Culinary Historians | What's for Dinner? Menus & More from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive

When

Sunday April 16, 2023: 4:00pm to 5:30pm  Add to Calendar /   Add to Google Calendar

Where

Downtown Library: 4th Floor Meeting Room

Description

Join Librarian Juli McLoone from the University of Michigan for a taste of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA). Founded by culinary historian and adjunct curator Janice Bluestein Longone and her husband Daniel T. Longone, JBLCA is recognized across the country as a premier collection documenting the production, promotion, preparation, and consumption of food and drink, with a particular focus on the American experience. Areas of particular strength include community and charity cookbooks, immigrant cookbooks, and food-related ephemera. Encompassing approximately 8,000 cookbooks, over 2,000 menus, and more than 4,000 pieces of advertising, the JBLCA offers a wealth of material in which researchers can explore questions surrounding identity, consumption, work and leisure, the family, social relations, and intersections between public and private life. 

This talk will draw on examples from across the collection’s strengths to examine the question of “what’s for dinner?” and how that gets decided, stretching from a 17th century manuscript recipe book to 20th century recipe boxes, from Lydia Marie Child’s advice for “frugal housewives” to full-color advertisements for spreadable cheese and Jell-O.

This event is in partnership with the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor.