The Delmonico Way
Max Tucci

From Scott Warner, President, Culinary Historians of Chicago

I just couldn’t pass it up. When I attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference in New York this past September, one limited-seating event had me signing up immediately: an historic dinner in the board room at Delmonico’s, hosted by third generation partner and global brand officer, Max Tucci.

Max regaled us with the luscious history of what is widely recognized as America’s first fine dining restaurant, that began in 1827 in Manhattan as a small cafe and pastry shop. It was  opened by Italian-Swiss immigrants, the brothers Giovanni and Pietro Delmonico. Ten years later, in 1837, they moved nearby to what is still Delmonico’s present location at 56 Beaver Street — in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district. The rich, powerful  and famous frequented the eatery.

Fast forward 100 years, to 1926, and Italian immigrant Oscar Tucci (Max’s grandfather) buys Delmonico’s, opens a speakeasy in the basement, continues attracting celebrities and world leaders (i.e.,Elvis, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon)  and institutes many of the professional restaurant standards in use today, known as the Delmonico Way. During the height of the Tucci era, Delmonico’s, with its many rooms was considered the largest restaurant in the world. (63,000 sq. ft.) One of the lush private dining rooms included an en suite bedroom — if only the walls could talk!

Delmonico’s is also credited with being the first U.S. restaurant to use white tablecloths, and the creator of Delmonico steak, Eggs Benedict, Baked Alaska, Lobster Newberg and the Wedge Salad.

So do join us as Max Tucci takes us on his personal tour of his beloved Delmonico’s. Max has also captured his family’s legacy in his book, The Delmonico Way. Sublime Entertaining and Legendary Recipes from the Restaurant that Made New York! (Rizzoli).

Recorded via Zoom on November 9, 2023

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Culinary Historians of Chicago

The Delmonico Way

Meticulous Process of Recipe Writing
Raeanne Sarazen

Raeanne Sarazen received the IACP Award 2024 in the Reference and Technical catagory:

The Complete Recipe Writing Guide: Mastering Recipe Development, Writing, Testing, Nutrition Analysis, and Food Styling
Raeanne Sarazen
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

One might think that writing a recipe is an easy task; just list some ingredients, their amounts and give some simple instructions on how to combine them, then roast, bake, boil or fry them. But it’s not that easy! Writing a recipe that takes a cook’s hand and guides them into turning out a delicious dish, takes great skill, with a large pinch of talent thrown in.

Come join us as Raeanne Sarazen, registered dietitian and chef, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the grueling and glorious art of recipe writing. Raeanne will also delve into the history and evolution of recipes, the art of headnote writing, and the importance of nutrition standards.

Raeanne will reference her recently published book, The Complete Recipe Writing Guide, which is an awards finalist at the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

BIO: Raeanne Sarazen, a registered dietitian and chef, combines over 20 years of experience producing recipe content as a test kitchen professional, food writer, and editor. Her writing and recipes have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Cooking Light, and Better Homes and Gardens, among other places. She is the author of The Complete Recipe Writing Guide, a comprehensive resource for food professionals on developing, writing, and publishing successful recipe content. Raeanne currently works as a consultant for major health organizations, nonprofits, and food media companies, incorporating her extensive knowledge and experience to help improve their policies, curriculum, and food and recipe content. Find Raeanne at RaeanneSarazen.com and on Instagram @rsarazen.

Recorded via Zoom on Wednesday, September 18, 2024

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Meticulous Process of Recipe Writing with Raeanne Sarazen

The Sould of Jewish Food
Presented by Dylan Maysick, co-owner Diaspora Dinners

Links to Recipes @ CulinaryHistorians.org:
Coconut Macaroons with Chocolate, Pistachio, and Orange Blossom
Halloumi and Orange Salad with Pomegranate, Pistachio, and Herbs
Montreal Bagels

What is Jewish food? That is the question Dylan Maysick has been on a quest to answer through his Diaspora Dinner project, a Chicago-based series of dinners that explores the cuisines of the Jewish Diaspora.


Dylan, a professional baker by trade, follows the common thread of what makes up Jewish food; and it’s a lot more than bagels, and chopped liver. 

He said that while his knowledge had been limited to Jewish deli foods and the greatest hits of Eastern European Jewish cuisine “I now know that Jewish cuisine represents a much more diverse set of recipes, cultures, and ingredients.” Come join us as Dylan serves a savory summary of the history of Jewish food from ancient times to the state of Jewish food culture in America today. (“Do Chinese food and Jewish food overlap on Christmas, only for that one special day?” Dylan asks.)

***

Recorded via Zoom on Wednesday, May 22, 2024

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The Soul of Jewish Food

The Glor﻿y of Chicago-Style BBQ
Dominique Leach

We’ve all heard of the classic BBQ styles from regions like Kansas City, Memphis or Texas. But what about Chicago-style BBQ?

