Calendar of Events
Note: Meetings are usually held on the second Sunday of each month, September through May, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Currently we are meeting via Zoom, but in-person meetings are held at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Services Center, 4805 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda, Maryland, and occasionally at other venues. The meetings are open to anyone. However, certain meetings may require a fee.
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Fun Foods: The Unknown, Unexpected, and Long Forgotten
Speaker: Susan Benjamin
Harpers Ferry, West Virgnia
(Members will receive a link and passcode.)
SPEAKER BIO
Susan Benjamin, a former academic, researches the cultural history of sugars, sweets, and other fun foods from pre-history to the late 20th century. She is owner of True Treats, recognized as one of the world’s only research-based historic candy companies, selling over 600 products spanning thousands of years. Her company sells to hundreds of museums across the nation as well as in her online and brick and mortar store based in historic Harpers Ferry.
Susan regularly discusses her findings in mainstream media, including an NPR series she broadcasts from WBUR in Boston and the History Channel’s “Food that Built America.” Her business was an “answer” on the game show Jeopardy and was voted as one of the nation’s top ten candy stores by USA Today, among other honors. Ms. Benjamin’s tenth book, Sweet as Sin: The Unwrapped Story of How Candy Became America’s Favorite Pleasure made the Smithsonian’s “Best of Books about Food,” Her most recent book, Fun Foods of America: Outrageous Delights, Celebrated Brands, and Iconic Recipes (Globe Pequot Publishing, August 6, 2024), expanded her research into everything from cereals to burger joints.
TALK DESCRIPTION
The Unknown, Unexpected, and Long Forgotten will trace the unknown, unexpected and long forgotten history of Fun Foods. No mere high calorie treats—fun foods were instrumental to the core of how we live, and integral to the influence of Domestic Science, the shifting power of women at home, the use of fun foods as a weapon at war and economical vehicle in peace.
In doing so, we’ll examine popular fun foods at social gatherings, such as teas; breakfast table cereals and their entrance into the fun foods kingdom; and the transition of candy from medicines to fun foods and back again. Given the season, we’ll take a dip into fun foods for cold weather, such as old-time hot sodas and cold syrup.