‘The Diet of Dickens’ at the Pasadena Village

Mr. Richard Foss. – Courtesy Photo

“The Diet of Dickens’ England,” presented by Richard Foss, will be March 20, 2016 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Pasadena Village office, 236 W. Mountain St., Pasadena 91103.

The works of Charles Dickens contain rhapsodic descriptions of good meals and disgusting details of bad ones. As he described these repasts, Dickens inserted cues about class and society that are often missed by modern readers. Richard Foss will explain how the diet of Victorians changed during Dickens’ lifetime, and the ways it was different from meals the English eat today.

Richard Foss has been writing about food and drink professionally since 1986, when he started reviewing restaurants for the Los Angeles Reader newspaper. Since then he has contributed to over twenty different publications, including articles in the Encyclopedia of World Food Cultures (Greenwood 2011) and the Oxford Companion to Sweets (2015). He has taught “500 Years of American Food,” “American Fermented,” and “What Shakespeare Left Out” at Osher Institute/UCLA Extension, is on the board of the Culinary Historians of Southern California, and is the California Curator for the Museum of the American Cocktail. His book on the history of rum was released by Reaktion Books in April of 2012. “Food in the Air and Space; the surprising history of food and drink in the skies,” was released in December 2014. He is now working on a history of food and drink in the Victorian era, and the way it is portrayed in the work of Charles Dickens.

Space is limited.   RSVP for the by calling (626) 765-6037 or emailing lina@pasadenavillage.org

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