From rib tips to hot links to mild sauce and more, Chicago chef and pitmaster Dominique Leach of the black-women-queer-owned and award-winning restaurant Lexington Betty’s Smokehouse (plus the 2023 winner of the Food Network’s hit show BBQ Brawl), is making it her mission to further define this unique style and put it on the map in 2024.

Join us to hear Dominique discuss the origins of Chicago-style BBQ, its variations, and its future.

Biography: Known as one of the Chicago’s leading BBQ chefs, Dominique Leach is a classically trained chef turned nationally recognized pitmaster. First garnering culinary experience in some of Chicago’s most prestigious kitchens under the direction of such chef icons as Tony Mantuano at Spiaggia, and Sarah Grueneberg at Monteverde, Leach then branched out with her wife Tanisha in 2016 to create her own catering company “Cater to You Events & Drop Offs.”

Inspired by fond childhood memories of her grandmother, Betty King of Lexington, Mississippi, who filled the house with flavorful aromas of home-cooked meals, Dominique then took those aromas and applied techniques to launch a successful food truck, Lexington Betty Smoke House.

Her expertise and soulful food would earn her a spot on The Food Network’s show “Chopped” and as a judge/contestant on Food Network Canada “Fire Masters,” recognition as the “Best Barbecue in Chicago” by Good Morning America, as well as a full brick-and-mortar home for Lexington Betty on Chicago’s South Side.

Chef Leach and her wife’s persistence in a male-dominated industry have helped them to carve out a name for themselves in the culinary world in Chicago and beyond.

Recorded via Zoom on October 30, 2024

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The Glor﻿y of Chicago-Style BBQ, Dominique Leach

The Story of Chicago’s South Asians and Their Food
Colleen Taylor Sen

Chicago has the country’s third-largest urban population of South Asians (a community that includes Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Nepalis) – and a vibrant South Asian food scene.

Colleen Taylor Sen will tell the story of this community from the early 20th century when a small community lived on the Far South Side to the present. She’ll also talk about the evolution of the city’s South Asian grocery stores and restaurants, including the transformation of Devon Avenue on the Far North Side from a mainly Jewish shopping district in the 1960s to a mecca for South Asian shoppers from all over the Midwest.

Today, Chicago’s Indian food lovers can enjoy a wide range of cuisines from the simple fare of taxi drivers’ "dhabas" to a Michelin-starred temple of cuisine.

Biography: Colleen Sen has presented many programs before the Culinary Historians of Chicago. A prolific author and editor, she has contributed free-lance articles to such publications as Travel and Leisure, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, and was a regular participant in the Oxford Symposia on Food and Cookery. 

She has written eight books, among them Food Culture in India, Curry: A Global History, and Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India. In 2017 Colleen coedited The Chicago Food Encyclopedia. Her books have been translated into Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. She has also organized many culinary tours of Indian stores and has given talks and cooking demonstrations on Indian cuisine.

Recorded via Zoom on December 3, 2024

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The Story of Chicago’s  South Asians and Their Food

Leftovers A History of Food Waste & Preservation
Eleanor Barnett, PhD

A third of all the food we produce goes to waste globally, and if all this needlessly discarded food were a country it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China and the US! How did we become such a wasteful society? What can we learn about building a sustainable food future by looking to the past?Based on Dr Eleanor Barnett’s newly-published book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation, this talk will explore the many ingenious ways our ancestors sought to avoid food waste through preservation, recycling or otherwise disposing of food scraps. Beginning in the Tudor kitchen, it’s a delicious and disgusting story that takes us to medieval streets lined with butchers’ offal, that explores the world-changing inventions in preservation of the Industrial Revolution, the hidden history of Victorian street-food scavengers, the thrifty recipes of the World Wars, right through to the AI restaurants of the future. Through our leftovers, we learn a lot more about our culture and our shared history, from poverty and inequality to globalisation. If we are what we don’t eat, we are equally defined by what we don’t eat!

Eleanor Barnett is a historian of food and religion with a PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK). She is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Cardiff University in Wales, where her research uses food as a unique lens through which to view the daily lives, beliefs, and identities of ordinary people in the past. Her first book, Leftovers: A History of Food and Preservation has just been released in 2024, exploring the topical issue of wasting food from a historical lens that moves from the medieval era to the AI restaurants of the future! Her other area of expertise focuses on the links between food and religion in the early modern world, exploring shared meals to break down traditional Christian-centric notions of major themes from the Reformation to colonisation. As @historyeats on Instagram, Eleanor posts daily food history facts, stories, and art to a large international following . She is a regular contributor to public-facing media, including TV, podcasts, and radio, and writes the monthly food history column for BBC History Magazine.

Recorded via Zoom on November 9, 2024

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Leftovers A History of Food Waste & Preservation

Chicago’s Astounding Food Evolution: 1990 ’til Now
Chef Dean Zanella
Founder and instructor, Tutore Italian Cooking School

The past 35 years have seen a sea change in Chicago dining. And who better than to take us on a voyage through this period than a master chef who has sailed through this time?

