In this culinary age of locally sourced ingredients and retro recipes, food historian Sandy Oliver can make an honest claim to being there first. The Isleboro resident began her career in food history in 1971 when she founded the fireplace-cooking program at Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut. Oliver teaches historic recipe research and provides training programs in historic cooking for museum interpreters. She is the author of “Saltwater Foodways,” “Food in Colonial and Federal America” and “Maine Home Cooking: 175 Recipes From Downeast Kitchens.” In addition, Oliver writes the popular food blog, Taste Buds.

Oliver will bring her food-history expertise to Freeport in a Freeport Historical Society program on Sunday, Feb. 10, at 3 p.m., when she will offer a look at chocolate and its evolution in American cookery. The audience will have the opportunity to taste a 19th-century chocolate drink, sample two cakes made from historic recipes, as well as sample contemporary chocolates from Wilbur’s of Maine. It’s one of two chocolate-focused events scheduled. The Freeport Community Library will host its annual Chocolate Bash on Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 6:30 p.m. The event will feature chocolate treats to sample for $2 per person and raffles for items such as a basket of chocolate goodies.

Oliver recently took a few minutes of her time to discuss her research methods, antique kitchens and the problem with modern marmalade.

Q: Explain what a food historian does?

A: We dig around in narratives and newspapers from the past, read people’s letters and diaries, conduct archaeological digs, look at account books, examine old cookware and dishes, read novels and poems, look at paintings and at kitchens in old houses, look for any evidence of cooks and cooking, food and eating habits anywhere we can find it. In old cookbooks, too, in order to understand why we eat what we eat.

Q: How did you get interested in food history?

A: In 1971 I developed a fireplace-cooking program at Mystic Seaport and learned to cook on an open hearth using period recipes. It grabbed my interest and never let go.

Q: Is there a particular type of food that fascinates you?

A: The history of fish eating in New England is pretty interesting. Consider, for instance, the phrase “something is fishy about that” versus “let’s beef it up.”

Q: In the historical arc of food, what are some common causes of change?

A: Humans being displaced by outside forces or going to a new place by choice: refugees or immigrants being forced to make adaptations to new climates or food supply circumstances. Technological change and forces of commerce: the shift in the 20th century from sugar to corn syrup – a terribly important change as commerce began to use corn syrup in so many products. Others might include cultural forces – religious convictions, or persecution, or changing social mores – for example, increasing vegetarianism because of people’s disgust with animal raising.

Q: Are we eating better than we were 100 years ago?

A: That is a trick question. A hundred years ago, an awful lot of food was “fresh and local” and there was more grass-fed meat instead of feed-lot meat. You couldn’t buy bags of spinach washed in dirty water causing E coli infections in grocery stores, and hamburger was ground before your eyes in butcher shop, not in big production operations in the middle of the country somewhere. On the other hand, an orange was a special-occasion treat, and we can have them year round now. Freezing technology has made it possible for us to eat vegetables in very good condition at any time.

Q: What do you think we will be eating in 100 years?

A: Lord only knows, possibly less meat over all. Human kind doesn’t like to change its eating habits very much. We’ll be eating chocolate, drinking spirits, relishing steaks and crusty loaves of bread. We’ve had them for hundreds of years.

Q: What is your kitchen like at home?

A: Barely changed from the 1930s. Cast iron sink, zinc covered counter top, a pantry with a window, a Dual Atlantic combination gas and wood burning cookstove made in Portland that is about 80 years old. I have an enamel-topped kitchen table. The modern stuff includes a Cuisinart, toaster, and a Kitchen Aid mixer.

Q: How do you conduct your research?

A: Anywhere I can – quite a lot online these days, but also with historical collections in libraries, museums.

Q: What are things we used to eat but are never seen anymore?

A: Mutton. Carrier pigeons, now extinct. Rum punches. We seldom ever see quinces used to make marmalade.

Q: Who is your favorite cook of all time? How about favorite cook book?

A: I think I favor certain dishes prepared by certain people rather than having an all-time favorite cook. I have a friend who makes a great Thai-style chicken salad that I’d walk a mile for. I like my own cooking quite a lot. I love the old “Joy of Cooking” – the one that came out about 1965. My copy was printed in 1975. It’s a great old book even if it doesn’t tell you how to make guacamole or salsa.

“Human kind doesn’t like to change its eating habits very much,” says Sandra Oliver, a Maine-based food historian who will be talking about chocolate at a Freeport Historical Society program on Feb. 10.
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