FEATURED SPEAKERS: BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILES

JOHN T. EDGE, Director, Southern Foodways Alliance

John T. Edge is a contributing editor at Gourmet. He has written for the New York Times and is a longtime columnist for the Oxford American and U.S. Airways in-flight magazine. His work for Saveur and other magazines has been featured in every edition of the Best Food Writing compilation since 2001. He was a 2004 finalist for the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation. He serves as culinary curator for the weekend edition of NPR’s All Things Considered.

Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he dedicates his time to documenting and celebrating the diverse food cultures of America .

Edge’s books include the James Beard Award-nominated cookbook, A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South, and a four-book series on iconic American eats: Fried Chicken: An American Story; Apple Pie: An American Story; Hamburgers & Fries: An American Story; and Donuts: An American Passion. He is editor of the foodways volume of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. A revised and expanded edition of Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South is due in June, 2007.

MARCIE COHEN FERRIS, Associate Director, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Marcie Cohen Ferris is an assistant professor in the Curriculum in American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Associate Director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. Her courses include seminars on the history of the Jewish South, Food in American Culture, and American Jewish Women’s History. Ferris received her Ph.D. from George Washington University (2003) and has worked in the field of museums and public history for over 20 years. She is president of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Ferris is the author of  Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (2005), which was nominated for the 2006 James Beard Foundation Award in the category of “Writings on Food.” It was also recognized by the International Association of Culinary Professionals with its 2006 Jane Grigson award.

Ferris has published articles in numerous journals and anthologies, such as Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing (2002); Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (2004); American Jewish Women: An Historical Reader from Colonial Times to the Present (2002); and Shalom Y’all: Images of Southern Jewish Life in America (2002). She is co-editor of Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History (2006).

LARRY B. MASSIE, Michigan historian

Larry B. Massie is a Michigan product and proud of it. Born in Grand Rapids, he grew up in Allegan. Following a tour in Viet Nam as a U.S. Army paratrooper, he worked as a telephone lineman, construction laborer, bartender, pickle meister, and archivist, before earning three degrees in history from Western Michigan University.

Massie’s activities range from historic research and writing, old book appraisals, museum consultations and displays, historic walkways to Michigan history storytelling. He travels both peninsulas of his beloved state to share his enthusiasm for Michigan’s colorful heritage with conferences, school assemblies, libraries, community groups and festivals.

A frequent contributor to numerous newspapers and magazines, Massie co-authored with his wife and fellow culinary historian Priscilla Massie, the award-winning Walnut Pickles & Watermelon Cake: A Century of Michigan Cooking. His recently published This Place Called Portage: Its Past & Present is his 18th book about Michigan’s history.

A life-long book collector, he lives with Priscilla, their daughters Maureen and Autumn, as well as their 35,000 volume reference library in a rambling 1880 schoolhouse nestled in the Allegan State Forest.

PETER G. ROSE, writer, lecturer, and food historian

Peter G. Rose is the recipient of the Alice P. Kenney Award for her research and writing on the food customs and diet of the Dutch settlers in New Netherland. She is the author of five books, among them Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Dutch 17^th-Century Art & Life (2002); Foods of the Hudson: A Seasonal Sampling of the Region's Bounty (1993; paperback edition, 2000); and The Sensible Cook: Dutch Foodways in the Old and the New World (1989; paperback edition, 1998), which includes her translation of the 1683 edition of the definitive Dutch 17^th-century cookbook De Verstandige Kock.

 Born in the Netherlands, Rose lectures nationally and internationally on a variety of topics related to Dutch-American and Hudson Valley culinary history at, among others, the National Gallery, The Smithsonian Institute, the Culinary Institute of America, the Dayton Art Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts/Houston, Harvard University's Fogg Museum, Bryn Mawr College, and in the Netherlands at Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen. She is a member of the Speakers Bureau of the New York Council for the Humanities.

JANE AND MICHAEL STERN, culinary historians and food journalists, cookbook authors, lecturers, columnists for Gourmet magazine, NPR’s “The Splendid Table”

Jane and Michael Stern write the monthly column "Two For The Road" for Gourmet magazine, an ongoing, cross-country guide dedicated to ferreting out the best in American food. The Sterns' relentless quest takes them all over the country--checking out the offbeat and often going off the beaten path to places as varied as Mom's Cafe at the crossroads in Salina, Utah, to the foremost knish palaces of New York.

The Sterns’ "Roadfood" column for Gourmet has won three James Beard Awards. Their Roadfood segments appear regularly on the Television Food Network, and their Web site, www.roadfood.com, was selected as the 2001 site of the year by Yahoo. They are also regular contributors to NPR's "The Splendid Table."

