About This Event
The Friends of the American Museum & Gardens invite you on a unique journey of culinary history as Professor Karima Moyer-Nocchi presents a very special evening of compelling conversation and historic recipes. Drawing on research from her recent book, The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America, she will bring culinary history to life through the eighteenth century, showing how an ordinary dish can reveal an extraordinary historical world.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
6:00 pm Cocktail Reception
7:00 pm Lecture - The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America
8:30 pm Optional Dinner in the Washington Room at Fraunces Tavern
How do taste and mobility shape the larger movements of history? This lecture traces the surprising journey of a familiar dish across medieval and early modern Europe and the Atlantic world, revealing networks of trade, print culture, empire, and social aspiration along the way. Major historical forces come into focus through the textures of everyday life - through what people grew, cooked, served, and displayed.
Following the evolving story of macaroni and cheese, the lecture will explore how this now humble symbol of comfort food is connected to the wider international systems that carried fashions, ingredients, and ideas across borders in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Especially intriguing will be the connections between Professor Moyer-Nocchi's research and the early history of the American Museum's Claverton Estate, objects in the Museum's permanent collection, and America's Founding Fathers.
Karima Moyer-Nocchi is a culinary historian and professor at the University of Siena in Italy. She is author of the books Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita and The Eternal Table: A Cultural History of Food in Rome. In preparation for her latest book, The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America, she was awarded fellowships at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Smithsonian Institution, and the George Washington Presidential Library in Mount Vernon. Moyer-Nocchi resides in Umbria and has been an Italian resident for over 35 years.
Bookseller Partner:
The Americana Lecture will support the mission of the American Museum & Gardens
About This Event
The Friends of the American Museum & Gardens invite you on a unique journey of culinary history as Professor Karima Moyer-Nocchi presents a very special evening of compelling conversation and historic recipes. Drawing on research from her recent book, The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America, she will bring culinary history to life through the eighteenth century, showing how an ordinary dish can reveal an extraordinary historical world.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
6:00 pm Cocktail Reception
7:00 pm Lecture - The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America
8:30 pm Optional Dinner in the Washington Room at Fraunces Tavern
How do taste and mobility shape the larger movements of history? This lecture traces the surprising journey of a familiar dish across medieval and early modern Europe and the Atlantic world, revealing networks of trade, print culture, empire, and social aspiration along the way. Major historical forces come into focus through the textures of everyday life - through what people grew, cooked, served, and displayed.
Following the evolving story of macaroni and cheese, the lecture will explore how this now humble symbol of comfort food is connected to the wider international systems that carried fashions, ingredients, and ideas across borders in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Especially intriguing will be the connections between Professor Moyer-Nocchi's research and the early history of the American Museum's Claverton Estate, objects in the Museum's permanent collection, and America's Founding Fathers.
Karima Moyer-Nocchi is a culinary historian and professor at the University of Siena in Italy. She is author of the books Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita and The Eternal Table: A Cultural History of Food in Rome. In preparation for her latest book, The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America, she was awarded fellowships at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Smithsonian Institution, and the George Washington Presidential Library in Mount Vernon. Moyer-Nocchi resides in Umbria and has been an Italian resident for over 35 years.
Bookseller Partner:
The Americana Lecture will support the mission of the American Museum & Gardens