Compiled by Sarah Hood
- To Sunday, January 18, 2026: eat make share: a taste of immigration (Halifax). The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 presents an exhibit celebrating Canada’s diverse foodways and exploring how what we eat is shaped by over 400 years of immigration and relationships between newcomers and Indigenous Peoples. Visitors will explore an immersive kitchen full of surprising histories, learn from home cooks and chefs across Canada, discover thought-provoking artifacts and consider Indigenous perspectives and the diversity of representation. Admission: Free with entrance to the site.
- Saturday, June 7, 10 to 11 a.m.: Historic Kitchen Garden Tour (Hamilton, Ontario). Dundurn National Historic Site presents a guided tour of its Historic Kitchen Garden, exploring the history of the landscape, the restoration of the garden, and the hundreds of heirloom fruits, vegetables and flowers now growing there. Admission: $9 (family), $8 (60+ & 13-17), $6 (6-12) Free (5 & under).
- Saturdays, July 19 & 26: An Afternoon with Jane Austen (Grimsby, Ontario). Nelles Manor Museum and Heritage House celebrates Regency amusements. Admission & times to be confirmed.
- Saturday, August 2: Food Day Canada is a massive celebration in praise of our farmers and fishers, our chefs and researchers and, above all, our home cooks. Founded by the late Anita Stewart, a CHC Honorary Member, it continues to engage and inspire everyone to shop, cook and dine Canadian, and its message has never been more relevant. Admission: Free.
- Sunday, August 24, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Ukrainian Day 2025 (near Edmonton). Despite wildfire damage to buildings in the spring of 2025, Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village presents a celebration of all things Ukrainian with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress-Alberta Provincial Council, including traditional Ukrainian food prepared by the Friends of the Ukrainian Village Society. Admission: Free with entrance to the site; extra charges for purchased items.
- Monday, August 25, 2025, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Fête de Saint-Louis (Louisbourg, Nova Scotia). The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site celebrates this traditional feast day honouring the patron saint of France with traditional food and other activities. Admission: Free with entrance to the site; extra charges for purchased items.
- Saturday, September 6, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Harvest of the Past 2025 (near Edmonton). Despite wildfire damage to buildings in the spring of 2025, Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village celebrates Alberta’s agricultural history with an old-fashioned fall harvest, including threshing demonstrations and talks by costumed interpreters. Admission: Free with entrance to the site; extra charges for purchased items.
Conferences
Compiled by Vicki Gregory
2024
April 27 (Friargate, York)
LEEDS SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD HISTORY AND TRADITIONS
Theme: Presenting the Food of the Past in Museums and Historic Houses
Host: Friends Meeting House
Sign-up TBD
April 27–28 (Boston and virtual)
QUEER FOOD CONFERENCE 2024
Theme: What is queer food? What makes food queer?
Host: Boston University
May 15–19 (Jonesboro, Arkansas)
RURAL WOMEN’S STUDIES ASSOCATION (RWSA)
Theme: Gendered Advocacy and Activism, Shaping Institutions and Communities
Host: Arkansas State University
May 28–29 (Dublin, Ireland)
DUBLIN GASTRONOMY SYMPOSIUM 2024
Theme: Food and Memory: Traces, Trauma and Tradition
June 5–7 (Tours, France)
NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON FOOD AND DRINK STUDIES
Theme: The History and Cultures of Food
Host: IEHCA – University of Tours
June 5–8 (Syracuse, New York)
AFHVS AND ASFS MEETING
Theme: Right to Food—Food as Commons
Host: Syracuse University
June 6–8 (Las Cruces, New Mexico)
THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING
Theme: Borderlands, Marginal Spaces, & Agriculture In-Between
June 13–16 (Perugia, Italy)
UMBRA INSTITUTE’S BIENNIAL FOOD CONFERENCE
Theme: Food & Hybridity
June 17-18 (Concordia University, Montreal, QC)
THE 2024 CAFS CONFERENCE
Theme: Sustaining Shared Food Futures
July 5–7: St Catherine’s College, Oxford, UK) and July 14–29: online (dates TBC)
OXFORD FOOD SYMPOSIUM
Theme: Gardens, Flowers, and Fruit
June 17–20 (Sweden)
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CULINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES 2024
Theme: How can healthy and sustainable food choices be facilitated in a changing society?
