JRBS Annual Meeting 2022


The Annual Meeting of the JRBS will take place virtually on Monday, March 28, at 6:30pm. Our speaker will be Rebecca More, a member of the Hroswitha Club (and the JRBS) and a collector of many subjects, most notably gardening and French cookery. Professor More received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown University in History. She directed the Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching at Learning at Brown from 1992 until her retirement in 2010. She continues an active research agenda, teaches and lectures, and is involved with environmental issues in New Hampshire. According to More, “I began collecting cookbooks in 1966. My original focus was on 19th and early 20th century French cookbooks, especially those with engravings and illustrations and related to well-known restauranteurs. However, over time, since I gave informal cookery classes from 1968 until 1985, the collection developed into a reference library. The cookery classes emphasized mastery of fundamental techniques and the book collection reflected how different cultures employed similar techniques to achieve different results. As a late medieval and early modern European social and economic historian, the cookbook collection encouraged my use of artifacts and anthropological source materials in teaching and research.”