Can you catch the scent of vanilla, almond, sugar, chocolate, coffee, and/or spice on the pages of your favorite cookbooks? Or see traces of grease on your most dearly loved recipes whose home is your kitchen — and whose hearth is your home? A collection of recipes, instructions, and information about the preparation and serving of foods, a cookbook is handy, physical, earthy, informative. Over time it is a rich personal and social text, offering an account of our food traditions, histories, cultures, and education. Some cookbooks include chapters on etiquette, table manners, and shopping practices — but, whether we are novice or experienced cooks, we connect with recipes and think of their connection to food, lived experiences, and learning.

Please join Teachers College librarians Conrad Lochner, Special and Digital Collections, and Jennifer Govan, Director and Senior Librarian, for a  salon with Pam Koch, Mary Swartz Rose Associate Professor of Nutrition and Education and Faculty Director, Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, on the topics of food, cookery, and the history of nutrition education at Teachers College, Columbia University. We will discuss the Fall 2024 Curiosity Cabinet display, Enduring Cookbooks, Food for Thought, with perspective on the development of the curriculum led by Mary Swartz Rose, a pioneer in the academic study of nutrition and Professor of Nutrition at Teachers College, Columbia University from 1910 to 1940. The theme of Why Cook? will then be explored by students in Food, Nutrition and Behavior (HBSE4010 001), adding to the rich discussion inspired by the Gottesman Libraries’ extraordinary cookery collection that dates back to the 1600s; the recent Offit Gallery exhibition, Food in Art: Delicious Inspiration; and archival materials that tell the story of cookery at TC.

Persons not affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University may RSVP using online support; use the drop down menu to enter your interest and details so that a confirmation e-mail can be sent.

Members and affiliated members of Teachers College, Columbia University may use the registration button.

Where: 305 Russell

Poster Image: Domestic Science Cooking Laboratory With Students  on 4th Floor of Wing Connecting with Macy Hall.  Teachers College.  (Ca. 1902). From Historical Photographs of Teachers College, Courtesy of Teachers College, Columbia University.

Poster Motifs, Courtesy of Soeun Bae, Library Associate / Art and Design.