Host: Kristianstad University
October 2–4 (online and Portugal)
FOURTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD STUDIES
Theme: Place Matters: The Valorization of Cultural, Gastronomic, and Territorial Heritage
Host: Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre
December 30–31 (Vienna, Austria)
ICFCH—INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD CULTURE AND HISTORY
Theme: New advances and research in humanities and social sciences
2025
October 8-10 (Pretoria, South Africa)
FIFTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD STUDIES
Theme: Fed Up: Learning from the past, imagining new futures
Host: University of Pretoria
CFP: March 8 to Sept. 8, 2025
September (Paris, France)
ICREFH—INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR RESEARCH INTO EUROPEAN FOOD HISTORY (not yet updated to reflect 2025’s theme)
Theme (TBC): Food safety in Europe, 19th-21st centuries
Contact p.j.atkins@durham.ac.uk to join the conference mailing list.
In addition, here are a dozen virtual pursuits to make the most of your time indoors. Please share pictures and stories of your cooking adventures and historical discoveries on our Facebook page. (Join now if you haven’t already!)
- Explore historical Canadian cookbooks. The CHC’s website has been updated to include even more digitized cookbooks dating from 1825 to 1949.
- Start your own sourdough. Markus Mueller of the blog “Earth Food and Fire” offers complete instructions for capturing your own sourdough starter. He was among the contributors to CHC’s 2017 Canada 150 Food Blog Challenge; you can read dozens of seasonal Canadian food stories by participating bloggers on our website.
- Cook from historic recipes. In the blog “Cooking in the Archives,” scholars and foodies Marissa Nicosia and Alyssa Connell test early modern recipes (1600-1800) in a modern kitchen.
- Listen to a new podcast. Gastropod, now in its 14th season, examines food through the lens of science and history. Follow the link to the site and simply click to launch the latest episode; there’s a smorgasbord of past “gastropodcasts” to catch up on.
- Reconnect with Julia. The PBS website offers free episodes of the shows “Baking with Julia” and “Cooking with Master Chefs,” both featuring the incomparable Julia Child and other culinary luminaries.
- Browse vintage images for fun. This Pinterest collection of old food labels is full of nostalgia and surprises.
- Take an armchair trip to a food museum. Dip into Atlas Obscura’s compendium of 38 museums devoted to food (we can dream, right?). And to experience an online tour, visit this Dutch website Food Museum; start at the entrance or go straight to the exhibit gallery. (At the top right, you can switch to the English version.)
- Binge-watch some droolworthy CanCon. The CBC offers a tasty selection of past episodes of favourite food shows like “Back in Time for Dinner,” “Fridge Wars” and “The Great Canadian Baking Show.”
- Virtually visit a Canadian historical site. Your options include:
- Nettie Covey Sharpe House, where you can tour the kitchen of French-Canadian folk art collector Nettie Covey Sharpe.
- Food at Fort Selkirk, which offers information on the food and diet of those living in and around Fort Selkirk (north of the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly rivers).
- Farm Food 360, which provides online tours of Canadian agricultural sites, including sheep and dairy (available through Google Play and the App Store for phones, iPads, desktops and laptops).
- Traditional Cooking at Kings Landing, a short video highlighting culinary activities at Kings Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick.
- Roedde House Museum, a historical house in Vancouver.
- Joseph Schneider Haus, former home to a Mennonite family living in Berlin (present-day Kitchener, Ontario), which has posted a video exploring cheese- and butter-making in the historic kitchen.
