U-M to host culinary history symposium

ANN ARBOR—The Longone Center for American Culinary Research at the University of Michigan’s Clements Library will serve up a large slice of Americana May 13-15 with a three-day symposium.

The offerings will range from an exhibition of highlights from the Longone archive to dinner at The Henry Ford’s Eagle Tavern. This immersion in culinary Americana marks the dedication of the Janice Bluestein Longone Archive and its first biennial symposium on American culinary history.

Symposium topics include, “European Books Seminal to American Cuisine and Early European Views on American Cooking,” “Traditional American Foods at the Start of the 21st Century,” “Early American Wine Making: The 19th Century Experience,” “American Dining Etiquette: How to Set a Table in the Gilded Age” and “Defining an American Cuisine”.

These topics provide a taste of the various components making up American cuisine.

Presenters include cookbook authors Anne Willan and Mark Cherniavsky; Ari Weinzweig, a founding partner in the Ann Arbor-based Zingerman’s Community of Businesses; Darra Goldstein, founding editor of ” Gastronomica;” Andy Smith, author and editor-in-chief of the “Oxford Encyclopedia on Food and Drink in America;” and Dan Longone, founder of the Ann Arbor Wine and Food Society.

And to whet the appetite further, the symposium will present a program of historic American culinary music performed by Pulitzer prize-winning composer William Bolcom and his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. The Michigan State University Children’s Choir will also perform.

The Longone Center’s collection of tens of thousands of items about American food is possibly the largest slice of such Americana in the world. It is available to scholars and others interested not only in culinary history, but myriad related topics. The archive includes items from the 16th to 20th centuries—books pamphlets, magazines, graphics, menus, maps, manuscripts, diaries, letters, catalogues, reference works, advertisements and other ephemera. These are complemented by, and in turn complement the internationally treasured Americana holdings of the Clements Library.

For registration and more information, visit: http://www.clements.umich.edu/culinary/index.html