Category Archives: Podcast

The Story of Algerian Pastries and an Epiphany

Posted on by

Presented by
Rachel Finn,
Founder, Roots Cuisine

Podcast courtesy of WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified

When Rachel Finn was living in Paris several years ago, she tasted Algerian pastries for the first time; her life was changed forever. “It was, without question, love at first bite,” she recalled. “An obsession was born. I visited pastry shops throughout Paris, sampling pastries including m’khebez, rzimette, maqrout, skandriate, and my very favorites d’ziriate. After moving back to the States Rachel soon returned to France to do a short apprentissage at her favorite bakery, La Bague de Kenza, which taught her as much about Algerian culture, cooking, and Islam as it did about baking.

Please join us as Rachel gives a brief overview of the history, culinary influences, and cultural significance of Algerian pastries, which are often linked to very specific holidays, or family celebrations such as marriages and births. She will touch on their immense popularity in France, where northern African food has become part of modern French culinary heritage. It is a situation that has much in common with the other Afro-diasporic cuisines around the world that continue to transform culinary and cultural landscapes.

BIO
Rachel Finn is a freelance writer, editor, researcher, and the founder of Roots Cuisine (http://rootscuisine.org), a nonprofit created to promote the foodways of African Diaspora around the globe. Her work has appeared in print and electronic publications including Gastronomica, Chicago Sun-Times, Seattle Weekly, and The Root. She has also written encyclopedia entries on the foodways of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone for ABC-CLIO’s Food Cultures of the World. She is currently working on a book on the food history and recipes of the global African Diaspora. Her personal website is http://rachelfinn.net.

Program hosted at Kendall College.

TOFU PROCESSING TOUR

Posted on by

Presented by
The Cheng Family of Sun Xien Soy Products and Sun Wah BBQ

Podcast courtesy of WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified

Sun Xien Soy Products
613 W. 47th St., Chicago, IL 60609
http://www.sunxiensoyproducts.com

Tofu has long been a traditional food of Asian cultured and a mystery to many.  Believed by many to be a “fountain of youth” food, it has served as a staple for many countries in the Far East for thousands of years. Continue reading →

Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art

Posted on by

Presented by

Stephanie Smith, Deputy Director and Chief Curator

 Limit: 30 people, Reservations expected. 

Podcast courtesy of WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified
This recording from April 29, 2012

Since the 1930s, numerous artists have used the simple act of sharing food and drink to advance aesthetic goals and to foster critical engagement with the culture of their moment. These artist-orchestrated meals can offer a radical form of hospitality that punctures everyday experience, using the meal as a means to shift perceptions and spark encounters that aren’t always possible in a fast-moving and segmented society.

Feast surveys this practice for the first time, presenting the work of more than thirty artists and artist groups who have transformed the shared meal into a compelling artistic medium. The exhibition examines the history of the artist-orchestrated meal, assessing its roots in early-twentieth century European avant-garde art, its development over the past decades within Western art, and its current global ubiquity. Through a presentation within the Smart Museum and new commissions in public spaces, the exhibition will introduce new artists and contextualize their work in relation to other influential artists, from the Italian Futurists and Gordon Matta-Clark to Marina Abramović and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Feast addresses the radical hospitality embodied by these artists and the social, commercial, and political structures that surround the experience of eating together.

Stephanie Smith joined the Smart Museum as associate curator in 1999 and was named deputy director and chief curator in 2010. She is an affiliate member of the University of Chicago’s Department of Visual Arts and a contributing editor to the journal Afterall. She has held curatorial positions at Rice University, where she earned her MA in art history, and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. For her ambitious contemporary exhibitions such as Beyond Green (2005) and Heartland (2009), Smith has been named one of the most visionary curators in Chicago. Smith is curator of Feast.

This program is hosted by the Chicago Foodways Roundtable.

Saturday, April 7, 2012
Please arrive early, program begins promptly 11:30 AM
Smart Museum of Art of the University of Chicago

5550 S. Greenwood Ave
Chicago, Illinois
Street Parking

From Haggis to Headcheese — The Fall and Rise of Odd Bits

Posted on by

Presented by
Chef/Author Jennifer McLagan

Podcast courtesy of WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified

Odd bits, offal, or variety meats, whatever you call them they have had a chequered history. Prized by early man, enjoyed at Roman banquets, feted by the Elizabethans, and viewed today, in most of the English-speaking world as not worth cooking or worse still, too disgusting to eat. Why did they fall from pride of place on our table into Fido’s bowl?

Those who champion these varied and delicious morsels hope that their renaissance is underway. Economic, social and political forces that once worked against odd bits are now helping to promote them. Is the tide really changing or is it just another tiresome trend? Will it be tattooed chefs or parsimonious habits that will be odd bits saviours?

Jennifer will discuss the past, present and future of odd bits while explaining headcheese, Alice in Wonderland’s mock turtle, and the true lineage of haggis.

Jennifer McLagan is a chef and writer who has worked in Toronto, London, and Paris as well as in her native Australia. Her previous books, Bones (2005) and Fat (2008), were both widely acclaimed, and each won Beard and IACP awards. Fat won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year. Jennifer is a regular contributor to Fine Cooking and Food & Drink. She has lived in Toronto for more than thirty years with her sculptor husband, Haralds Gaikis, with whom she escapes to Paris as often as possible. On both sides of the Atlantic, Jennifer maintains friendly relations with her butchers, who put aside their best fat, bones, and odd bits for her.

Program hosted at Kendall College.

These are references to quotes from Jennifer’s talk:

Carroll, Lewis. The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1949.

Glasse, Hannah. Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (By a Lady. London: 1747.

Hartley, Dorothy. Food in England. London: Little, Brown, 2003.

Leipoldt, C. Louis. Leipoldt’s Cape Cookery. Cape Town: W. J. Flesch, 1989.

Luard, Elizabeth. The Old World Kitchen: The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking. New York, Bantam, 1987

McNeil, F. Marian. The Scots Kitchen. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 2004. This book contains my Meg Dods references but her book is online

link to Meg Dods Cook and Housewife’s Manual
http://books.google.ca/books?id=c_AGx2L5UPEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Markham, Gervase. The English Huswife. 1615

May, Robert. The Accomplisht Cook. 1660

http://www.fromoldbooks.org/LewisCaroll-AliceInWonderland/pages/alice_09c/alice_09c-1414×1696.jpg

http://utdallas.academia.edu/MatthewBrown/Papers/384626/Picky_Eating_is_a_Moral_Failing