Culinary Historians of Boston, Annual Banquet

Mitton House, 135 Fisher Ave. Newbury College, Sunday, May 17, 2009

18th Century Colonial American Taverns

This year's banquet featured the food and drink among the "pumpkinhead" bumpkins of the coastal American colonies of the expanding British empire. For culinary historians, it is a rich yes under-explored period in which the new foodstuffs of empire and the changes within British society produced many changes in the kitchen. Available materials include the first widely used cookbooks by women, recently published culinary manuscripts, and even the first English translations of French culinary classics. Moving backward in time we recreated the flavor of the first North American cups of the Chinese tea Bostonians threw in the harbor, and such treats familiar from literature as Plymouth succotash, thirded bread, grilled shad, jumbles, home-cured ham, pounded cheese, ale, hard cider, beach plum bounce, boiled dinner, and diverse "sallets."

For Isabel Chesak's report on the Banquet, click here.

May 13, 2007, Iraqi Food; 5000 Years of Great Eating

Members cooked the ancient and multicultural food of Iraq with member and author Nawal Nasrallah.

June 18, 2006, The Many Cuisines of New Orleans

Members cooked in the many historic styles of New Orleans, including dishes from the various Creole communities, Cajun, Native American, and African American specialties, and some modern fusions.

May 22, 2005 Julia Child and Madame E. Saint-Ange.

Mitton House of Newbury College, 135 Fisher Avenue, Brookline, Sunday, May 22, 2005. Last year's banquet was a memorial to our late friend and inspiration, Julia Child, featuring dishes from her model cookbook, the 1927 Le Livre de Cuisine de Mme E. Saint-Ange (now out in an English translation by Paul Aratow, former chef at Chez Panisse), and from the early works of Julia Child. It was the early 20th Century French home cooking that made Julia Child want to be The French Chef, and that made so many of us want to be Julia Child. Desserts to die for. Regional French wines provided by Fred Ek of Excellers Wine Agents.

Real Paper photo by Martha Stewart [not that one], Julia in her Cambridge kitchen, late 1970s.

2003 Banquet: Mrs. Charles Dickens' menu book:

Dickens banquet photo Photo by Ai Ling Sim-Devadas

2003 Banquet: The Civil War, North and South

dessert table, Civil War Banquet

Photos of 2003 Banquet by Mark H. Zanger

Costumed interpreters and guests at Civil War Banquet

Costumed members of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers at the buffet. The chimney in the foreground is part of an antique military stove lent for the occasion by the Culinary Archive and Museum at Johnson and Wales College.