Down East Delicious

Sandra Oliver is a pioneering food historian who began her work in 1971 at Mystic Seaport Museum, where she developed a fireplace cooking program in an 1830s house. Sandra is a freelance food writer, with her column, “Tastebuds” appearing each weekend in the Bangor Daily News, and regular columns in Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine and the Working Waterfront. She is also the author of the books, Maine Home Cooking, Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Foods at Sea and Ashore in the 19th Century, The Food of Colonial and Federal America and Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving History and Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie, which she co-authored with Kathleen Curtin.

She often speaks to historical organizations and food professional groups around the country, organizes historical dinners, and conducts classes and workshops in food history and sustainable gardening and cooking. Sandy lives on Islesboro, an island in Penobscot Bay, where she gardens, preserves, cooks, and teaches sustainable lifeways.