Cake Wars: From Kitchens to Courts

Next date: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 | 06:00 PM to 07:00 PM

Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, muffins – what fluffs them all up is baking powder, a New England invention. In the 19th century, more than 500 baking powder companies pitted women, scientists, and government agencies against each other. This created chaos in the cookbooks, caused one of the biggest business scandals in American history, and changed the definition of cake forever.

Linda Civitello, Ph.D., is the author of Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking, which the Smithsonian magazine named One of the Ten Best Food Books of 2017. She is also the author of Cuisine & Culture: A History of Food and People, winner of the Gourmand award for Best Food History Book in English (U.S.), and which is used to teach food history in culinary schools throughout the U.S. and in other countries.

This is a free adult program and no registration required.

When

Location

Whiton Branch Library, 100 North Main Street, Manchester, CT, 06042, View Map