The Masters of Social Gastronomy Cut the Fat
@ Public Assembly, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
FREE (but please RSVP here so we bring enough samples)

For every supposedly innovative weight loss fad, there is a century-old counterpart. From low-carb diets to extreme mastication,calorie counting to calisthenics, Sarah will reveal the radicals and pseudo-scientists that invented America’s favorite dieting trends.

Soma will pull back the curtain on the dieting industry, from the shadowy producers of diet pillsto our dear frozen friends at Healthy Choice. See what happens when Budweiser battles South Beach, and how marketing muscle can be found in an IBM computer from the 60′s. Featuring kickbacks, intrigue and many many cigarettes.

At Storytime, we’ll figure out whether tapeworm diets, negative calories and other crazy ideas are fact or fiction?

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CORNELIA VAN VARICK’S HOLIDAY KITCHEN
Saturday, December 1st 2-4 pm
The New York Historical Society
RSVP required at [email protected]; $10 materials fee

Dutch families in New Amsterdam were known for their delicious holiday confections—can you imagine all the good smells that would have come out of their kitchens?

During this program, participants will take the place of Cornelia van Varick in her seventeenth-century kitchen as she prepares traditional food for the New Year. We’ll handle objects and ingredients that Cornelia would have had, such as sugar cones and nippers, Dutch ovens, and mortar and pestles. Then we’ll use them to make two Dutch holiday treats, orange caraway cookies and fried doughnuts, that participants can taste and take home.

ABOUT AT THE KIDS’ TABLE
This is a series of three  family programs on New York City’s food history. Each two-hour program allows participants to experience historic foodways through an exploration of kitchen objects based on the New-York Historical Society’s collection and cooking. The first program focuses on seventeenth-century Dutch food traditions, the second on how kitchen tools have changed since the early nineteenth century, and the third on how food rationing affected families during WWII. Sign up for one or all programs in the series!