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.
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… Read More »Businessman First, Remembering Henry G. Parks, Jr. 1916-1989
CHoW member Karima Moyer-Nocchi will reveal insights into our notions of ‘traditional’ Italian food based on her book: Chewing the Fat – An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to… Read More »On Food and Fascism
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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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
The Great Gelatin Revival traces the history of aspics, jiggly desserts and jello shots. The author predicts that given the patterns of popularity since the Middle Ages, gelatin is about… Read More »The Great Gelatin Revival
TALK DESCRIPTION In the late 1970s and 1980s, archivist and author Susan Tucker compiled and wrote about oral histories of domestic workers and employers of domestic workers in articles as… Read More »Domestic Workers and Their Employers: Reactions to One Book 35 Years Later
The Arabic word “Maghreb” means “land where the sun sets,” a region which includes Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya and in ancient times, parts of Spain, Sicily, and Malta. The… Read More »Flavors of the Maghreb & Southern Italy: Recipes from the Land of the Setting Sun