Lynne Olver

Lynne Olver (1958–2015) was a food historian, and sole author of the Food Timeline website,[2] which may disappear as early as 2022 if nothing is done to save it. Lynne graduated from the University of Albany and worked at the Morris County Library in New Jersey, and was later appointed as director of the library in 2009.[1]

Lynne Olver
Born(1958-03-10)March 10, 1958[1]
DiedApril 14, 2015(2015-04-14) (aged 57)[1]
Known forThe Food Timeline website
Scientific career
FieldsCulinary history
Websitefoodtimeline.org

The Food Timeline

In 1999, Lynne created The Food Timeline, a culinary history website that she maintained, which held information on foods introduced, alongside recipes on how to make them.[3][4] The website has since become a large information point for culinary history. Almost all of the website's information was from Lynne's personal library of over 2,000 books.[5] Unlike many other food related websites, Olver gave citations to almost every statement written on her website so that all of any reader can verify her claims and her research is so thorough that scholarly papers that are published academic peer-reviewed journal can use her website as an academic citation.[6][7][8]

Following the death of Lynne Olver, The Food Timeline website was given to Olver's family, who chose to remove social media accounts associated with the Food Timeline, but kept the website running in a state of dormancy. As such, the website is no longer maintained. The site's domain is set to expire in 2025.[5] However, a July 2020 domain name search performed with the WHOIS database web interface that is maintained by the Public Interest Registry, revealed that the current registration will lapse on April 4, 2022, if the registration is not renewed or transferred prior to this date, so The Food Timeline supporters might have much less time than they think to save this web service.[9]

The Olver family would like to find someone willing to continue Olver's work in maintaining and possible grow the Food Timeline website as an ad free culinary history resource and the family (and other persons in the food history field) would hate to see this website just disappear.[10][11][12][13][14]

It will take a lot of work for a team of new custodians to update Olver's website and maintain her high standards since there are many dishes that can now be obtained in many 21st century American cities that were not included on her website such as the chili burger, patty melt, pad thai, slider, loco moco, Moose Tracks, bubble tea, biryani, banh mi, chile relleno, lomo saltado, Impossible burger, and kiwifruit that may not have been available when Olver wrote her website.

Various publications and websites such as Atlas Obscura,[12] Eater,[10] Mental Floss,[14] Reddit,[15] Smithsonian Magazine,[13] and The Takeout[11] are also trying to spread the word about the search for a new custodian for The Food Timeline.

Audio interviews
  • Zuraw, Lydia (May 26, 2013). "Picnicking Through The Ages". The Salt. NPR.
  • Pelaccio, Linda (May 9, 2013). "Lynne Olver & FoodTimeline.org". A Taste of the Past. Episode 135. Heritage Radio Network.
  • Pascal, Mark; Schott, Francis (May 15, 2007). "Lynne Olver / The Food Timeline". The Restaurant Guys (Podcast).
  • Folse, John (January 25, 2005). "Lynne Olver Interview". Stirrin' It Up (Podcast).

References
  1. "Lynne Olver Obituary - Randolph, NJ | The Daily Record". April 16, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  2. "Food Timeline: food history & historic recipes". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  3. Zuraw, Lydia (May 26, 2013). "Picnicking Through The Ages". WBUR. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  4. Luthern, Ashley (June 23, 2009). "What's in Your Lunch Box? Part 2 -- Prohibition and the Great Depression". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  5. Ketchum, Alex (August 27, 2018). "Digital Dark Ages, Documenting Food Histories, and Honoring Lynne Olver". The Historical Cooking Project. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  6. Stein, Karen (February 1, 2015). "What We Ate: Repasts of the Academy's Past". Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 115 (2): 286–302. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2014.11.019.
  7. Stein, Karen (October 1, 2014). "History Snapshot: Dietetics Student Experience in the 1940s". Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 114 (10): 1648–1662. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2014.08.001.
  8. Grimes, John (April 21, 2010). "Rediscovering the Cacao in Ecuador's Upper Napo River Valley". Focus on Geography. 51 (4). doi:10.1111/j.1949-8535.2009.tb00237.x.
  9. "Whois lookup". Public Interest Registry.
  10. Evans, Dayna (July 8, 2020). "Who Will Save the Food Timeline?". Eater.
  11. Levitt, Aimee (July 9, 2020). "Wanted: someone to save the Food Timeline". The Takeout.
  12. Fater, Luke (July 15, 2020). "The Internet's Greatest Archive of Food History Needs a New Curator: A New Jersey reference librarian's magnum opus could really use your help". Atlas Obscura.
  13. Bugos, Claire (July 17, 2020). "You Could Help Curate This Ambitious Timeline of Food History: The family of Lynne Olver, the librarian who launched the online portal in 1999, needs help keeping her legacy alive". Smithsonian Magazine.
  14. Debczak, Michele (July 20, 2020). "Food Timeline: You Could Be in Charge of the Web's Most Ambitious Food History Site". Mental Floss.
  15. "[META] Who will save the food timeline? : AskFoodHistorians". Reddit.


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