Andrew P. Haley

The Climb

At the center of Andrew P. Haley’s work is Culinary History as social history: the table as a site where class, culture, consumption, childhood, and cuisine can be read in the record of American life. At University of Southern Mississippi, he studies that terrain across the late nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century, tracing how food moves between homes, restaurants, and public life as habits of taste change around it.

Today

As a professor and Faculty Member at University of Southern Mississippi, Andrew P. Haley brings historical method to food as a source, not just an object of interest. His scholarship treats menus, dining habits, and culinary trends as evidence of how taste, class, and modernity get defined in practice. “They’ve been studied before, but not in a comprehensive way,” he has said, a statement that matches the shape of the field he works in: still open, still being organized, still in need of disciplined reading. On sources, he is equally direct: “What I’ve found is that they’re not just collections of recipes — they’re cultural documents.”

In Their Words “In \"Turning the Tables,\" I argue that changes in restaurant culture at the turn of the century—battles over French-language menus, scientific eating, cosmopolitan cuisine—demonstrate the growing influence of urban middle-class consumers.” “I study the history of class, culture, consumption, childhood, and cuisine from the late nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century.”