Membership

Culinary Historians of Chicago, one of the oldest culinary history groups in the country, will celebrate its 32nd anniversary in 2025. Please join us today to help us continue to add to the vibrancy of our organization.

Join Culinary Historians of Chicago by completing this membership application, then email or mail. Annual membership is $36 for individuals, $60 for couples, and $24 for students with current identification. You may pay at a meeting by check or cash, by mail using a check, or online via credit card:

Membership Levels:
Renewal? Gift?

Funding for our activities is provided by your memberships and program fees.

Membership includes:

  • Priority reservations to Culinary Historians of Chicago and Chicago Foodways Roundtable programs;
  • Membership card. If you would like a membership card mailed to you, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your membership fee;
  • Notification of upcoming events; and
  • Special member discounts for certain events.

Non-members are welcome at Culinary Historians of Chicago lectures by paying at the door. Adults are usually $5 and students with current ID are $3. 

All Chicago Foodways Roundtable programs are pay-as-you-go with fees typically $3.

If you have any questions, please contact us by emailing: culinaryhistorians@gmail.com or calling: 847-432-8209.

Your membership in Culinary Historians of Chicago has funded the following activities:

  • Monthly meetings curated by program chair Scott Warner;
  • Since 2005, Culinary Historians’ Chicago Foodways Roundtable was added as a pay-as-you-go series of additional programs, tours and hands-on learning experiences;
  • Since 2008, Culinary Historians of Chicago partnered with WBEZ Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified to podcast our programs. This concluded in 2013, though Culinary Historians continues to record and host podcasts;
  • We have sponsored symposia on Grits and Greens, Grits and Greens II and Munching Your Way Through the Midwest: Celebrating the History of America’s Food and Foodways, which introduced the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink;
  • Culinary Historians of Chicago inspired the founding of Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance, which is a 501(c)3 whose area of interest is solely the American Midwest; and
  • Oversees the American Midwest Foodways Scholar’s Grants funded by the Julia Child Foundation.