- Explore an online exhibit. Among the possibilities:
- This Splendid Gift—the 1897 Canadian Historical Dinner Service: Painted to commemorate John Cabot’s 1497 landing in North America, the Canadian Historical Dinner Service was presented to Lady Aberdeen, wife of the governor general, for her contributions to Canadian life.
- Bon Appétit: A Celebration of Canadian Cookbooks/Les livres de cuisine canadiens à l’honneur: An archived online exhibition produced by CHC member Carol Martin for Library and Archives Canada. It includes books, art and artifacts representing Canadian culinary history from indigenous traditions to modern tastes.
- Lifelines: Learn all about Canada’s East Coast fisheries at the Canadian Museum of History and the struggle to balance nature and human need.
- From Tides to Tins: Salmon Canning in B.C.: The long and complex history of salmon canning in British Columbia is as much about coastal communities, technological innovations and environmental changes as it is about bringing food to market. Follow each step of the canning process from tide to tin as you learn what it was like to work in a cannery.
- Harvests of Prince Edward Island: This research project utilizes the collections and resources of the Island’s community museums to explore a number of the harvests that have been important to P.E.I.’s history. The major harvests represented include the Potato, the Malpeque Oyster, the Silver Fox industry, Irish Moss and Mussel Mud.
- Indulge in a YouTube video. You’ll find lots of culinary history in videos such as these:
- Behind Every Great Cook is a Great Mother: CHC’s own series of interviews with notable Canadian chefs, cooks and culinary authors.
- 60 Years of Cooking: Produced by the Department of National Defence, Canadian Forces, Army Public Affairs, this four-part series (also available in French) showcases the history of the Canadian Forces cooks, a military occupation within the Logistics Branch.
- Emmymadeinjapan: EmmyMadeInJapan combines her love of thrift shops and cooking by testing vintage kitchen gadgets in a series of three videos.
- The Tadka Project: Toronto cook Sumi demystifies South Asian vegan cooking via her YouTube channel named for the all-important process of sizzling spices in oil to begin a traditional South Asian dish.
- Discover international culinary history. There’s much here to keep you enlightened and entertained:
- Culinary Historians of Chicago Podcasts: Jane’s favourite culinary history society, after the CHC, is the Culinary Historians of Chicago. Their podcasts cover both American and international culinary history. Two of Jane’s favourites are “Last Night on the Titanic: Unsinkable Drinking, Dining and Style” and “One Smart Cookie Shares Crumbs of History.”
- Timeline: A wide variety of historical documentaries, including the “Let’s Cook History” series and other culinary history videos that span numerous times and places.
- The Real Mrs. Crocombe: A mini-series from the English Heritage charity, which cares for more than 400 British historical sites. Featuring food historian Dr Annie Gray, the series follows the life of the Audley End House cook Avis Crocombe and her staff during the Victorian era.
- Townsends: This American family recreates 18th-century living for YouTube. (Check out their video on Catharine Parr Traill or the one comparing historic and modern kitchens.)
International Conferences
Compiled by Vicki Gregory
2024
April 27 (Friargate, York)
LEEDS SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD HISTORY AND TRADITIONS
Theme: Presenting the Food of the Past in Museums and Historic Houses
Host: Friends Meeting House
Sign-up TBD
April 27–28 (Boston and virtual)
QUEER FOOD CONFERENCE 2024
Theme: What is queer food? What makes food queer?
