Join us February 11 for “Feeding Hungry Americans: Diets of the Great Depression” with Andrew Coe!

During the Great Depression, the United States for the first time in history suffered from widespread hunger and malnutrition. This resulted in radical changes in the federal government’s food policies, in the way that Americans think about nutrition, and in our choices of what foods we put on the table. Andrew Coe (with wife, Jane Ziegelman) authors of A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression will look at the many ways that the Depression decade profoundly changed the American relationship toward food. Coe will particularly look at the rapid evolution of federal food relief policies and the huge role that the Bureau of Home Economics played in determining what foods the unemployed were given and in shaping federal nutrition policy.

About the speaker:

Andrew Coe is a writer and independent scholar specializing in culinary history, and the author of Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States, which was a finalist for a James Beard Award. He is a contributor to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America and Savoring Gotham. He appeared in the documentaries The Search for General Tso and Eat: The Story of Food.

Refreshments will follow the talk at approximately 11:30am.

Free and open to the public!