Dr. Paul Freedman is a professor of history at Yale University where he has been teaching since 1997.  His teaching and research over many years concentrated on the history of the Middle Ages (particularly in Catalonia).  The history of food and cuisine is a relatively recent interest, but has resulted in the publication of three very interesting books.

            In 2007 Freedman edited Food: The History of Taste, which won a prize from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and  was nominated for a James Beard award.  It has been translated into ten languages.

             Ten Restaurants that Changed America, a way of looking at US food history through ten examples, was published in September, 2016 and featured on a number of media including CBS Sunday Morning, All Things Considered, Marketplace, New York Times and PBS News Hour.

           American Cuisine and How It Got This Way appeared in October of 2019.  Like Ten Restaurants, is intended to answer the question what is American cuisine and how has it reflected social trends and divisions?

In his talk, Dr. Freedman will be addressing the question, “Is there such a thing as American cuisine?”

  As far back as 1871, a Russian prince who had toured the US said he had dined well, but that all the meals were French.  Later observers of American cuisine would say there was only fast food or that everything was too varied (especially Chinese, Italian and other ) restaurants to create a coherent cuisine.

Based on Dr. Freedman’s 2019 book American Cuisine and How It Got This Way, he will suggest that there are three characteristics of American preferences that make up a culinary aesthetic:  regional cuisines, an early and for a time enthusiastic embrace of processed, industrial food, and a love of variety.

This paradigm started to change in 1970 with the slowly growing movement emphasizing taste, seasonality, ingredients and locality.

Please join us for what should be a lively and fascinating discussion!