Boston Flora

Tag: Jacques Pepin

  • Wednesday, October 21, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Safar with Madhushree Ghosh

    Join Madhushree Ghosh as she discusses her book, Safar: Finding Home, History, and Culture through Punjabi Food in the American West. This event is sponsored by Boston University’s Food Studies Programs and is part of the Pépin Lecture Series. The date is October 21 from 6 – 7 at 808 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Room 124.

    Madhushree Ghosh (Phd in biochemistry) is also the author of Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family . She is the creative founder of KhabaarCo, a global literary salon and supper club. As a TEDx Speaker, Madhushree interrogates cultural, culinary and immigration issues using food as a social justice tool.

    Published in June of this year, Safar blends memoir and history to explore the role of Punjabi food in fostering community and identity among South Asian refugees and immigrants.

    Safar follows the journey of South Asian refugees, immigrants, and their children-in particular, Sikhs, Jats, and Muslims-who moved to the southwestern states of America over centuries as farmers, truck drivers, restaurant owners, and dhaba/diner stall cooks. An expedition in search of the asli-or real Punjabi food-Madhushree Ghosh explores how their food traveled from pre-partition British India to now, while weaving in her own immigrant journey as a graduate student to America in 1993, her quest to find home through the food of her Bengali refugee parents, and the physical journey she embarked on to visit the Punjabi communities in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

    Focusing on four Punjabi women, each a part of a different immigration wave of South Asia to the American West, Ghosh highlights the food and recipes they brought with them that connect them to their pasts. Safar shares stories of displacement, discrimination, community, and hope, while shedding light on immigrant journeys and the true meaning of home, comfort food, and what constitutes a “true Punjabi” meal. Featuring essential recipes, this is a poignant reflection on what it means to find home and identity through food and culture as an immigrant to the United States. Reserve your free space HERE.

  • Wednesday, October 7, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon

    Join Mark A. Johnson on October 7 at 6 pm at the Boston University Food Studies Building, 808 Commonwealth Avenue Room 124, as he delves into the four century history of a gastronomic phenomenon in the United States!

    Mark A. Johnson earned a Ph.D. in History from the University of Alabama. He specializes in the history of the United States and, specifically, the U.S. South and African American History. In 2017, he published An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue: From Wood Pit to White Sauce. In 2021, he published Rough Tactics: Black Performance in Political Spectacles, 1877-1932. His most recent book, American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon was published in April of this year.

    His newest book explores the four-century history of a gastronomic phenomenon in the United States. In American Bacon, Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culinary and cultural powerhouse?

    Starting in early modern Britain and tracing the story of bacon through the colonial era, the Civil War, the Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry, Johnson provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives. More than a story of production, marketing, and consumption, Johnson argues, this cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while also illuminating major historical forces, such as migration, warfare, urbanization and suburbanization, reform movements, cultural trends, and globalization. For Johnson, bacon’s story from “most dangerous food in the supermarket” to pop culture and gastronomic phenomenon reflects the cultural values of a nation.

    Register for this free event at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pepin-lecture-series-american-bacon-with-mark-a-johnson-tickets-2000272716541?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite

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  • Thursday, October 9, 6:00 pm – Cooling the Tropics

    The Boston University Food Studies Program has announced its Fall 2025 Pépin Lecture Series. On Thursday, October 9 at 6:00 pm Hi’ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart will present a talk based on her new book Cooling the Tropics. Beginning in the mid-1800s, Americans hauled frozen pond water, then glacial ice, and then ice machines to Hawaiʻi—all in an effort to reshape the islands in the service of Western pleasure and profit. Marketed as “essential” for white occupants of the nineteenth-century Pacific, ice quickly permeated the foodscape through advancements in freezing and refrigeration technologies. In Cooling the Tropics Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart charts the social history of ice in Hawaiʻi to show how the interlinked concepts of freshness and refreshment mark colonial relationships to the tropics.

    From chilled drinks and sweets to machinery, she shows how ice and refrigeration underpinned settler colonial ideas about race, environment, and the senses. By outlining how ice shaped Hawaiʻi’s food system in accordance with racial and environmental imaginaries, Hobart demonstrates that thermal technologies can—and must—be attended to in struggles for food sovereignty and political self-determination in Hawaiʻi and beyond.

    Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart (Kanaka Maoli) is Assistant Professor of Native and Indigenous Studies at Yale University. An interdisciplinary scholar, she researches and teaches on issues of settler colonialism, environment, and Indigenous sovereignty. This first book, Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (Duke University Press, 2022) is a recipient of the press’s Scholars of Color First Book Award. It will be available for purchase on October 9.

    Her articles have appeared in refereed journals such as NAIS, Media+Environment, Food, Culture, and Society, and The Journal of Transnational American Studies, among others. She is the co-editor of the special issue “Radical Care,” for Social Text (2020), and the editor of Foodways of Hawaiʻi (Routledge, 2018). She is currently working on a project about cultural memory, commemoration, and hauntings in Hawaii State Parks. Professor Hobart holds a PhD in Food Studies from New York University, an MA in Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture from the Bard Graduate Center, and an MLS in Rare Books Librarianship and Archives Management from the Pratt Institute.

    The event will take place at 808 Commonwealth Avenue, in Fuller 124, and is free, but registration is recommended through Eventbrite HERE.

  • Thursday, October 9, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Cooling the Tropics

    Beginning in the mid-1800s, Americans hauled frozen pond water, then glacial ice, and then ice machines to Hawaiʻi—all in an effort to reshape the islands in the service of Western pleasure and profit. Marketed as “essential” for white occupants of the nineteenth-century Pacific, ice quickly permeated the foodscape through advancements in freezing and refrigeration technologies. In Cooling the Tropics Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart charts the social history of ice in Hawaiʻi to show how the interlinked concepts of freshness and refreshment mark colonial relationships to the tropics. The October 9 lecture takes place in Room 124 at 808 Commonwealth Avenue in Brookline at the Boston University School of Culinary Arts, as part of the Jacques Pepín Lecture Series, Register in advance on Eventbrite HERE.

  • Friday, November 7, 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – The Art of Jacques Pepin, Online

    GBH presents a national virtual event honoring chef/culinary personality, Jacques Pépin.

    Jacques sits down for a wide ranging discussion which will include: reflections on his career, his decades-long connection to public media, the important work he does with his foundation, and his enduring role as a culinary icon. There will also be time during the event where you can ask Jacques your own questions.

    Our virtual event occurs a few weeks in advance of Jacques’s 90th birthday, which occurs on Dec. 18, 2025. Join us to celebrate all things Jacques!

    More about Jacques Pépin: The winner of sixteen James Beard Awards and author of over thirty cookbooks, including The Apprentice, Essential Pépin, and Jacques Pépin Quick & Simple, Jacques Pépin is a chef, author, television personality, educator, and artist. He has starred in twelve acclaimed PBS cooking series. His dedication to culinary education led to the creation of the Jacques Pépin Foundation in 2016.

    Ticket price: $120 (includes a Zoom link to join the live 90-minute Zoom Webinar event on Nov.7. An autographed hard cover copy of Jacques’s newest book, The Art of Jacques Pépin, will be mailed to the ticket purchaser’s address. Photo courtesy of Milk Street

  • Wednesday, April 16, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Don’t Waste Perfectly Good Food!

    Join the Boston University Food & Wine department on Wednesday, April 16 from 1 – 2 for a cooking demonstration with Irene and Mei Li in celebration of Earth month. Learn how to turn scraps into delicious dishes. Free, but reserve your spot through Eventbrite HERE. This event is part of the Spring 2025 Pépin Lecture Series and will take place at 808 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 124.

  • Tuesday, February 18, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Pépin Lecture Series: A Talk with Sara B. Franklin

    Join Sara B. Franklin at Boston University, 928 Commonwealth Avenue Room 110, on February 18 at 6 pm for a conversation about her latest book, The Editor, to kickoff the Boston University Food & Wine Program’s spring 2025 lecture series. The event is free but registration is requested at www.eventbrite.com. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

    Legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath—finally gets her due in this “surprising, granular, luminous, and path-breaking biography” (Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem).

    At Doubleday’s Paris office in 1949, twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, a book caught her eye. She read it in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of a culture-defining career in publishing.

    During her more than fifty years as an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Jones nurtured the careers of literary icons such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Tyler, and John Updike, and helped launched new genres and trends in literature. At the forefront of the cookbook revolution, she published the who’s who of food writing: Edna Lewis, M.F.K. Fisher, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, James Beard, and, most famously, Julia Child. Through her tenacious work behind the scenes, Jones helped turn these authors into household names, changing cultural mores and expectations along the way.

