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
Category Archives: Chicago Foodways Roundtable
Breaking the Fast at a Ramadan Iftar at Khan BBQ
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
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
Biting through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland
Presented by
Nina Mukerjee Furstenau, Author & Journalist
for Chicago Foodways Roundtable
For almost all people, food is journey to identity. More than sustenance, food holds memory, desire, reward from frustration, and a link to place; food can represent how we live and who we are; food holds story.
Biting through the Skin centers on the life of an Indian family in pre-long grain rice America. In 1960s Kansas, eating was cause for inquiry. All key cultural, spiritual and family values transferred in the Mukerjee family via the rituals around Bengali food preparation. Food was, in fact, the only way these elements of identity were passed down in an area and era where there were no other avenues. Biting through the Skin shows how we maintain our differences as well as come together, what we learn about ourselves and about others from the rituals of cooking, serving, and eating. It examines the idea of belonging and the tiny details of life it rests upon. Continue reading
Uncovering the Surprising History of Fast Food Before McDonald’s
Making Fast Food
Presented by
Nic Mink,
Author of Salmon: A Global History
Presented by
Nic Mink,
Author of Salmon: A Global History
To many, fast food is the quintessential embodiment of twentieth-century American food culture. In his talk, author Nic Mink explores the often forgotten roots of American fast food, as the industry developed between the 1920s and the 1950s. From the changes wrought to fast food by Federal Prohibition to the sweeping technological transformations that took place in restaurant kitchens, Mink shows how the development of the industry and its cuisine came from unexpected places and emerged in equally unexpected ways. Continue reading