Writer Laura Shapiro unearths the Works Progress Administration's 1937 foodways project, America Eats, which was abandoned because of political events. She chronicles editor Katherine Kellocks' passionate pursuit of ordinary Americans' accounts of eating and celebrating. Part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal plan and created in 1935, the WPA employed millions of people during the Great Depression. Shapiro recently wrote an article about America Eats in the January edition of Saveur magazine.
Music break: The Little Matador by Champs