This year as always, the History Department presents talks by historians and the historically-minded from other disciplines, featuring both Nipissing faculty and visiting scholars. Come and get the latest on the past!  

Jennifer Evans, University of Toronto

Friday, Mar 12, 2:30 pm in A226

“It was part of everything”: Immigrant women’s stories of food and cooking in postwar North Bay, Ontario          

A study of immigrant women’s experiences with food and cooking raises questions about how women’s everyday experiences in their kitchens related to their larger transnational contexts: How did women’s experiences in their homelands shape their perceptions of the food and cooking practices in North Bay, and what did it mean for their own cooking?

To answer these questions, this paper uses the memories of ten immigrant women who lived in North Bay, Ontario between 1945 and 1975. It looks at how the stories these immigrant women tell about their food and cooking experiences reflect the interrelationship between their pre- and post-migration contexts. These women’s homelands were connected with memories of food: what they cooked, who they cooked it with and times when it was not always possible to cook or even eat. When these women made their way to North Bay, their pre-migration experiences with rationing, hunger and food deprivation shaped their responses to their new home which offered them food in apparent abundance. Their stories remind us of the connection between local and transnational contexts.

For more information go www.nipissingu.ca/history and click on Upcoming Events.