Category Archives: Culinary Historians of Chicago

“Chicago Has Something to Beef About”

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Cutting Remarks from A Woman Butcher

Join us as Kari Underly, a third-generation master butcher, and author of the “The Art of Beef Cutting,” as she talks about:

. The rich history of the Chicago stockyards and the influence and importance of our city to the world of meat processing;
. The evolution of the trade, where it started and where it’s going;
. The changing face of the butcher, including the role of women in the meat business;
. The trend to whole animal butchery and the challenges it brings to both merchants and consumers. Continue reading →

“The Bread Revolution”

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Much Kneaded Information from Bread Guru
Peter Reinhart, author, teacher, baker

Podcast

Peter Reinhart is one of the nation’s most acclaimed authorities on bread and he will have us rolling in dough as he shares the story of his life in bread. As a man who has made a living from “loafing,” Chef Reinhart will let us view (and taste) the next frontier in the world of flour, especially sprouted flour, which he calls a “nutritious and delicious game changer.” He will also discuss whole and ancient grains, nut and seed flours, alternative flours (such as teff and grape skin), and allergy-friendly and gluten-free approaches to bread baking. Continue reading →

The Impact of American Indian Boarding School Education on Great Lakes Indigenous Foodways

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A Case Study of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation

Podcast

By: Amelia V. Katanski
$3000 Recipient of an American Midwest Foodways Scholar’s Grant

The US has a clear history of limiting Indian people’s abilities to harvest, hunt, fish for, or access their traditional foods in order to assert control over Indian communities and advance national policy objectives. Indian boarding school education is one significant way federal actions attempted to subvert native foodways. Students spent half of their time in the classroom and half working on the school farm, learning mainstream agricultural practices in the context of a boarding school curriculum that devalued indigenous knowledge and supported allotment, in which tribally-owned reservation land was broken into homesteads intended to be owned by individuals and run as family farms, producing food that mirrored European-American dietary norms and supplanting endangered traditional foodways. Continue reading →

Currying Your Curiosity: Five Myths about Indian Food

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Popular dishes such as tandoori chicken, butter chicken, and so-called “Moghlai cuisine” that are familiar to every Indian restaurant devotee occupy only a tiny section of the vast and diverse world of Indian cuisine. (And some are relatively recent creations to boot.) Like Chinese cuisine just two decades ago, Indian restaurant food in the west is limited to just a few regional traditions and suffers from many misconceptions. Continue reading →

Illinois Has a Lot to Wine About: A Toast and Tasting to Our State’s Great History

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Illinois has a thriving wine industry although this may come as a surprise to many residents of Illinois and beyond. Clara Orban, author of Illinois Wines and Wineries: the Essential Guide (SIU Press, 2014) will present the history of Illinois wines, with some little-known facts about an industry that dates back more than 150 years. She will also compare Illinois to other Midwest States and then see how the Illinois wine industry compares to that of the West Coast powerhouses. She will give an overview of the different wine regions of Illinois, the current status of grape varieties, and look into the future of Illinois wine.

Continue reading →