Upcoming Programs at a Glance

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Currently all our programs are presented virtually via Zoom on Central Time. Once we can meet again, we hope to continue with both live and virtual programs. Please read the full event notices for details because days and times often vary. You are encouraged to join our email list to receive advance notices followed by day-of-meeting reminders with the required Zoom link. You are always welcome to become a member.

Culinary Historians of Chicago:

Chicago Foodways Roundtable:

  • Saturday, June 24, 2023 @ 10 AM @ Chinese American Museum of Chicago: Chinese Cuisine in America: Stories, Struggles and Successes (Fee involved)
  • Tuesday, June 27, 2023 @ 7 PM via Zoom: Flora, Fauna and Foodways with Nancy Webster, Archivist, Highland Park Historical Society
  • Chicago FoodCultura Clarion update

Find Culinary Historians of Chicago and Chicago Foodways Roundtable on Twitter or Facebook.

Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance:

  • Wednesday, August 9, 2023 @ 3 PM Indiana State Fair: Family Heirloom Recipe Contest located in the Indiana Building
  • Friday, August 11, 2023 @ 10 AM Illinois State Fair: Family Heirloom Recipe Contest located at the Hobby, Arts and Crafts Building
  • Saturday, August 12, 2023 @ 2:30 PM Missouri State Fair: Family Heirloom Recipe Contest located at the 4-H Building
  • Sunday, September 4, 2023 @ 1 PM South Dakota State Fair: Family Heirloom Recipe Contest located at the Women’s Building
  • Sunday, September 17, 2023 @ 3 PM Kansas State Fair: Family Heirloom Recipe Contest location TBA

Find Greater Midwest Foodways on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Live from Rome: A Slice of Rice — Italian Style

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Join Us Saturday, June 10, 10:00 a.m., Central Time Via Zoom!

Presented by Valentina Masotti

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. Continue reading →

Flora, Fauna and Foodways

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Join Us on Tuesday, June 27, 2023 at 7 PM Central via Zoom!

Presented by Nancy Webster, Archivist
Highland Park Historical Society

Recipes recorded orally by Native Americans and written by local pioneer settlers demonstrate sustenance and diet using native flora and fauna.  Using exclusively 19th century or earlier resources, an exhibit and presentation of these natural and cultivated food sources were created‌.  The images of the Jesse Lowe Smith Image Collection’s documentation of flora and fauna provided the inspiration to explore diverse natural food sources being documented.

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 sidewalks of Toulouse) by Boris Presseq inspired further research of these plants as food sources for humans. We will share selected early 20th century, local images and documentation of these plants’ in early recipes.

Continue reading →

Colombian Exchange Hit World Like Culinary Comet

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Presented by Bill St. John, Journalist, Culinary Historian
Podcast

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. Continue reading →

Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir

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Presented by Chef Iliana Regan
Podcast

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. She discovers where the wild blueberry bushes bear tiny fruit, where to gather wood sorrel, and where and when the land’s different mushroom species appear—even as surrounding parcels of land are suddenly and violently decimated by logging crews that obliterate plant life and drive away the area’s birds. Continue reading →

Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites

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Presented by Monica Eng and David Hammond

Podcast

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 Chicago. Continue reading →