yaupontea, #libertytea, #colonialfood, #HistoryPodcast #FoodHistory #FamilyHistory #GenealogyPodcast #podcastEpisode, #foodie #foodPodcast #familyfun #homeschooling #stolencoffee #kitchenrebellion, #womeninhistory, #americancookery #foodriots, #historyyoudidntlearn #happybirthdayAmerica
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    31 mins
  • What did Revolutionary War soldiers eat? Colonals, Loyalists, and Allies on Both Sides?

    What did Revolutionary War soldiers eat? Colonals, Loyalists, and Allies on Both Sides?
    Jul 2 2026
    What did Revolutionary War soldiers eat? Broken supply chains, buggy fire cake, boiled shoe leather, and the allies who ate far better. Episode 93.On paper, Congress promised each man a pound of meat, a pound of bread, peas, beans, milk, and beer or cider every day. In practice, a broken supply chain meant that Continental soldiers often went without, surviving on bug-infested “fire cake,” and at Valley Forge, they were even known to boil shoe leather to make soup! Meanwhile, the French, Spanish, Hessian, and even British forces ate very differently, and quite deliciously too.Join Nancy May and Sylvia France here in the Family Tree Food & Stories podcast, as they kick off a four-part celebration of America's 250th birthday. Just to start, you'll learn what soldiers on every side of the Revolutionary War actually ate, including a real diary entry from a real Continental soldier who called a handful of pumpkin seeds fished out of a horse trough “the most delicious feast” he’d had in months.Congress’s official daily ration sounds generous on paper, but a broken supply chain, impassable roads, corrupt contractors, and the “Forage War,” where armies raided each other for hay, cattle, and grain. The results? What they really ate was bug-infested and disgusting. Some soldiers recorded boiling shoe leather and tree bark just to survive. Can you imagine?The real killer, though, wasn’t the British enemy; it was malnutrition and disease as a result of very few veggies in their diet. There were some pretty heroic Natives who came to the rescue when they could and taught our guys how to make spruce beer, which is very high in vitamin C. Nancy tasted it too. Really.The French might have been our first colonial food critics, too. While in the south, Spain’s Bernardo de Gálvez drove 2,000 Texas longhorn cattle to feed his troops and won the Siege of Pensacola; Nancy and Sylvia call them the first REAL Florida cowboys! They're likely right too.Women played an important food story role too. Want to know more, tune in to hear the story of Nancy Hart who used a turkey to capture a group of enemy soldiers, right in her kitchen!Key Takeaways and Lessons LearnedThe British didn’t starve the Continental Army; a broken supply chain did. Congress promised generous daily rations; soldiers got only a fraction of them due to bad roads, corrupt contractors, and the “Forage War,” in which armies raided each other’s food supplies outright.Hungry soldiers ate the weirdest things to survive. “Fire cake,” which is simply flour and water cooked on a hot rock. The flour was often loaded with bugs, too, and baked right into the bread. A Continental Army staple; at Valley Forge and Morristown, NJ, men were said to have boiled shoe leather and tree bark just to keep from starving.Scurvy, not the enemy, was the deadliest food-related problem of the war. A diet of salt meat and flour with almost no vegetables caused the most common illness of the entire war. Vinegar, sauerkraut, and spruce beer (learned from Native Americans) helped, decades before vitamin C was identified in 1932.America’s allies ate far better than our guys, and it mattered strategically. French bread ovens in Chatham, New Jersey, helped disguise the march to Yorktown; Spain’s Bernardo de Gálvez fed his troops with 2,000 Texas longhorn cattle and won the Siege of Pensacola, tying down British forces on the Gulf Coast.Women fed and sometimes saved the Revolution on regional battlefields. An Oneida woman, Polly Cooper, walked 250 miles to bring corn to the starving army at Valley Forge and refused payment; Georgia’s Nancy Hart was said to have disarmed loyalist soldiers over a turkey dinner, and a Georgia county still bears her name as a result of her heroic efforts, too.What to do Next:Follow Family Tree Food and Stories at podcast.familytreefoodstories.com so you don’t miss the rest of the series, and send this episode to someone who’d love the story of a turkey dinner that disarmed three soldiers. Tell us on Facebook between episodes what your own family ate, on either side of the Atlantic, and leave us a review, we read every one.Additional Links Shared:❤️Book: My Family Tree, Food & Stories Journal Awarded #1 New Release on AmazonInstagram Story updates 📸Facebook Family Tree Food Stories GROUP👍TikTok: Family Tree Food Stories👇Share Your Story With Nancy & Sylvia!: Leave us a voicemailYou can send us a DM on Facebook.About Your Award-Winning Hosts: Nancy May and Sylvia France are the powerhouse team behind Family Tree, Food & Stories, a member of The Food Stories Media Network, which celebrates the rich traditions and connections everyone has around food, friends, and family meals. Nancy, an award-winning business leader, author, and podcaster, and Sylvia, a visionary author, foodie, and business leader, combine their expertise to bring captivating stories rooted in history, heritage, and food. Together, they weave ...
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    37 mins
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