Come join us as chef Dean Zanella takes us from the local culinary world of 1990 to the present; where fine dining no longer requires white tablecloths; where non-European cuisine has been elevated; where chefs are the main focus of the restaurant; and where chefs work with local farmers. And he’ll dish on the impact of TV’s Food Network on our dining experience. Chef Zanella will also give his take on some of Chicago’s key chef influencers, like Charlie Trotter, Rick Bayless, and more recently, Erik Williams. “They held their standards high and made people expand their palates,” he says.

Bio: Chef Dean Zanella is a founder and instructor at Chicago’s Tutore Italian Cooking School. He has worked at some of Chicago’s finest restaurants, including Charlie Trotter’s and Gordon, in addition to helming such notable eateries as 312 Chicago, and Rhapsody Restaurant at the Chicago Symphony Center. He is a strong supporter of Chicago’s Green City Market.

Recorded via Zoom on December 16, 2024

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Chicago’s Astounding Food Evolution: 1990 ’til Now

How Vienna Changed Baking Everywhere

Rick Rodgers’ book, Kaffeehause: Exquisite Desserts from Vienna, Budapest, and Prague, has been in print for over two decades. Its longevity is primarily due to the luscious recipes, which are so different from those in the Franco-Italo canon.

Also, readers are fascinated by the interesting story of the coffeehouse culture. In his presentation, Rick will discuss how the Viennese (it was not Marie Antoinette) brought the crescent roll (kipferl) to Paris, its transformation into the croissant, and subsequent conquering of the pastry world. In Europe, what we Americans call Danish are called Viennoiserie, but do you know the story behind the discrepancy? What famous dessert was the basis of a long and expensive lawsuit to determine the legal owner of the recipe? What is the difference between “masculine/feminine” and “sugar/flour” desserts on Viennese menu? Rick will also tell how he researched his book, and his work as a ghostwriter with many celebrities, chefs, and social media influencers.

Rick Rodgers is the sole author, co-author, ghostwriters, or editor of over a hundred cookbooks, many of which have been nominated for Beard, IACP, and Gourmand Awards. He is also the recipient of Bon Appétit Magazine’s Food & Entertaining Award for Outstanding Culinary Teacher. He is currently consulting social media influencers as they transition to cookbook writing.

Recorded via Zoom on Tuesday, January 7, 2025


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How Vienna Changed Baking Everywhere - Rick Rodgers

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The Legacy and Impact of the Farm-to-Table Movement in Chicago
Chef Jason Hammel


Come join us as one of Chicago’s most iconic chefs, Jason Hammel, takes us back to the 1990s, tracing his journey from East Coast outsider to one of the Midwest’s most passionate advocates for hyper-local sourcing. He’ll recount the early days of the farm-to-table movement, the founding of Green City Market, and the rise of restaurants dedicated to local ingredients. Lula Café, his restaurant of 25 years, has grown in parallel step to this movement, and through stories from its early days, he’ll highlight the challenges and resistance that once stood in its way.

But this conversation isn’t just about the past—it’s about the economic and ethical decisions chefs face when choosing where and how to source their ingredients. As Hammel enters his third decade in the industry, he’ll reflect on the movement’s impact: What has changed in the restaurant world and beyond? What progress has been made for local, organic producers? And what does the future hold for Lula, for chefs across the Midwest, and for the next evolution of farm-to-table dining?

BIOGRAPHY: Jason Hammel is the executive chef and owner of Lula Cafe in Chicago, the Logan Square eatery known for its seasonal cuisine. His debut cookbook, The Lula Cafe Cookbook: Collected Recipes and Stories, was published by Phaidon in 2024.

Growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, Hammel aspired to be a writer, not a chef. After graduating in 1994 with a degree in English, he traveled to Italy, where an accidental stay across the street from Florence’s central market foresaw his career as a chef dedicated to seasonality.

In 2017 the Museum of Contemporary Art named Chef Hammel as executive chef/culinary curator for the museum’s new restaurant, Marisol, Hammel himself was named the Jean Banchet 2019 Chef of the Year, and in 2024 Lula Cafe was awarded for Outstanding Hospitality by the James Beard Foundation. 

Today Hammel splits his time between Lula, Marisol, and the non-profit food education group Pilot Light, which he co-founded in 2010.

jasonhammel@lulacafe.com / instagram

Recorded via Zoom on April 16, 2025

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The Legacy and Impact of the Farm-to-Table Movement in Chicago

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Culinary Historians of Chicago studies the history of food and drink in human cultures. Why we procure, prepare and serve the food we do has cultural, sociological, geographical, financial and political influences. We encourage participation from all walks of life: from academics to home cooks, chefs to grill masters, farmers to heirloom gardeners, food scientists to students. Our programs, and those of our sister organization Chicago Foodways Roundtable, are supported by research, fieldwork and scholarship, though geared to an informed popular audience. We welcome everyone to gather at our table to share food, drink and their life’s culinary experiences.

If you would like to contact us, please e-mail us at CulinaryHistorians@gmail.com

The Delmonico Way

CulinaryHistory

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