Category Archives: Chicago Foodways Roundtable

A Curious, Secret Spice in your Masala?

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Stoney Curry Lichen
Stone Curry Lichen

Presented by Priya Mani
Live from Denmark

This will not be simulcast on Facebook nor hosted on YouTube. 
If you are missing the meeting and wish to watch it later, 
please email culinaryhistorians@gmail.com for a link.

A talk by Priya Mani on gathered, edible lichens from the Indian subcontinent. It is hardly imaginable that a lichen scraped off tree barks in the sub-Himalayan forests is the decisive and defining ingredient of what we know and imagine as “spicy-Indian.” Continue reading →

Thoughts on the Origins of Pizzerias in America and Chicago

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Presented by Peter Regas
PizzaHistoryBook.com

View Presentation on Facebook and Youtube.

In the past, the historical consensus was the first licensed pizzeria in America was opened in 1905 at 53 Spring St. in New York City by a young Italian immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi. However, in 2019 at the U.S. Pizza Museum in Chicago, Peter Regas challenged that consensus with a talk titled “Filippo Milone and the Forgotten Pizza Makers of New York City.” Continue reading →

How Trader Joe’s Changed the Way America Eats

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Presented by Susie Wyshak

View presentation on Facebook and YouTube

Discover Trader Joe’s key role in introducing fun and unusual foods into the American diet decades ago, when the company was already encouraging the non-health food store shopper to try “better for you” versions of already-popular foods. Wyshak compares items featured in a 1982 flyer  to how we eat now to show TJ’s importance in creating a nation of adventurous food lovers. Continue reading →

Sweet Greeks: First-Generation Immigrant Confectioners in the Heartland

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Presented by Ann Flesor Beck
Author and Candy Maker

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Gus Flesor came to the United States from Greece in 1901. His journey led him to Tuscola, Illinois, where he learned the confectioner’s trade and opened a business that still stands on Main Street. Sweet Greeks sets the story of Gus Flesor’s life as an immigrant in a small town within the larger history of Greek migration to the Midwest. Continue reading →