Our speaker programs are hosted by the Ann Arbor District Library on location, on YouTube and/or on Zoom.

Fall 2025

Sunday, September 28, 2025, 4-5:30pm
[rescheduled from Feb. 16]
“Beets are too old fashioned”: Henry Orr, a Black Caterer in Early Federal Washington, DC
Dr. Leni A. Sorensen, independent historian, Indigo House, Crozet, VA

Sunday, October 19, 2025, 4-5:30pm
SPAM: A Global War Food
Dr. Kelly A. Spring, D.C.-area food historian and author of SPAM: A Global History (2025)

Sunday, November 16, 2025, 4-5:30pm
A History of Cider
Patrick McCauley, local historian, apple and cider historian, and award-winning cidermaker

Sunday, December 7, 2025, 4-7pm
Members-only participatory theme meal
Details TBA

Winter 2026

Sunday, January 18, 2026, 4-5:30 pm
Expat Cookbooks: Expressions of Identity and Community While Living Abroad
Dr. Daniel Freidus, book collector and retired University of Michigan Academic Advisor

Sunday, February 15, 2026, 4-5:30pm
Bananas Above the Clouds: How the Japanese Taste for Sweetness Transformed the Philippine Highlands
Dr. Alyssa Paredes, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan,

Sunday, March 15, 2026, 4-5:30pm
¡A las ventanitas, valientes, corred!: Food, Identity, and Politics of Cuban-American Restaurants
Allyson Pérez, Ph.D. student in American Culture, University of Michigan

Sunday, April 19, 2026, 4-5:30pm
Made in California: The California-Born Diners, Fast Food, and Restaurants that Changed America
George Geary, CCP, chef, author, and TV personality in Corona, CA

Sunday, May 17, 2026 at 4-5:30pm
A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavored French and British Cuisine
Dr. Christopher Beckman, specialist in Near Eastern archaeology, currently based in Spain and Malaysia

Past Programs

Sunday, July 13, 2025
Members-only participatory theme meal
Food from the ‘Stans’ of Central Asia
More information 

Sunday, May 18, 2025
“A Single Spoonful Will Excoriate the Mouth”: Pepper Pot Stew and Black Female Street Peddlers in Antebellum Philadelphia
Dr. Carolyn Zola, research fellow at The Library Co. of Philadelphia
View the recording

Sunday, April 27, 2025
A Tale of 2 Cities: Community Cookbooks and Urbanization in California at the Turn of the 20^th Century
Kate Helfrich, teacher-scholar of food and cookbooks in Sacramento, CA
View the recording

Sunday, March 16, 2025
Reading Between the Lines: American Cookbooks of the Interwar Period
Thomas Gordon, cookbook collector in Santa Cruz, CA
View the recording

Sunday, February 16, 2025, 4 p.m.
Henry Orr, a Black Caterer in Early Federal Washington, DC
Dr. Leni A. Sorensen, independent historian, Indigo House, Crozet, Virginia
Cancelled due to weather – may be rescheduled

Sunday, January 19, 2025
Preserving the Past: 18th-Century Food Preservation Techniques
Susan McLellan Plaisted, Heart to Hearth Cookery, Morrisville, Pennsylvania
View the recording

Sunday, December 8, 2024
Classic Michigan Food and Drinks: The Stories behind the Brands
Gail Offen and Jon Milan, local historians and authors
View the recording

Sunday, November 24, 2024, 4 – 7 p.m.
Members-only participatory theme meal: Comfort Us with Apples

Sunday, November 17, 2024
Countering the Effects of Domicide through Food: The Za‘atari Camp Syrian Refugee Cookbook
Professor Karen E. Fisher, Information School, University of Washington
View the recording

Sunday, October 20, 2024
Cooking in London After the Black Death
Professor Katherine French, University of Michigan
View the recording

Sunday, September 15, 2024
Brasseries, Bistros and Bouillons
Jim Chevallier, author of A History of the Food of Paris: From Roast Mammoth to Steak Frites
View the recording

Sunday, July 14, 2024
Summer Theme Meal: Just Married: Wedding Dishes from Everywhere

Sunday, May 19, 2024
Detroit’s 1910 Kosher Meat Riot
Dr. Catherine Cangany, Exec. Dir., Jewish Historical Society of Michigan
View the recording

Sunday, April 21, 2024
The Art of the French Macaron
Keegan C. Rodgers, Owner and Head Baker, The Lakehouse Bakery, Chelsea, MI
View the recording

Sunday, March 24, 2024
Popcorn as a Food, a Crop and a Business
Dr. Charlie Sing, popcorn breeder and marketer, owner of Amaizin’ Pop, LLC
View the recording

Sunday, February 18, 2024
A Tale of Two Breads: The Eucharistic and the Everyday Loaf in Early Medieval Europe
Dr. Paolo Squatriti, University of Michigan Professor of History
View the recording

Sunday, January 21, 2024
A Taste of Oman
Marcia Stegath Dorr, ethnographer and author of A Taste of Oman: Traditional Omani Food
View the recording

Sunday, December 10, 2023
Winter Theme Meal
Nellie Bly: Around the World in 80 Dishes

Sunday, November 19, 2023
Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon
Dr. Cindy Ott, Assoc. Professor of History and Material Culture
University of Delaware
View the recording.

