American Food History, Bruce Kraig, March 17, 2018

Culinary Historians of Chicago
CELEBRATING OUR 25TH YEAR—

American Food has a History You Wouldn’t Believe!

Presented by Bruce Kraig, PhD
Author, President Emeritus, Culinary Historians of Chicago

Saturday, March 17, 2018
10 a.m. to noon
At Louis Weiss Memorial Hospital
Auditorium, lower level
4646 N. Marine Drive (at Wilson), Chicago

FREE PARKING: USE OPEN LOT ON SOUTH SIDE OF HOSPITAL
(Signs will say “Permit Parking” and “Doctor’s Lot” but it’s OKAY for YOU to use on this Saturday!)
FREE STREET PARKING ALSO
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: CTA BUS #146 STOPS DIRECTLY IN FRONT

On New Year’s Day 1836, President Andrew Jackson received a momentous culinary gift, a humongous cheese, 2 feet thick, 11 feet in circumference, and weighing 1400 pounds. It was created in the summer of 1835 by Col. Thomas S. Meacham, a prosperous dairy farmer with lands near Lake Ontario north of Syracuse New York. The mammoth cheese was sent by boat along the Erie Canal on to Washington. It was a public sensation. James Fenimore Cooper wrote of the same area of New York only two generations before as a wilderness that only gradually was being transformed.

The world of food sure started changing fast in America.
The small ears of corn grown on the land by Native Americans have become row upon row of cornflakes on supermarket shelves. The immense seas of grass and the animals that they supported are now colossal farms with enormous yields of soybeans, corn and wheat that feed the world.

But how did this happen and why? From the first Native Americans to modern industrial farmers, people have shaped the North American continent and its climate based on the foods they wanted and the crops and animals they raised.

Please join as one of America’s most distinguished culinary historians, Dr. Bruce Kraig, looks at the food people have dished up from their kitchens or eaten in public dining places throughout American history. Dr. Kraig will also give us some savory insight on the creation of modern American food systems. Copies of Dr. Kraig’s latest book, A Rich and Fertile Land: A History of Food in America, will be offered at the discounted price of $30, including tax. (Full retail is $39.)

Biography: Bruce Kraig, PhD, was an original founder in 1993, and president of the Culinary Historians of Chicago for more than 20 years. He is professor emeritus of history at Roosevelt University, Chicago. Trained in history and archaeology, his specialty is the history of food in America and around the world. He has published hundreds of articles in journals and newspapers, has spoken and appeared in media internationally, and has written and hosted a series of award-winning PBS television shows about food and culture globally. Among his books are: The Cuisines of Hidden Mexico; Hot Dog: A Global History; Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America; Street Food Around the World (with Colleen Sen); The Chicago Food Encyclopedia (with Colleen Sen and Carol Haddix); and his latest, A Rich and Fertile Land: A History of Food in America. He also edits the "Heartland Foodways" series for the University of Illinois Press.

Cost of the lecture program is $5, $3 for students and no charge for CHC members, Weiss staff and faculty, and Kendall students and faculty.

To reserve, please e-mail your reservation: Culinary.Historians@gmail.com

http://culinaryhistorians.org/american- ... t-believe/

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