EDITOR’S letter

Get ready, St. Louis. The next generation of Feast is coming –and we want you along for the ride.

Beginning this month, we are excited to announce that Feast will be taking our local food coverage to new heights with a digital-forward approach designed to meet our readers where they are. With a reinvigorated investment online, our team will be providing more innovative, engaging and timely journalism on feastmagazine.com than ever before.

Our newly revamped suite of newsle ers will deliver breaking news, top food trends and weekly events straight to your inbox. Our social media platforms will move with the pulse of the metro area food community with regular on-the-go and multimedia content, and our website will act as a hub for specialty guides to food and drink destinations in and around St. Louis. Sign up at feastmagazine.com/newsle ers and follow @feastmag on social media to be sure you won’t miss a thing!

This digital expansion will be complemented by a high-quality, quarterly print publication that curates the hottest crazes and personalities in local food culture each season. Our fall edition, to be released in the Sunday St. Louis Post-Dispatch on September 3, will include holiday entertaining tips, thought-provoking features, recommendations for the best eats and treats of the moment and much more. Visit STLtoday. com/subscribe to get the quarterly delivered to your home in the Sunday paper, or buy your copy in the September 3 edition of the PostDispatch at the retail locations listed at STLtoday.com/newsstands.

As we look ahead to this next era, we thought it only fitting to dedicate this, the last monthly edition of the magazine, to the culinary history that built the city we love. On each page, you’ll discover fascinating nuggets of information about the foundation of St. Louis’ food community, from the city’s original Chinatown (p. 30) to the region’s Indigenous ingredients still being used today (p.20) to the roots of food deserts across the area (p. 25) to the infamous dressing that’s getting new life (p. 19). Meet the young leaders taking on their family’s legacy on p. 12, and check out the famous cookbooks you might not have known were written by St. Louis women on p. 11.

As we revere and appreciate St. Louis’ deeply rich history, a big thank you to you for being part of Feast’s bright future.

Cheers,

Emily Adams emily.adams@feastmagazine.com

1770s: Settlers to Missouri from Pennsylvania bring the first seed potatoes to the state.

1890s: Italian immigrants begin populating a growing blue-collar neighborhood en masse to seek jobs at nearby plants. This neighborhood is later established as The Hill, named for its proximity to the highest point in St. Louis

1840s: Soulard Market opens. Julia Soulard, widow of Antoine Soulard (the Surveyor of Upper Louisiana and a major early landholder in the city), donated two blocks to the city in 1838 on the condition that the site be used as a public market in perpetuity.

1852: Anheuser-Busch Brewery is founded in St. Louis.

1903: Dr. Ambrose Straub of St. Louis patents a machine to make peanut bu er.

1854: Dierbergs opens as a general merchant exchange on Olive Street Road. The original operation sold kerosene, flour, sugar, boots, shoes and more.

1917: The Bevo Mill Restaurant building opens with its iconic windmill. It was commissioned by August Busch Sr. to replicate European beer gardens.