Latest news with #KateFox
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Mass. 250th events will spotlight WMass contributions
When Massachusetts joins the nation in celebrating this country's 250th anniversary, the state's four western counties won't be left out. The commemoration will include details on how Western Massachusetts helped drive American history. The Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism has launched Massachusetts 250, which runs through July 206. The commonwealth and country will mark the nation's semiquincentennial, marking 250 years since the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. While the focus has long been on historic events in Philadelphia and Boston, Massachusetts 250 is calling out watershed times in Western Massachusetts that helped shape America. 'The bicentennial [50 years ago] focused on Boston, Lexington and Concord. We're using the semiquincentennial to make sure this is a statewide campaign, that it engages with residents and visitors across Massachusetts,' MOTT executive director Kate Fox said in an interview with The Republican. 'The more people dig, the more everybody finds a historical link to the revolution,' she said. The Healey-Driscoll administration is granting $2.5 million to communities, museums and nonprofit organizations to tell stories of how their cities and towns contributed to American independence. Here are examples: — The Springfield Preservation Trust received $5,000 for a program called 'Voices from the Grave, Heroes of the American Revolution Cemetery Tour' Sunday, May 18, at Springfield Cemetery. Seven historical residents will be featured on the tour, including John Bryant III (1742-1816), first Armory Superintendent, who lost his arm in battle; Hannah Mason Bryant (1756-1829), who sewed flannel cartridges for the Continental army; Nathaniel Brewer (1711-1809), Deacon of First Church for 53 years, and a joiner by trade; and Susan Freedom (1784-1803), a Black indentured servant whose name poignantly symbolizes the struggle for freedom and identity among African Americans in the post-Revolutionary War era. Hosted by the Springfield Preservation Trust and developed by historian Derek Strahan and SPT Secretary Michael Stevens, the tour is an hour long and led by docents who take visitors on a tour to graves of interesting cemetery residents, where costumed interpreters speak about each person. Tours will depart every fifteen minutes starting at 1 p.m. at Springfield Cemetery, 171 Maple St. Tickets are $20 for Springfield Preservation Trust members, and $25 for nonmembers. — 1Berkshire in Pittsfield received $7,500 for the Berkshire 250 website. — The Porter Phelps Huntington Museum in Hadley received $17,500 for a presentation titled 'Hadley and the American Revolution — Stories of Independence and Servitude." MOTT is using to promote a wide variety of events to be held across the state. 'The revolution was eight years long. This is really the beginning of the revolution. There's an opportunity for people to continue the commemorations, but for Massachusetts 250, we're [celebrating in] 2025 and the first half of 2026,' said Fox. The MOTT director said Americans are mostly familiar with names like Adams, Washington, Hancock and Franklin. But those on the second tier of historic stardom helped write history. For instance, Fox called attention to ordinary people living across Western Massachusetts who aided General Henry Knox and his troops in January 1776 as they delivered armaments to the Continental Army battling to oust British troops from Boston. 'Henry Knox moved the artillery from Fort Ticonderoga over the Hudson River into Massachusetts and had stops in Otis, Westfield, Springfield, Wilbraham and Brookfield before continuing on to Boston. It was the middle of winter and nobody thought he was going to pull this off, but he did,' said Fox. Knox and his troops used people and resources in Western Massachusetts to fortify troops and relaunch their mission to Dorchester, where the fighting power they delivered proved to be decisive. 'That's what led to Evacuation Day and the departure of the British from the Port of Boston and essentially the end of the revolution in Massachusetts,' Fox said. While it happened in 1786 and had no impact on the Revolutionary War, Shays' Rebellion was sparked in and spread throughout Western Massachusetts. The armed uprising showed the need for a strong, national government. 'It was the armed uprising of indebted farmers in Western Massachusetts. They were protesting high state taxes and foreclosures, and the rebellion exposed the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and fueled the movement for a stronger national government,' said Fox. The Articles of Confederation document was the first blueprint colonists used to set up their government. Adopted in 1777 and ratified in 1781, it established a loose confederation of autonomous states, focused largely on maintaining independence from and limiting the power of a central government. Massachusetts 250 is also showcasing untold stories, according to Fox. Some will seek to set the record straight. She said that while Paul Revere is credited in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem with announcing 'the British are coming' during his midnight ride, there were two other riders that night. 