Montgomery County’s earliest residents, Native Americans, developed agricultural communities and used the shores of the Potomac as a trading spot. European settlers farmed tobacco, eventually collapsing the county’s economy until the Quaker community returned fertility to the land. The C&O Canal was the nation’s first significant infrastructure project and helped create links to national and international markets. In the twentieth century, the Marriott chain developed contemporary, industrialized food that signaled a changing world. Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve, created in 1980, was a history-making decision that is a model for land preservation. Along with farming, it also preserved history and foodways. Claudia Kousoulas and Ellen Letourneau tell the story of the county’s agricultural history through food and recipes.
Claudia Kousoulas worked as a land-use planner for more than twenty years in Montgomery County, Maryland, and is also a freelance writer and editor whose topics include architecture, urbanism, food culture and culinary history. She is the coauthor of Bread and Beauty, A Year in Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve. Ellen Letourneau is a fiber artist, baker and event planner. As a member of the Common Grain Alliance and Chesapeake Fibershed, she is interested in the revival of grain and fiber economies in the region and is also the coauthor of Bread and Beauty, A Year in Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve.