Culinary Historians of Chicago

Feeding the Art Deco Spirit Presented by Teri Edelstein, PhD Cover image: Café, bars, restaurants, Cover Félix Jobbé-Duval Café, bars, restaurants, Cover Félix Jobbé-Duval Paris: Librairie de la Construction moderne, 1930 A central aspect of the culture and lifestyle of the 1920s and 30s was the creation and consumption of food. You could exist in an Art Deco world where everything from the soup t...

What’s behind Italy’s ingredients? Presented by Viola Buitoni Come join us as Viola Buitoni (yes, she’s a member of that illustrious pasta-manufacturing family) shares the history and geography of Italy’s most iconic ingredients, and gives tips on how we can incorporate their vibrant flavors and techniques into our kitchens. (Think balsamic vinegar, flakes of parmigiano reggiano, fresh ricotta and...

Identification of Mushrooms: More than the sum of their parts Presented by Patrick Leacock, PhD This presentation covers visible mushroom features found with caps, gills, stems, and veils. These features are used to key out and identify wild mushrooms. We can combine these features to learn the "stature types" of gilled mushrooms, such as amanita, pluteus, tricholoma, mycena, etc. Patrick is a myc...

Madison's Magical Market Presented by Terese Allen, Culinary Historian and writer Come join us as one of Wisconsin’s most celebrated culinary historians and food writers, Terese Allen, takes us on a delicious journey into our nation’s largest produce-only farmers’ market, The Dane County Farmers’ Market. Held in Madison’s vast Capitol Square, this more than half-century old market has helped area...

Much ado about masalas—a deep dive into Indian Cuisine Come join us as a maven of masala, Nandita Godbole, explores India’s complex and delicious regional cuisines through its culinary backbone – its masalas (which, by the way, are a vast number of spice mixtures ground into a paste or powder for use in Indian cooking). Nandita will be dishing out a buffet of savory information on the micro cuisin...

Paul Prud'homme, Dinner with the President You all probably know of Alex Prud’homme as co-author of Julia Child’s best selling memoir, My Life in France. Come join us as Alex takes us into the White House to talk about his latest book, Dinner with the President. Alex will serve us a capsulated history of American food and politics, from the grim meals eaten by George Washington and his starving tr...

Flora, Fauna and Foodways with Archivist Nancy Webster Researching the early 20th century images of local flora and fauna by Jesse Lowe Smith and E. E. Parratt led to further investigation. Twenty-first century publications including Andreas Viestad’s Dinner in Rome a History of the world in one Meal and Arbres et arbustes sauvages des trottoirs toulousains (Wild trees and plants and shrubs of the...

Live from Rome: A Slice of Rice - Italian Style Valentina Masotti (with Viola Buitoni) Our illustrious speaker, Valentina Masotti, rice sommelier, comes to us from her home in Rome, Italy, where she will serve up a cornucopia of delectable rice history, teach us about the different classifications of rice, and demonstrate how to properly prepare risotto. Here’s what’s on our rice guru’s menu: - Wh...

Colombian Exchange Hit World Like Culinary Comet Presented by Bill St. John What we call the Colombian Exchange was that vast interchange of foodstuffs (and peoples, non-edible plants, technology, cultures, diseases and various animals) between the New World and the Old World that began in 1492 A.D. when Columbus “reunited” those two hemispheres. Come join us as culinary historian Bill St. John s...

Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir Presented by Iliana Regan As Regan explores the ancient landscape of Michigan’s boreal forest, her stories of the land, its creatures, and its dazzling profusion of plant and vegetable life are interspersed with efforts to make a home and a business of an inn that’s suddenly, as of their first full season there in 2020, empty of guests due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sh...

Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites Presented by Monica Eng and David Hammond Chicago food shows its true depth in classic dishes conceived in the kitchens of immigrant innovators, neighborhood entrepreneurs, and mom-and-pop visionaries. Monica Eng and David Hammond draw on decades of exploring the city’s food landscape to serve up thirty can’t-miss eats found in all corners of...

What you probably didn’t know about Indian food Presented by Colleen Sen What ‘ethnic food” is universally popular among Indians? Who is known as India’s Julia Child? What Italian restaurateur opened a restaurant called “the Maxim’s of the East?” How are lichens used in Indian cuisine? How do Indian Jews celebrate Purim? Chicago-based Indian food authority and author Colleen Sen will answer these...

