Category Archives: Chicago Foodways Roundtable

The Road Joyfully Traveled: Judging Family Heirloom Recipes at Midwestern State Fairs

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Podcast

Join us for an oral report card on Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance’s Family Heirloom Recipe contest.

Since 2009, Greater Midwest Foodways has sponsored and judged Family Heirloom Recipes contests in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Contestants prepare their family recipe circa 1950 or earlier, submit their recipe and its history. We suggest they display their family heirloom recipe simply though attractively, with the use of props, such as a copy of the original recipe, photographs, placemat, napkins, glassware or flowers. All this for cash prizes of: 1st place – $150., 2nd place – $100., 3rd place – $50 Continue reading →

Learning Tour: Testa Produce

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Podcast

Testa Produce, Inc. is a 100-year-old family owned and operated produce distributor for foodservice entities around the Midwest including restaurants, hotels, schools, country clubs, sporting arenas and hospitals.

Testa’s new LEED* Platinum Refrigerated Foodservice facility (2011) designed by Epstein is the first of its kind in the United States. The warehouse features sustainable technologies including a 750kW wind turbine producing 30% of the building’s energy needs, a huge solar grid for heating potable water, an extensive water management system which recovers rain and graywater for non-potable purposes, LED lighting, skylighting, electric/compressed natural gas delivery trucks and a vegetated roof. Continue reading →

A Learning Tour: Civil War Camp Cooking Tour

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Hear the crack of gunfire and the boom of cannons at the Lake County Forest Preserves’ 23rd annual Civil War Days. Visitors of all ages are invited to explore the military and civilian camps to learn about life in the 1860s. Visitors can meet historical figures including Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, General Grant and more. Kids will enjoy special period crafts and games, and complete a scavenger hunt around the site. Visitors can also experience a recreation of the 1863 Agricultural Fair, which features public amusements and horticultural and domestic arts exhibitions including a camp cooking competition. Continue reading →

Breaking the Fast at a Ramadan Iftar at Khan BBQ

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We will gather one hour before sunset to learn about Iftar, the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan nights and before observant Muslims depart for evening prayers. Many of the people present will not have consumed even a morsel of food or drink since daybreak that day at 4:01 am. To replicate the experience, we suggest not drinking or eating from once we meet at the restaurant until sunset at 8:29 pm. Certainly you may eat before you arrive.

Khan BBQ offers a nightly Iftar buffet during Ramadan. The composition of the meal is fixed, though what is offered changes nightly. The Iftar buffet will have dates (consumed at the initial breaking of the fast), naan (Indian bread), a featured BBQ, a rice dish, pakora (savory appetizer), rosewater milk and ice water.  Continue reading →

A Labor of Love: Domestic Cooking as Authentic Labor in the German Democratic Republic

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This presentation is from a book Alice Weinreb is currently working on: Matters of Taste, Food, War, and Germany in the Twentieth Century. This paper is based on a chapter on the way in which familial and gender roles were connected to domestic food consumption and production in Cold War divided Germany. It focuses on the ways in which German socialism negotiated the meaning of private, female cooking as something that was both productive labor and consumptive leisure. Continue reading →