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Bruce Kraig, Professor of
History and Humanities,
Emeritus, at Roosevelt
University, and expert on the
history of food, returns to the
Cigar Society to talk about
climate change and its effects
on agriculture in the United
States. Professor
Kraig writes:
The Midwest
encompasses almost the entire
center of the North American
continent. It is a land of
varied landscapes and
microclimates that range from
the Great Lakes and Mississippi
River valley to the dry lands of
western Kansas and the Dakotas.
This agricultural powerhouse is
now stressed by major flooding
of the river systems upon which
much farm production and export
depends, current and impending drought
in the rain and groundwater
supplied western regions, and a
crisis in insect populations
on which agriculture depends.
America’s food
comes from a commodity
agricultural system that was
developed over the course of the
Nineteenth and Twentieth
centuries. The goal in creating
this system has always been
cheap and abundant food for the
home market and healthy exports.
One of the assumptions on which
this industrialized farm economy
is based is that whatever the
land and animals that live on it
yield can be improved and
that the climate on which it
depends remains fairly stable.
But, as many a farmer says,
it’s a gamble.
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FREE and
ONLINE
Tuesday, June 9, 2020, 5:30-7:00 pm CDT
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There will be a Q&A
session after the lecture. Audience
participation is invited.
Be
sure to have your cocktails and
cigars at ready hand.
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Bruce
Kraig is Professor of
History and Humanities, Emeritus, at
Roosevelt University, where he
taught a wide variety of courses in
history, anthropology, and popular
culture, and since retiring from
Roosevelt he has lectured about food
at the culinary school of Kendall
College, Chicago. Professor
Kraig has appeared widely in the
electronic media as writer and
on-camera host and narrator for a
multi-award winning PBS series on
food and culture around the world.
He has written hundreds of articles
on food in newspapers, journals, and
for encyclopedias. His books
about cookery and culinary history
include Mexican-American Plain
Cooking; The Cuisines of
Hidden Mexico; Hot Dog: A
Global History; Man Bites
Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America;
editor Cooking Plain: Illinois
Style (2012), co-editor (with
Colleen Sen) Street Food Around
the World: An Encyclopedia of Food
and Culture (2013), co-editor
(with Colleen Sen and Carol Haddix)
Food City: The Encyclopedia of
Chicago Food (2017), and A
Rich and Fertile Land (2017).
He is the editor of the “Heartland
Foodways” book series for the
University of Illinois Press.
Professor Kraig holds a BA from UC
Berkeley and MA and PhD degrees from
the University of Pennsylvania.
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About
the
Cigar Society of Chicago
ONE OF THE OLDEST AND
greatest traditions of the city clubs of
Chicago is the discussion of intellectual,
social, legal, artistic, historical,
scientific, musical, theatrical, and
philosophical issues in the company of
educated, bright, and appropriately
provocative individuals, all under the
beneficent influence of substantial
amounts of tobacco and spirits. The
Cigar Society of Chicago
embraces this tradition and extends it
with its Informal Smokers, University
Series lectures, and Cigar
Society Dinners, in which cigars,
and from time to time pipes and
cigarettes, appear as an important
component of our version of the classical
symposium. To be included in the
Cigar Society's mailing list, write to the
secretary at
curtis.tuckey@logicophilosophicus.org
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