    Judith’s work spanned decades of America’s most dramatic cultural change—from the end of World War II through the civil rights movement and the fight for women’s equality—and the books she published acted as tools of quiet resistance. Now, based on exclusive interviews, never-before-seen personal papers, and years of research, her astonishing career is explored for the first time in this “thorough and humanizing portrait” (Kirkus Reviews).

    About the Speaker

    Sara B. Franklin is a writer, teacher, and oral historian. She received a 2020–2021 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Public Scholars grant for her research on Judith Jones, and teaches courses on food, writing, embodied culture, and oral history at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She is the author of The Editor, the editor of Edna Lewis, and coauthor of The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook. She holds a PhD in food studies from NYU and studied documentary storytelling at both the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She lives with her children in Kingston, New York. Find out more at SaraBFranklin.com.

  • Monday, November 18, 1:00 pm Eastern- An Afternoon with Jacques Pepin, Live and Virtual

    GBH Boston invites you to attend an exclusive virtual event on November 18 with legendary French chef Jacques Pépin – author, television personality, and educator. Jacques will be live in the GBH Studios on Western Avenue in Boston. The wide-ranging conversation, led by James Beard award-winning chef and restauranteur Jody Adams, will touch upon Jacques’s career and culinary experiences cooking in some of the finest French restaurants in the world. Guests will learn more about their friendship with chef and GBH television personality Julia Child, and Jacques’s involvement in a dozen PBS television programs and much more!

    The event will be moderated by Callie Crossley, host of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley, correspondent and co-host of The Culture Show and commentator on Morning Edition.

    Guest have a few ticket options:

    The In-Studio Experience (in-person) from (1-3pm ET)

    • $100 (in-person) ticket (1-3pm ET) includes the post-reception meet and greet with Jacques Pépin and an autographed hardcover Cooking My Way book
    • $50 (in-person) ticket (1-2pm ET) includes the Yawkey Theater program with Jacques and a post-reception with cookies and coffee

    The virtual event from (1-2pm ET)

    Free ticket (1-2pm ET) livestream the conversation with Jacques Pépin and Jody Adams in Zoom Webinar. Event registration required. 

    $75 (virtual) ticket (1-2pm ET) includes an autographed hardcover copy of Cooking My Way OR Art of the Chicken book

    To register visit www.wgbh.org

  • Tuesday, October 29, 6:00 pm – Food Routes: Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating

    Even if we think we know a lot about good and healthy food—buying organic, subscribing to slow food, reading Eater—we likely don’t know much about how our food gets to the table. What happens between the farm and the kitchen? Why are all avocados from Mexico? Why does a restaurant in Maine order lamb from New Zealand? In Food Routes, food historian and food futurist Robyn Metcalfe explores an often overlooked aspect of the global food system: how food moves from producer to consumer. A lecturer and research scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and director of Food+City, who earned her PhD in history at Boston University, Metcalfe finds that the food supply chain is adapting to our increasingly complex demands for both personalization and convenience—but, she says, it won’t be an easy ride.

    This Pepin Lecture will take place at 871 Commonwealth Avenue, College of General Studies, Room 505, on October 29 from 6 – 8 and is free and open to the public. Registration recommended at www.bu.edu/foodandwine

  • Thursday, April 18, 6:00 pm – Feeding Europe Under British Rationing: Relief Efforts For the Continent After the Second World War

    The Pepin Lecture Series in Food Studies and Gastronomy, cosponsored by Jacques Pepin and Boston University’s Master of Liberal Arts Program in Gastronomy, continues on Thursday, April 18 at 6 with a free lecture at 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 313, examining the complexities of Britain’s post-World War II position through the lens of its food relief to Europe. Specifically, it will investigate the efforts made by the Council of British Societies for Relief Abroad, which worked with the British government, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and voluntary societies to feed the women and children of Europe, particularly those living in Germany and Austria. The discussion will demonstrate the ways that relief initiatives shifted over time due to domestic considerations, British foreign policies, and international relations. Attendees will gain a vital new perspective on Britain’s transatlantic relations and the tensions between the United States and Europe in the early days of the Cold War. For more information visit http://bu.edu/foodandwine