Join the conversation!

Let's talk turkey! And chicken, oysters, strawberries, beef, and cream… Maryland has a wonderful wealth of food varieties and food traditions. The Maryland Humanities Council has assembled an array of speakers with a variety of backgrounds and presentations from history to ethics and folklore to environmentalism, in a new program titled America by Food: Community Conversations, to accompany the traveling Smithsonian exhibition Key Ingredients.

Dynamic and versatile speakers are available to present free public programs in communities across the state. Programs are sure to engage audiences about the food they eat and how it is a part of the continuum of food traditions in Maryland. Presenters can discuss the Past—open hearth cooking; the Present—sustainable agriculture; the Famous—presidential cuisine; the Intellectual—food ethics; Regional—oysters and the Chesapeake Bay; and the Entertaining—food in film. Find out about the invention of the can opener, how Julia Child became famous, tips for grilling techniques and more!

Click here for guidelines, or contact Judy Dobbs at 410-685-4185 or jdobbs@mdhc.org.

Speakers and Topics for America by Food: Community Conversations

Warren Belasco
Food In Film
The Future of Food

Charles Camp
Inspecting Gadgets: The Making and Selling of Culinary Paraphernalia
The Importance of Supper

Brian Henning
The Ethics of Food: The Battle for American Hearts and Stomachs

Mary Ann Jung
Julia Child: America's Favorite French Chef

Mark McWilliams
Delmonico's: Inventing the American Restaurant
From Raw Beef Without Salt to Freedom Fries: Haute Cuisine, the White House, and Presidential Politics

Henry M. Miller
An Archaeological Look at Food in the Colonial Chesapeake

Joan Norman
Community Supported Agriculture: The Importance of Buying Local

Ed Okonowicz
Food Lore: Folklore's Fascinating Role in Regional Cuisine

Patricia Bixler Reber
Cooking in Maryland: From Open Hearth to Fireless Cooker

David Smith
Agriculture, the Environment, Our Food and Sustainability

Kara Rogers Thomas
Appalachian Foodways
Sacred Foodways: Food and Religion

Michael Twitty
Fighting Old Nep: The Food Culture of Enslaved Afro-Marylanders
Maryland the Edible: Traditional Wildcrafting in Three Maryland Ecosystems

Paul Lawrence Vann
Good Grilling!

Margaret Enloe Vivian
From Watermen to Waterview: A Cultural Hisotry of Avalon Island and Tilghman Packing Company

John R. Wennersten
The Almighty Oyster: Food, Fighting, and Sensibility

Psyche Williams-Forson
Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food and Power
Locating Home, Locating History: African American Food Service in the 20th Century