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.
See upcoming programs and links to past programs.
Next program
Sunday, February 15, 2026, 4:00-5:30 pm
Ann Arbor District Library – Downtown Branch
Fourth Floor Meeting Room
343 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
View the event online here.
Register to receive a reminder of the event!
Bananas Above the Clouds: How the Japanese Taste for Sweetness Transformed the Philippine Highlands
Japan is the only place in the world where bananas are marketed and priced by cultivation altitude: lowland, midland, highland, and super highland. In the late 1980s, plantation managers sourcing the fruit from the southern Philippine region of Mindanao discovered a paradigm-shifting formula: the higher up one grew, the sweeter the bananas became. And the sweeter the bananas were, the closer they were to replicating the sweetness of colonial Taiwanese bananas, a taste lost in the switch to Philippine supply.
This talk offers the first transnational history of the invention of kōchi saibai banana (高地栽培バナナ) or “highland cultivated bananas,” and of the banana’s transition from a “fungible commodity” to a “nonfungible product” in the Asia-Pacific region. In describes a dynamic that pervades the creation of many food commodities: the conversion of coffee into “yuppie” equivalents, tea into SFTGFOP grades, cheese into various artisanal kinds, pigs into heritage breeds, and tomatoes into heirloom varieties.
About the speaker
Dr. Alyssa Paredes is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She conducts her research on plantation agriculture and transnational food chains between the Philippines and Japan. She is the co-editor of Halo-Halo Ecologies: Emergent Environments Behind Filipino Food (University of Hawaii Press, 2025).
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.
