Titled: "What's cooking: early Polish American cookbooks and what they tell us about Polonia."

Registration required:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KOwTndSGST6EUER1BlgZgg

Prof. Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann will talk about Polish immigrants to the United States who brought with them traditions which included Polish foodways: the eating habits and culinary practices that reflected their culture and tastes, religious rituals, and economic habits. These foodways and their changes and adjustments in the conditions of emigration are best studied through Polonia’s cookbooks. The early Polish American cookbooks can tell us a lot about the everyday lives of Polish families, the roles of women as primary cooks, the economic choices the immigrants had to make, and transformations in cuisines that mirrored transformations in ethnic identity. Moreover, Polish American cookbooks are a rich trove of historical information and a fun and entertaining source to explore.

Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann is a Distinguished Professor of History and the CSU Professor in the Department of History, Emerita, at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, CT. She received her MA in history from the Marie Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland, and her Ph.D. in history from the University of Minnesota. She published The Exile Mission: Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939-1956 (Ohio University Press, 2004); Letters from Readers in the Polish American Press, 1902-1969: A Corner for Everybody (Lexington Books, 2014); The Polish Hearst: Ameryka-Echo and the Public Role of the Immigrant Press (University of Illinois Press, 2015), as well as numerous articles on various aspects of the Polish American experience. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Polish American Studies. Her current research project is a book on the history of Polish American foodways.