'The poem was not actually correct, even though that's what everybody thinks was true. It's shedding a light on the stories and the anniversaries in a way that we can retell them and correct anything that's been inaccurate over time,' she said. Fox said writing and correcting history is a work in progress, made more accurate over time through deeper research and advancing technology. 'As we learn and have more technology at our fingertips, new light is shined on history every day,' she said. While President Trump has been freezing federal funds already allocated to nonprofits, Fox said those actions are not affecting MOTT. She did say fallout from Trump's cuts and tariffs are causing people around the world to rethink visits to America. 'We're certainly seeing impacts on travel plans and international flights coming in, especially from Canada,' she said. 'I expect where we see a dip in international travel, we will see an increase in domestic. We're a nimble industry. We're able to react and support our partners and adjust our messaging so we can continue to promote Massachusetts as a great destination.' Fox said one of MOTT's missions is to increase revenue from tourism, bringing people to the commonwealth to spend money on hotels, restaurants, tourist destinations and shopping. The agency will file a report on the costs and benefits of Massachusetts 250 when the celebration is over. 'There's increased interest in traveling to the original colonies and learning that history,' she said. 'We're hoping to take advantage of that.' Read the original article on MassLive. Read the original article on MassLive.
New York Times
24-03-2025
- General
- New York Times
Is British Food Still a Joke?
Food Matters takes a closer look at what we eat and how it defines us. It's hard to describe classic British dishes without reinforcing the stereotype that English food is bland, beige and soggy. Fish pie: a monochromatic pairing of milky cod and mashed potato. Mushy peas: boiled legumes puréed into pulp. Even summer pudding, filled with vibrant fresh berries, is encased in wet white bread. The English relationship to food is 'ambivalent, highly discordant and often superficial,' writes the British anthropologist Kate Fox in her 2004 book, 'Watching the English.' Maybe it was the Puritans' self-deprivation, or the Industrial Revolution, which separated working-class people from the land, or the rationing of World War II, but the English have rarely approached food with the full-bodied passion of the French or the Italians. Caring too much about what we eat has historically been embarrassing for us. In the mid-20th century, immigrants from former colonies, including India, Pakistan and parts of the Caribbean, began to arrive in Britain in larger numbers, enriching the country's food with new flavors. And over the past two decades, London's restaurant scene has risen to a world-class level, with celebrated spots for Thai soup, Trinidadian roti and Nigerian barbecue. Now, finally, traditional British fare is improving too — and at the peak of a globalized high-end food culture that favors small plates and garnishes placed with tweezers, the unabashed plainness of it feels increasingly refreshing. A British man known as Old Dry Keith went viral on Chinese social media a couple of years ago with his austere lunches of buttered toast and boiled eggs. And in 2023, the British fashion house Burberry partnered with Norman's Cafe, a reboot of a classic English greasy spoon that opened in London in 2020, promoting its new collection with the help of starchy comfort food like chip butties (a carb-on-carb sandwich of thick fries in a bun). If some of this attention can be attributed to a perverse fascination with British grimness — particularly of the type captured in the photographer Martin Parr's starkly lit images of sausages and baked beans — and even a kind of working-class cosplay, it also corresponds to a deeper reappraisal by a new generation of chefs. Last year, the London culinary institution St. John, run by the chef Fergus Henderson and known for its nose-to-tail British cooking, celebrated its 30th anniversary. Now the younger chefs who've passed through its kitchen and that of the similarly influential Rochelle Canteen, founded in 2004 by the chef Margot Henderson, Fergus's wife, have begun to open their own restaurants, offering fresh takes on the canon. 'Everyone criticized [us] because our food was so brown,' says Margot, 60, of the response to her and Fergus's early dishes. 'But we love brown food. It's about letting it be.' She's become known for remastering English standards like boiled ham with parsley sauce and Lancashire hot pot, a stew of lamb, potatoes and onion. 'British food is gentle and so simply [made],' she says. But 'simple is not easy.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