Sunday, October 15, 2023
Wealth and Want: Food in the Gilded Age
Dr. Helen Zoe Veit, Assoc. Professor of History
Michigan State University
View the recording.

Sunday, September 17, 2023
The Story of Jiffy Mix
Howard “Howdy” Holmes, CEO of Chelsea Milling Co.
View the recording

Summer Theme Meal
The Kitchen Front in WWII: Home  Gardens, Rationing and Eating for Victory
Sunday, July 9, 2023

Sunday, May 21, 2023
Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites
Monica Eng and David Hammond, Chicago food journalists
View the recording

Sunday, April 16, 2023
What’s for Dinner? Menus and More from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archives at the University of Michigan
Juli McLoone, Curator
View the recording

Sunday, March 19, 2023
Lisa McDonald, owner of TeaHaus in Ann Arbor, and Jill Rheinheim, co-authors of the just-published Tea for Dummies (March 2023)
View the recording

Sunday, February 19, 2023
Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine
Kelley Fanto Deetz, Vice President of Collections and Public Engagement, Stratford Hall, Virginia
View the recording

Sunday, January 15, 2023
Sourdough Culture: A History of Breadmaking from Ancient to Modern Bakers
Eric Pallant, amateur baker, author and professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability at Allegheny College
View the recording

Sunday, December 11
Potluck Themed Meal: The Bonnie British Isles

Sunday, November 13
Detroit Tiki: A History of Polynesian Palaces and Tropical Drinks
A nostalgic look at some famous mid-century Detroit Tiki restaurants that embodied the height of the Polynesian craze, presented by author Renee Tadey
View the recording

Sunday, October 9
Ten Years of Culinary Delights from the International Museum of Dinnerware Design with museum director Margaret Carney
View the recording

Sunday, September 18
Forty Years of Zingerman’s and Its Impact on the Global Food World
with Micheline Maynard, author of Satisfaction Guaranteed.
View the recording

Sunday, July 10, 4-7 p.m.
Potluck Themed Meal: The Cuisines of the Caribbean
Ladies Literary Club, Ypsilanti
218 N. Washington St.

Sunday, May 15, 2022
What She Ate and Why I Wrote About It: Women, Food and Biography
Laura Shapiro, author of What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories
View the recording.

Sunday, April 24, 2022
Unpacking the Meatpacking District Legacy of Ottman & Company, New York’s Storied Meat Purveyor 
Jacquelyn Ottman, fifth-generation member of a pioneering family of NYC butchers
Order the book.
View the recording.

Sunday, March 20, 2022
Victory Gardens: How a Nation of Vegetable Gardeners Helped to Win the War
with Judith Sumner, botanist, educator and garden historian
No recording available.

Sunday, February 20, 2022
The Provisions of War
Roundtable discussion hosted by Prof. Justin Nordstrom, Penn State University
View the recording.

Sunday, January 16, 2022
The Secret History of Home Economics
with journalist and author Danielle Dreilinger
View the recording.

Sunday, November 21, 2021
Prohibition and Repeal with Tammy Coxen, author of Cheers to Michigan
List of cocktail recipes
No recording available.

Sunday, October 31, 2021
German-American Foodways
Antje Petty, Max Kade Institute, University of Wisconsin
View the recording

Sunday, September 19, 2021
Early Mexican Cookbooks with Maite Gómez-Rejón
View the recording.

Sunday, June 20, 2021
The Marmalade Mavens with Sarah B. Hood
No recording available.

Sunday, May 16, 2021
Puerto Rican Cuisine in America with Oswald Rivera
View the recording

Sunday, April 18, 2021
Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue with James Beard Book Award Winner Adrian Miller (adrianemiller.com).
View the recording.

Sunday, March 21, 2021
Creating Sunset Magazine’s Cooking Department: A Study of Men, Women and Cooking in the 1930s with food historian Jennifer Pagano.
View the recording.

Sunday, February 21, 2021
Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking with food historian, educator and author Linda Civitello.
View the recording.

Sunday, January 17, 2021
Sweet Greeks: First Generation Immigrant Confectioners in the Heartland with author Ann Flesor Beck, a third-generation confectioner and independent scholar.

Sunday, December 6, 2020
All Stirred Up: Suffrage Cookbooks, Food and the Battle for Women’s Right to Vote with Laura Kumin (laurakumin.com).