Just What is American Food? Cookbooks and American Cultural Identity

Penelope Bingham

Penelope Bingham holds degrees from Wellesley College and the University of Chicago and has been an avid collector and appraiser of cookbooks for many years. Her personal collection of cookbooks now exceeds well over 2,000 volumes, and she has given numerous programs on American culture and cookbooks to libraries and professional organizations around Illinois.

Just What is American Food? Cookbooks and American Cultural Identity

This presentation looks at patterns of immigration to the United States in the 20th century and how the integration of new groups of immigrants into American society is reflected in our cookbooks and food preferences. At what point did pizza become as American as apple pie? Is our identity as Americans changed now that salsa outsells ketchup? This presentation involves audience participation. It invites the audience to think about the ways in which what we cook and eat influences our identity as Americans, and about the ways our changing demographics change what we eat.

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