A program by
Penelope Bingham

“Just what is “American Food”? Raymond Sokolov says there is no such thing, David Rosengarten says “It’s All American Food”. It seems that every food historian and critic has an opinion on the subject, but there is no consensus. 

Is American Food just the sum of disparate regional cuisines, or the foodways of individual ethnic groups and immigrants? Or is there something distinctive about the foodways of the country as a whole? The food itself? What constitutes a proper American meal? The corporate element (think General Foods, McDonald’s)? Is there an identifiable American food culture? Do American foodways illuminate broader aspects of American culture?

In an interactive program, given by the Newberry Library Book Fair’s “Cookbook Lady”, Penelope Bingham, will look at these questions with reference to American cookbooks, past and present. Come ready to talk about how we eat and how we live, American food and cultural identity.

Penelope Bingham, who has been collecting cookbooks for 40 years, travels around the state of Illinois as a “Road Scholar” for the Illinois Humanities Council, talking about American cookbooks and culture. For the past thirteen years, she has appraised and priced cookbooks for the annual book fair of the Newberry Library. She is a member of the Culinary Historians of Chicago and the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Program hosted at Roosevelt University.