CNEHA Conference. The Council for Northeast Historic Archaeology is having its annual meeting in Tarrytown, NY this weekend. I'm giving a paper comparing what we excavated from a late-nineteenth century hotel with some menus from that same hotel dating to about 1909. Its an interesting comparison. They sold a lot more steaks than pork chops, and the stew was pretty fancy -- "Ragout of Lamb Parisienne." I'd guess the place around the corner was serving "Lamb Stew."

I was also able to figure out one of the stranger things we found. In a pollen sample, Brassica pollen accounted for 10% of the sample, which is quite rare. Mostly you get tree pollen, grasses, and that sort of thing. On the menu, there is an entry for "Chow-chow." Chow-chow is pickled cauliflower with a variety of other vegetables. Cauliflower, being a flower itself, has pollen in large quantities, so the chow-chow was the source of the pollen we found archaeologically. They must have really liked their pickled cauliflower.