Host: Boston University
May 15–19 (Jonesboro, Arkansas)
RURAL WOMEN’S STUDIES ASSOCATION (RWSA)
Theme: Gendered Advocacy and Activism, Shaping Institutions and Communities
Host: Arkansas State University
May 28–29 (Dublin, Ireland)
DUBLIN GASTRONOMY SYMPOSIUM 2024
Theme: Food and Memory: Traces, Trauma and Tradition
June 5–7 (Tours, France)
NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON FOOD AND DRINK STUDIES
Theme: The History and Cultures of Food
Host: IEHCA – University of Tours
June 5–8 (Syracuse, New York)
AFHVS AND ASFS MEETING
Theme: Right to Food—Food as Commons
Host: Syracuse University
June 6–8 (Las Cruces, New Mexico)
THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING
Theme: Borderlands, Marginal Spaces, & Agriculture In-Between
June 13–16 (Perugia, Italy)
UMBRA INSTITUTE’S BIENNIAL FOOD CONFERENCE
Theme: Food & Hybridity
June 17-18 (Concordia University, Montreal, QC)
THE 2024 CAFS CONFERENCE
Theme: Sustaining Shared Food Futures
July 5–7: St Catherine’s College, Oxford, UK) and July 14–29: online (dates TBC)
OXFORD FOOD SYMPOSIUM
Theme: Gardens, Flowers, and Fruit
June 17–20 (Sweden)
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CULINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES 2024
Theme: How can healthy and sustainable food choices be facilitated in a changing society?
Host: Kristianstad University
October 2–4 (online and Portugal)
FOURTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD STUDIES
Theme: Place Matters: The Valorization of Cultural, Gastronomic, and Territorial Heritage
Host: Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre
December 30–31 (Vienna, Austria)
ICFCH—INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD CULTURE AND HISTORY
Theme: New advances and research in humanities and social sciences
2025
June 2-5 (Toronto)
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FOOD STUDIES (CAFS) ASSEMBLY
Theme: Foundations, Evolutions, Revolutions
Host: George Brown College in conjunction with the Congress 2025 of the Humanities and Social Sciences: Reframing Togetherness.
June 5-7 (St. Paul, Minnesota)
THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING
Theme: Ebbs and Flows: Water and Agriculture
Host: University of Minnesota
June 11-13 (Tours, France)
10th INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON FOOD AND DRINK STUDIES
Host: IEHCA – University of Tours
June 18-21 (Corvallis, Oregon)
AFHVS AND ASFS MEETING
Theme: Food Cultures and Social Justice
Host: Oregon State University’s Food in Culture and Social Justice Program
June 20-25 (Little Rock, Arkansas)
2025 ASSOCIATION FOR LIVING HISTORY FARM AND AGRICULTIRAL MUSEUMS (ALHFAM) ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Hosts: Old State House Museum, Historic Arkansas Museum, Historic Washington State Park and
Arkansas Living History Association
July 11-13 (Oxford, U.K.) & July 18-31 (online)
OXFORD FOOD SYMPOSIUM
Theme: Food and the Elements (https://food-studies.com/2025-conference)
Host: St Catherine’s College, Oxford
September (Paris, France)
ICREFH—INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR RESEARCH INTO EUROPEAN FOOD HISTORY
Theme (TBC): Food safety in Europe, 19th-21st centuries
Contact p.j.atkins@durham.ac.uk to join the conference mailing list.
October 8-10 (Pretoria, South Africa)
15th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD STUDIES
Theme: Fed Up: Learning from the past, imagining new futures
Host: University of Pretoria
November 13 (Lac La Biche, Alberta)
2025 RURAL WOMEN’S CONFERENCE
December 29-30 (Vienna, Austria)
19th ICFCH-INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD CULTURE AND HISTORY
Theme: New advances and research in humanities and social sciences
2026
February 2-3 (Havana, Cuba)
20th ICFCH—INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD CULTURE AND HISTORY
CFP: June 12, 2025
May 1-3 (Montreal & virtual)
2nd QUEER FOOD CONFERENCE 2026
Theme: What is queer food and drink?
CFP: September 30, 2025
May 26-27 (Dublin, Ireland)
DUBLIN GASTRONOMY SYMPOSIUM
Theme: Food and Crisis/Hope
Host: Dublin Technological University
CFP: September 15, 2025
Date & location TBA
LEEDS SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD HISTORY AND TRADITIONS
Date & location TBA
UMBRA INSTITUTE’S BIENNIAL FOOD CONFERENCE
