CHAA Meetings
The Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor generally meet on the third Sunday of the month at 4 p.m. Eastern, September through May. Meeting invitations are sent to members and other interested individuals, but all are welcome to attend. Our monthly talks are hybrid: an in-person audience gathers at the Ann Arbor District Library, and a virtual audience gathers online via the library’s YouTube channel. Please check this website for the date and location and format of each meeting, as these will vary.
Members receive emailed information regarding meetings in advance and a reminder on the day of each meeting.
Next program
Sunday, January 19, 2025, 4 p.m.
Ann Arbor District Library
315 S. Fifth St., Ann Arbor MI
Fourth Floor Meeting Room and Online here.
Register to receive a reminder a few days before the event.
Preserving the Past: 18th century food preservation
Raspberries, French and Fava Beans
When most people think of 18th-century food preservation, only a few of the many methods that were actually used occur to them, and most of those are for long-term food storage. In this slide presentation, distilling her many years of work in the experimental archaeology of food, Susan McLellan Plaisted will explore a multitude of historical techniques used in long- or short-term storage, providing a comprehensive view of the sophistication of past practices in preserving foods.
About the speaker
Blowing the Bladder
Susan McLellan Plaisted, who has been interested in food history for as long as she remembers, has been Proprietress of Heart to Hearth Cookery in Morrisville, Pennsylvania since 1988. There, she organizes classes and demonstrations, and produces educational materials, on a wide variety of topics in colonial and early American cooking. Her primary focus has been to use the experimental archaeology of food in order to research and re-create the receipts of the past.
Upcoming programs and links to past programs.
Join Us!
Our membership year runs from September to September. The annual membership is $25. You can print out the membership form here. We also accept membership dues via credit card (with or without PayPal). Click on the membership link at the top of this page for more information.
The Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor (CHAA), founded in 1983 by Jan Longone and friends, is an organization of scholars, cooks, food writers, nutritionists, collectors, students, and others interested in the study of culinary history and gastronomy.
The mission of the group is to promote the study of culinary history through regular programs open to members and guests, through the quarterly publication Repast, and through exchanges of information with other such organizations.
Monthly meetings of the CHAA are normally held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from September through May on the third Sunday of the month at 4 p.m. (unless otherwise announced).
Membership in CHAA is open to anyone interested in culinary history. Dues are $25.00 for an individual or couple and include a subscription to Repast. The membership year is from September to September. For those who cannot attend meetings, a yearly subscription to Repast is $20.00.
Repast is the official quarterly publication of CHAA. Besides announcements of future meetings and reports of past meetings, it also contains feature articles, book reviews, a calendar of upcoming events of culinary interest, and special events. For information about contributing articles, placing information, announcements, or other regular features, contact the Editor.