Our Immigrant Foods

Saturday November 20th, 3-5,

The Quimby Colony at the Roma

Rabelais in association with The Quimby Colony is proud to announce an afternoon of discussion about the culture of immigrant food. On Saturday November 20th from 3:00 to 5:00pm, Jane Ziegelman, author of 97 Orchard, An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement, and Andrew Coe, author of Chop Suey, A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States, will speak about the immigrant food experience in America.

This event will take place at The Quimby Colony at the Roma, 769 Congress Street in Portland.

We will also be joined by Lindsay Sterling, founder of the Maine-based Immigrant Kitchens project and Hooria, an immigrant from Afghanistan, who now resides in Southern Maine, and is a skilled cook. Lindsay and Hooria will prepare some food from Hooria's native country.

Through government documents, newspaper articles, immigrant memoirs, letters and recipes, Ziegelman explored over a period of over five years the immigrant foods that were the heart and soul of the Lower East Side. 97 Orchard describes how native-born Americans, wary of foreigners and their strange eating habits, pushed aside their culinary prejudices to sample the immigrants' curious foods - including bagels, pickles, sauerkraut, hot dogs and pizza - and eventually to claim them as their own. And in her research and writing she has unearthed many other challenges her immigrants faced and overcame.

There will be a $15 cover charge for this event and entry will be limited. Reservations can be made by contacting Rabelais at 207 774 1044, or info@RabelaisBooks.com.

Jane Ziegelman is the director of the Tenement Museum's forthcoming culinary center in New York City. The founder and director of Kids Cook!, a multiethnic cooking program for children, she has presented food related talks/cooking classes in libraries and schools across New York City. Her writing on food has appeared in a number of newspapers, magazines, and books, including The New Cook's Catalog.

Food historian Andrew Coe has been eating in New York's Chinatown almost all his life. He has written for the New York Times, Gastronomica and Saveur. One day on Mott Street, he asked himself, "What happened to all the chop suey restaurants?" That query turned into a book, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. When he isn't eating Chinese in Manhattan, he can usually be found in the Chinatowns of Queens or Brooklyn. Ziegelman and Coe are co-authors of Foie Gras: A Passion and they live in Brooklyn.

The Quimby Colony at the Roma is a great new facility in Portland, Maine dedicated to fostering learning and development in the culinary arts.