Traditional foods connect us with our cultural heritage and personal identity. For many Asian and Pacific Americans, food also strengthens community ties and offers a taste of love, warmth, and memories of home.

In addition, Asian and Pacific American foods can bridge cultural gaps, building inclusion, expressing aspirations, and reinventing notions of “Asian Americanness.”

Join Megan Elias, associate professor of the practice and director of the Gastronomy Program at BU’s Metropolitan College, for this webinar on Asian and Asian Pacific food and culture in America. Professor Elias will review the diverse histories of Asian American food cultures, explore the traditionally Asian ingredients that are now part of the United States diet, and trace the history of Asian American cookbooks.

Speaker:

Megan Elias
Associate Professor of the Practice and Director, Gastronomy

Megan Elias is a historian and gastronomist whose work and research explores the rich history of food and culture through prisms of food writing, markets, and home economics. She has taught at Queensborough Community College, worked in administration at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and was the director of online courses at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In addition to developing curricula and producing online courses, Dr. Elias has designed and taught classes in the areas of food studies, food in world history, American women’s history, and African-American history. Elias is the author of Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture (2017) as well as four other books about food history, including Food in the United States, 1890–1945, which was selected by the American Library Association as an Outstanding Academic Text for 2009. She is the author of articles and book chapters about food history, and serves as an editor for Global Food History Journal. She has been a co-recipient of several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other organizations.

Optional Reading:
Five Asian American cookbooks that shaped history

"In this blog post, I introduce some of these first texts and highlight some of the language they use to recommend their cuisines to potential readers and cooks. Authors of these books make claims for the integrity and dignity of Asian foodways in America. They help immigrant communities maintain their culinary heritage in America and simultaneously integrate their cooking styles, flavor combinations and ingredients into American foodways."

- Megan Elias

The webinar will be conducted using the online Zoom webinar platform. Access information and additional instructions on using the Zoom platform will be provided via email upon successful registration. This webinar is open to all members of the BU community including alumni, students, faculty, and staff.