The Sterns are the authors of more than 20 books about America , including Roadfood; Eat Your Way Across the USA; and Chili Nation: The Ultimate Chili Cookbook with Recipes from Every State in the Nation. They have also written for The New Yorker and made frequent appearances on “CBS This Morning” and NBC's “Saturday Today.” The Sterns live in West Redding, Connecticut.

DAN STREHL, independent culinary history scholar and author

Dan Strehl is an independent culinary historian living in Tucson, Arizona. Born in Petoskey, Michigan, he received a BA from Kalamazoo College and a Master of Science in Librarianship from Western Michigan University. He spent over 30 years working for the Los Angeles Public Library, where he designed the library's original website and its virtual library. He also designed databases for the library's menu and culinary ephemera collections.

Strehl’s books include One Hundred Books on California Food and Wine and The Spanish Cook.  Encarnación's Kitchen: Mexican Recipes from 19th century California was Strehl's translation of Encarnacíon Pinedo's El Cocinero Español, the first cookbook written by a Hispanic in the United States . He wrote or edited eight items for the Weather Bird  Press's De Gustibus series, the latest being A Heritage Transformed: Old New England Recipes from Old California Cookbooks. He is presently working on a bibliography of California cookbooks.

Active in the library community and the food community, Strehl recently completed seven years as a director of the Hollywood Farmers Market in Los Angeles. In 1995 Strehl and Charles Perry organized the Culinary Historians of Southern California, which has several hundred members and provides public lectures on diverse aspects of food history. 

TONI TIPTON-MARTIN, food journalist, cookbook author

Toni Tipton-Martin is an Austin-based professional food journalist and nutrition writer who recently published a historic reproduction of a 100-year-old cookbook, The Blue Grass Cook Book, by Minnie C. Fox. The book contains recipes and photographs of historic African-American cooks. She is also the co-author of A Taste of Heritage: New African-American Cuisine, co-authored with Chef Joe Randall. She is a past president of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Tipton-Martin was the first African-American editor of a major daily newspaper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer. She currently lives in Texas.

WILLIAM WOYS WEAVER, contributing editor, Gourmet magazine; professor of food studies, Drexel University

William Woys Weaver is an internationally known food historian and author of 12 books, including A Quaker Woman’s Cookbook (1982; new edition 2004)—a study of a 19^th century domestic book by Elizabeth Ellicott Lea; America Eats (1989); and The Christmas Cook (1990), a 300-year history of the American Christmas. He is Professor of Culinary Arts and Food Studies for Drexel University’s Goodwin College of Professional Studies. A contributing editor to Gourmet, Weaver has been featured on national programs like “Good Morning America” (with Julia Child) and NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

Weaver helped found the Philadelphia-Delaware Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food and has served as Visiting Professor of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a consultant for a wide variety of culinary projects.

He is also founding President of the Historic Foodways Society of the Delaware Valley and recently served as Associate Editor and Art Editor of the three-volume The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (2003). This encyclopedia was awarded the Dartmouth Medal by the American Library Association, the highest book award in the reference book industry.

ARI WEINZWEIG, restaurateur, culinary historian, author, co-founder and co-owner of Zingerman’s Deli and Zingerman’s Community of Businesses

After graduating with a degree in Russian history from the University of Michigan, Ari Weinzweig went to work washing dishes in a local restaurant and soon discovered that he loved the food business. Along with his partner Paul Saginaw, Weinzweig started Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982 with a $20,000 bank loan, a staff of two, a small selection of specialty foods, and a relatively short sandwich menu. 

Today, Zingerman’s Community of Businesses is an organization with a 400-person staff  and six businesses, in addition to the Deli. The Roadhouse, a full-service restaurant featuring traditional American foods, beers, and wines, opened in 2003.In 1995, Weinzweig and Saginaw received the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award for their community contributions.

Weinzweig is the author of five books, including Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating (2003) and Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service (2004). He has written over 175 issues of Zingerman’s newsletter, “Zingerman’s News,” and contributed articles to many national food magazines.

Weinzweig has served as the President of The American Cheese Society and a board member of the Retail Division of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade.

JACQUELINE B. WILLIAMS, culinary historian, author, lecturer

Jacqueline B. Williams is the award-winning author of Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail (University Press of Kansas); The Way We Ate: Pacific Northwest Cooking, 1843-1900 (Washington State University Press); The Hill With A Future: Seattle’s Capitol Hill 1900-1946; and co-author of  Family of Strangers: Building a Jewish Community in Washington State. Williams also contributes to historical journals and newspapers and lectures widely about pioneer foodways in the Pacific Northwest. She lives in Seattle.