Summary - Culinary Memories: Autobiographic Recall for Wellness and Community Building

Have you ever had a taste of food that transported you back to a different time and place? Or sniffed an aroma that took you to your grandmother’s kitchen? Or compared a recipe for a favorite dish with a friend only to be surprised at how different the ingredients were?

If so, you have witnessed the ability of food to connect us to our pasts, our development, and to generate community.

The William James College Department of Continuing Education is thrilled to invite you to an evening discussion with eminent scholar and cultural icon, Dr. Jessica B. Harris.

World-renowned culinary historian Dr. Jessica B. Harris is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, and Netflix docuseries executive producer. Dr. Harris’ seminal work, High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America, is the culmination of a lifetime of research and scholarship on the food and foodways of the African diaspora. She is professor emerita at Queens College, City University of New York, where she taught for 50 years, and is also the author of 15 books, including cookbooks, non-fiction food writing and memoir. She has twice won James Beard Foundation Awards, including for Lifetime Achievement in 2020. Her book High on the Hog was adapted in 2021 as an eponymous four-part Netflix series.

On the evening of Thursday, October 8, 2026, Dr. Harris will continue her exploration of the enormous power of food as memory and community builder for the William James College community. Using selections from memoirs and culinary narratives, she will explore food’s capacity to capture moments in time, to help recall the past, and to create community. By combining select aspects of memoir-writing with founding tenets of narrative medicine, Dr. Harris will impart fundamental tools for cultivating “culinary autobiographies.” By learning how to dig deeper into their own memories of the ceremonies of food, cooking, and dining, participants will learn how to impart the power of culinary recall to nurture structures for wellness, belongingness, and community.

Time will be set aside for questions and discussion.