Category Archives: Culinary Historians of Chicago

“Sustainable” – A Documentary, What’s Ahead for Agriculture?

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Presented by Matt Wechsler
Filmmaker, Food Activist

Join us for a discussion and screening of the award-winning documentary, “Sustainable.” Local filmmaker and food activist Matt Wechsler will show highlights from his film. He’ll cover the economic and environmental instability of America’s food system, from the agricultural issues we face — soil loss, water depletion, climate change, pesticide use — to the community of leaders who are determined to fix it. Continue reading →

Whoever Said the English Can’t Cook? Cookbooks from 1300 to 1700 Prove Otherwise!

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Presented by Sarah Peters Kernan, PhD

The early centuries of cookbook production in England were filled with a dazzling variety of manuscript and printed texts. “Cookeries” from 1300 to 1700 ranged from basic, undecorated texts to lavishly illustrated cookbooks. In her extensive research, Sarah Peters Kernan, PhD, has examined numerous manuscripts and printed cookeries in libraries across the United States and Europe. Continue reading →

American Food has a History You Wouldn’t Believe!

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Presented by Bruce Kraig, PhD
Author, President Emeritus, Culinary Historians of Chicago
CELEBRATING OUR 25TH YEAR—

On New Year’s Day 1836, President Andrew Jackson received a momentous culinary gift, a humongous cheese, 2 feet thick, 11 feet in circumference, and weighing 1400 pounds. It was created in the summer of 1835 by Col. Thomas S. Meacham, a prosperous dairy farmer with lands near Lake Ontario north of Syracuse New York. The mammoth cheese was sent by boat along the Erie Canal on to Washington. It was a public sensation. James Fenimore Cooper wrote of the same area of New York only two generations before as a wilderness that only gradually was being transformed.

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Whatever Happened to Wheat? How Bread Meets Our Kneads

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Presented by Chef Greg Wade
Head Baker, Publican Quality Bread, Chicago

“As a baker, wheat is obviously very important to me,” says nationally acclaimed bread baker Greg Wade. Join us as chef Wade presents us with a veritable bread basket of wheat history, along with the traditional farming techniques for wheat crops, and the types of breads made from different wheat. “Wheat has a fascinating history, from its origins in the Caucuses to modern bread wheat,” chef Wade says. “Wheat has shaped the world’s cultures more than any other crop.”

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International Inspirations— Culinary Lessons Learned From the Road

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Presented by Chef Christopher Koetke
Vice President, Strategy and Industry Relations, Kendall College

New meeting location: Weiss Memorial Hospital

For the last 5 years, Chef Koetke has been criss-crossing the globe, visiting 20-25 countries annually. In 12 of these countries, he set up culinary programs or worked with local culinary schools. Additionally, he works on sustainability issues as the Feed the Planet Chairman for World Chefs were he routinely is talking to people around the world. Continue reading →