Hello, Joy friends! It’s been a while, and I won’t bore you with excuses as to why (you know how life is and how hard it can be to make room, even for things we love to do). I mostly wanted to share an update and something just for fun.
Our Website Odyssey Continues
It seems impossible to exist as A Brand and not have a website, but that is exactly the position we’ve found ourselves in for several years now. But know that we are working on it and finally making some headway, thanks to Sarah at Word of Mouth. She is designing a shiny new website for us that we can’t wait to share, but wait we must.
If all goes as planned, our new site will be live by June of 2024. Things we’re most excited about? An interactive timeline of the history of Joy and a new way to share favorite recipes with you.
A Washington Post Feature
John “spoke” (aka emailed extensively) with a graphics reporter at the Washington Post, who created this extremely cheeky and fun timeline of how classic Thanksgiving recipes have changed over time in the book.
Highlights include this very cute tin foil hat-wearing turkey, and a lovelorn marshmallow longing to be reunited with its sweet potato beloved. Visit their website for the full timeline.
The Great Marshmallow Debate
Whether or not you crown your sweet potatoes with marshmallows is contentious. You can’t deny the popularity of the pairing, but there is (still!) a faction that will look down their noses at you at the mere mention.
I have personally been on both sides of this debate. My younger self took a harsher view of non-homemade Thanksgiving elements like marshmallows, French’s fried onions, and condensed soups. I’ve softened up a bit since. Yums don’t need to be yucked, and feeding others or being fed is a gift. Marshmallows are beside the point.
This tension between pro- and anti-marshmallow sentiment shows up, quite amusingly, in Joy. John and I are sometimes asked to speak to the history of food in the US, and the first thing out of our mouths is a disclaimer about how Joy is not a historical record and we are not historians.
The book can be used to chart food history in a way, but it’s history through a very specific lens: that of four generations of a family always trying to speak to the moment, but subjectively.
Irma’s sly asterisk in the 1936 edition’s stuffed sweet potato recipe, shown above, is a perfect example of this. I imagine Irma felt she needed to mention marshmallows as an option, lest she seem hopelessly out of touch, but she has OPINIONS.
Marshmallows have been purely optional, if they’re mentioned at all, in every edition since.* But along the way (specifically, in the ‘90s) Irma’s asterisk was lost. While I look back at her comment with affectionate bemusement, I’m glad it was ultimately left. It feels a bit like Irma looking down her nose at you.
Marshmallows are just here to stay at this point, and yums don’t need to be yucked.