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, May 18, 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.

“A Single Spoonful Will Excoriate the Mouth”: Pepper Pot Stew and Black Female Street Peddlers in Antebellum Philadelphia

During the 19^th Century, the streets of cities like Philadelphia rang with the cries of female food sellers, alerting hungry customers to their wares with their characteristic songs. Among the most prominent of this group of hawkers were the many Black women who sold pepper pot stew, a spicy dish of Caribbean origin. Transforming tripe and other cuts of cheap meat into an appetizing dish took specialized knowledge. Navigating urban markets and streets, often at night, likewise required expertise. Despite these challenges, Black women carved out an important occupational niche for themselves. Drawing on newspaper articles, children’s books, fiction, and visual culture, this talk explores how Black women in the 19^th Century drew on diasporic foodways to support themselves, their families, and their communities.

About the Speaker

Carolyn Zola is a historian of gender, race, and labor. Her doctoral dissertation, Public Women: Urban Provisioners in Nineteenth Century America, focuses on women who sold food in northeastern port cities between the mid-18^th and mid-19^th Centuries to offer a radical rethinking of the familiar story of American economic and urban transformation. A recipient of Stanford University’s Centennial Teaching Assistant Award, Dr. Zola has received research support from the American Association of University Women, the Library Company of Philadelphia Program in Early American Economy and Society, the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Stanford Humanities Center. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she worked in theater, studied at City College of San Francisco, and earned her B.A. in History at U.C. Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2024.