African American foodways virtual talks

There are many upcoming talks - 42 so far - and tapes of talks to celebrate Black History Month. Dolly Johnson (1852-1918), chief cook of the White House kitchen is pictured c1890. She started working for President Benjamin Harrison and stayed on. Andrian Miller will talk about his book The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: African American chefs who have fed the first families. Check out the variety of interesting talks -

Medical and culinary manuscripts digitized

Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbooks is a new Digital Collections & Exhibits website at the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM). Manuscript Cookbooks Survey is a great source to find manuscripts in libraries, his. soc. and museums.

Archive 2 - listing of past virtual food history talks Jan-Feb 2021

The first archive of links is filling up since several months had over 200 talks. The original calendar post will maintain the current month of virtual talks listing Calendar of virtual talks. This post is to "archive" all (including not taped) virtual talks on the events list from the past months.  Many talks are not taped (only a fourth of the talks are) and marked in red as Tape Those which are taped will be placed in the various categories when I have time. 

Streaming from the hearth - virtual hearth cooking and baking in ovens

Some cooks and museums have done virtual demos of bake oven and cooking over the fire. But. There should be more! People are curious about the unusual activity, and it's a unique way to get donations. Links to tapes of hearth cooking and bake oven are below, and upcoming virtual demos.

So hearth cooks out there... grab your laptop or smart phone and share the fun you are having at the hearth.

Eating and sleeping in the Capitol at the start of the Civil War, April 1861

To honor our troops now sleeping on the floor of the US Capitol and visitor's center to protect it from another terrorist assault...

Tea Talks

It is National Hot Tea Month with 15 talks. Saved the taped talks from 2020, 2021. Blog Post on Ice/Iced Tea HERE

Twelfth Night cakes in shop windows

Elaborate window displays for Twelfth-day cakes in bakeries and confectioneries, like this 1836 image, showed off a huge cake "on large and massy salvers" with many other sizes at the window and on shelves, lit by "argand-lamps and manifold wax-lights."