Calendar of Events

(photo credit Manuel Krug) Ursula Heinzelmann is an independent scholar and culinary historian born and based in Berlin, Germany. A trained chef, sommelier and ex-restaurateur, she works as a freelance wine and food writer, specializing in cheese. She is the author of a cultural history of food in Germany, Beyond Bratwurst, as well as other books on food, cooking and cheese.… Read More »German Foodways, Industrialization, and Cheese

Learn about the history of Maryland’s most iconic food traditions and food businesses such as Maryland Beaten Biscuits, crab cakes, coddies, McCormick Spices and Old Bay, as well as some less well-known fare including white potato pie. This PowerPoint presentation is based on research Joyce White conducted in her role as guest curator for the… Read More »A TASTE OF HISTORY

Speaker: Maurice W. Dorsey, Ph.D., Washington, D.C. Zoom Meeting (A meeting link and passcode will be sent to members.) TALK DESCRIPTION: Capturing the Life of a Businessman Who Was African American. Dr. Dorsey’s presentation will focus on the creation and building of the Baltimore-based Parks Sausage Co., Inc. He will discuss various issues, such as… Read More »Businessman First, Remembering Henry G. Parks, Jr. 1916-1989

Chopsticks have become a quintessential part of the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean culinary experience across the globe, with more than one fifth of the world's population using them daily to eat. Dr. Wang’s vibrant, original account of the history of chopsticks based on his book, Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History, charts their evolution from… Read More »Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History

TALK DESCRIPTION: Over the centuries, Spanish cuisine has been influenced by foreign invaders, friendly visitors, and her colonial history. In the course of CiCi’s presentation, we will travel 2,000 miles around the country and visit six culinary regions: • Central Spain and Madrid, where roasted meats and tortilla Español predominate. • The Pyrenees, where a… Read More »“Circumnavigating Spain: An Exploration of Her Regional Cuisines”

TALK DESCRIPTION: Mr. Ryan will take us on a journey through the history of White House hospitality that explores presidents’ experience of wine. Early presidents recognized the important function wine played in entertaining at the White House. Some appreciated and enjoyed wine; others considered it merely a ceremonial necessity. Still others campaigned to outlaw wine… Read More »“Wine and the White House”

TALK DESCRIPTION The modern “paleo” diet movement makes many assumptions about what our ancient human ancestors ate. But are these assumptions based on actual evidence? Presenting a variety of lines of evidence for prehistoric human diets including early human, animal, and plant fossils, ancient stone tools, DNA, and living human and chimpanzee diets, Dr. Briana… Read More »The Real Paleo Diet: What Ancient Humans Actually Ate

TALK DESCRIPTION What is bread? Is it cereal or pulse-based? Is it fermented? What microbes raise the dough? These are basic questions that support an in-depth understanding of this culinary invention. My focus is to examine the bread fermentation methods developed around the world that capture microbes other than yeast. Yeast-free risen breads have a… Read More »Yeast-free Breads Rising Around the World

TALK DESCRIPTION At seventeen, when I was living in a semi-cloistered convent in south India, I got my first taste of Christmas. A Hindu by birth, I had spent my whole life until then in the Muslim Middle East and had yet to experience a true Christmas. As a boarder at the convent, I observed… Read More »The Sacred Foods of India

TALK DESCRIPTION Dr. Piñer’s talk explores the Jewish cuisine that originated and developed in Spain. It is a scholarly exploration of Sephardi cuisine that touches on the origins of recipes and their cultural importance as well as on their apparent disappearance as a result of religious persecution. It reveals links to antisemitism throughout history. Her… Read More »A Sephardic Taste of History: How Sephardi and Jews, Food, and Spain Reflect the Culinary Heritage of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora