Indian Food's History in USA, February 23rd, 2019

Culinary Historians of Chicago

Currying Interest in Indian Cuisine
From its Arrival in America
to its Rise in Chicago

Presented by Colleen Sen, PhD
Author, Culinary Historian

New date due to snowy weather!
Saturday, February 23, 2019
10 a.m. to noon
At Louis Weiss Memorial Hospital (Auditorium, lower level)
4646 N. Marine Drive (at Wilson), Chicago

FREE PARKING: USE OPEN LOT ON SOUTH SIDE OF HOSPITAL
(Signs will say “Permit Parking” and “Doctor’s Lot” but it’s OKAY for YOU to use on this Saturday!)
FREE STREET PARKING ALSO
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: CTA BUS #146 stops directly in front


“The history of Indian food in America has been largely neglected, even though it is much older than Chinese American cuisine,” says Colleen Sen, PhD, one of our nation’s foremost authorities on South Asian food.

Please join us as Colleen regales us with a buffet of flavorful facts about one of the world’s greatest cuisines, and its long-simmering impact on our nation and our city.

A few tidbits:
· The first Indian cooks arrived a decade after the founding of the Jamestown Colony in 1607 as servants to British “Nawabs” who came to America after making their fortunes.
· Curry recipes were featured in most 19th century cookbooks.
· America’s very first ‘bad boy’ celebrity chef was an Indian, Ranjit Smile, who hit the New York culinary scene in 1899 and made front page headlines with his exotic dishes and his frequent run-ins with the law.
· Faced with tightening immigration laws in the early 1900s, Indian farm workers in the Sacramento Valley married Mexican women and created a hybrid Indian-Mexican cuisine, including “Hindu pizza.”
· In Chicago, the first Indian restaurant was the House of India (1963), followed by Bengal Lancers (1969) –15 years before the first restaurant on Devon Avenue..
· For a finale, Colleen will dish on Chicago’s current South Asian food scene.

BIOGRAPHY: Colleen Taylor Sen is a Chicago-based author and culinary historian focusing on the food of the Indian Subcontinent. She has written many articles and seven books, including Food Culture in India; Curry: A Global History; Menus; Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India (named one of the best food books of the year by Vogue and The Smithsonian Magazine); and, most recently, The Chicago Food Encyclopedia (with Carol Haddix and Bruce Kraig).

Cost of the lecture program is $5, $3 for students and no charge for CHC members or Weiss staff.

To reserve, please e-mail your reservation: [email protected]

http://www.culinaryHistorians.org

Hi,

Due to snowy weather this weekend, Culinary Historians postponed this presentation to February 23rd.

Regret any inconvenience.

Regards,
Cathy2

HI,

Typical February weather, so we will be there. Hope to see you, too!

Reservations are there to help gauge how much food to serve. Drop ins are usually welcome.

Regards,
Cathy2

I had a very enjoyable time at this Lecture/Talk/Event today.
A very large turnout in a unique venue that lent itself to the good-sized #
of attendees there.
Sadly, there was no A.V.- due to a lack of The Culinary History Staff knowing how to access Weiss Memorial Hospitals AV System to allow Colleen to share her slides.

Colleen Taylor Sen- speaking about The Culinary History of Chicago and it's Indian Restaurants. by R. Kramer, on Flickr

A great many side conversations truly added to the Q & A.
For example- today it was revealed
that one of my favorite Jazz Pianists-
Ahmad Jamal- was an owner of an Indian Restaurant in Chicago (that didn't serve alcohol) !
Who knew?!
Great way to spend a Sunday morning.......

Hombre de Acero wrote:Sadly, there was no A.V.- due to a lack of The Culinary History Staff knowing how to access Weiss Memorial Hospitals AV System to allow Colleen to share her slides.

Life is full of surprises sometimes. I once walked into a talk with the wrong slide set on a topic I forgot I was going to present. I tap danced mightily much to the people's entertainment.

I talked to Colleen later to learn there were just six images in her talk.

Ahmad Jamal- was an owner of an Indian Restaurant in Chicago (that didn't serve alcohol) !
Who knew?!
Great way to spend a Sunday morning.......

Glad you could make this Saturday and hope you come back again sometime.

Regards,
Cathy2

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