The Multiple Heritages of Irish Soda Bread Presented by Lucy Long, PhD Soda bread, a quick bread using baking soda as the primary rising agent, is closely associated in the U.S. with Ireland. Its history and meanings, however, are much more complicated—and tasty—than the sweet loaf with raisins that is usually found around St Patrick’s Day in March. This talk discusses the various forms this bread...

Advances in science and community science are positively impacting fungal conservation Presented by Greg Mueller, PhD Greg will discuss how advances in science and community science are positively impacting fungal conservation. This presentation is for all audiences, and no prior knowledge of mycology or biology will be needed to thoroughly enjoy it. Gregory M. Mueller, Ph. D. is Negaunee Chief Sc...

History of American Pies and Illinois is Well Represented Presented by Catherine Lambrecht Pies are as American as pizza is American: we took a great idea, adapted it to our needs and ran with it. Our ancestors used what they had available locally and made the most from it. You might be thinking that pies are just for dessert, but for our American ancestors, they were often considered survival foo...

Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal and Heirloom Recipes from Occupied France Kitty Morse In our speaker’s own words: “I’d never come across another suitcase quite like it. But what was the tattered black leather valise doing there, hidden behind a crocheted comforter on the top shelf of my late mother’s closet? The tarnished brass locking mechanism had already been sprung.” … Looking up at me from in...

Mooooving Day – Transhumance and the Impact on Dairy Cultures Presented by Adam Centamore Every spring, Swiss dairy farmer Béat Piller escorts his 56 cows up the slope of the 6,000-foot Alp Vounetz to a grazing pasture and hand-built stable. They will stay there for the next six months, making milk and cheese every single day. In late autumn, they will descend back down to the valley where his fam...

Truffles Presented by Susi Gott Séguret Nature’s most lauded culinary treasures—are subterranean fungi with magical properties which bring new dimensions to countless dishes. Cooking with Truffles: A Chef’s Guide demystifies the truffle for the professional and the home chef, with over 150 unique and tantalizing recipes to suit every palate and occasion, featuring a variety of recipes, ranging fro...

Soul Food Restaurants & the Civil Rights Era Presented by Dave Hoekstra and Paul Nathin Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. loved the fried catfish and lemon icebox pie at Memphis’s Four Way restaurant. Beloved nonagenarian chef Leah Chase introduced George W. Bush to baked cheese grits and scolded Barack Obama for putting Tabasco sauce on her gumbo at New Orleans’s Dooky Chase’s. When SNCC leader Stokely...

Last Kitchen Tour at the Butz House, March 22, 2015 Conducted by Leah Axelrod Leah Axelord, charter member and ex-president of the Highland Park Historical Society, conducts the last tour of the period kitchen before the museum closed. Recorded at the Highland Park Historical Society on March 22, 2015. www. HighlandParkHistory.org

The Turkey, An American Story Andrew F. Smith “Talking turkey” about the bird you thought you knew. Fondly remembered as the centerpiece of family Thanksgiving reunions, the turkey is a cultural symbol as well as a multi-billion dollar industry. As a bird, dinner, commodity, and as a national icon, the turkey has become as American as the bald eagle (with which it actually competed for supremacy o...

Rose Levy Beranbaum: The Cookie Bible Her work can certainly be described as “biblical.” And Rose Levy Beranbaum is certainly one of the most sacred figures in all of cookbook publishing. Please join us as Rose delivers a sweet sermon about her latest scripture, The Cookie Bible. And she’ll do a lot more than tell us how a cookie crumbles. Just sit tight in your pew as Rose regales us with crisp c...

Chinese Home Cooking with The Woks of Life Sarah and Kaitlin Leung For much of recent memory, Chinese food was largely the domain of restaurant kitchens or behind the closed doors of Chinese households—foreign at times even to younger generations wanting to recreate the tastes of home. Today, Chinese home cooking in America is excitingly in flux. Never before has Chinese food been so present in ou...

Naomi Duguid, A Salty Talk “Salt”, as Naomi Duguid says, “is the only food we all need.” Come join us as this award-winning writer takes a deep dive into the miracle of salt and its essential role in preserving, fermenting, and transforming food. And she will dish out a generous serving of salt history, harvesting methods and recipes as she quotes from her just-published book, The Miracle of Salt....

From ‘Peanut Weddings’ to ‘Beef Stands’: The Socio-Culinary History of Chicago’s ‘Italian Beef’ Presented by Anthony F. Buccini, PhD Italian Americans have contributed a considerable number of portable fast foods to regional and local cuisines around the United States, some of which have become extremely popular at the national level. One such food which, despite its frequent discussion in recent...