If you have been wanting to expand your culinary knowledge and skills, but don’t have time to attend a class in person then checkout these great online lectures and courses available from home for Hoboken Library Card holders.
Food: A Cultural Culinary History and The Everyday Gourmet
For Hoboken Library and other BCCLS Library Patrons interested in learning about the history of food check out episodes of Food: A Cultural Culinary History, part of The Great Courses lecture series available from Hoopla. Although best watched in order since each of the 36 lecture builds on one another, they are filmed as 30 minute segments by topics on specific regions/eras so if you are just interested in specific food cultures/time periods you can skip around. The lecture starts at the Stone Age and then moves through different times in history including Ancient Egypt, Elizabethan England, Edo Era Japan and ending with a look into what the future of food might be. I found the lectures very interesting in the way they looked at not only food trends, but the way history impacted the food we eat and the way food in turn influenced history. You can pick up some great tidbits for cocktail party chatter. The course is taught by Dr. Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in California, where he teaches food history. The series is also available on DVD from BCCLS libraries and you can check out several of Albala’s books in print on a variety of food history topics.
Hoopla has other lectures from The Great Courses series including several Everyday Gourmet courses on topics such as Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking, Essential Secrets of Spices in Cooking, and Baking Pastries and Desserts. I have checked out the first of the Baking Pastries and Dessert lectures and plan to watch more in the future. It has some useful tips for beginners like how to ensure all the ingredients are mixed.
Hoopla also features a variety of cookbooks and ebooks on food history. I enjoyed reading The Donut: History, Recipes, and Lore from Boston to Berlin by Michael Krondl. My parent’s house was behind Dunkin’ Donuts so the delicious smell of fresh made donuts makes me think of home; it was fun to learn about their history and other notable moments in donut history. Also featured are a baker’s dozen of donut recipes including ones from around the world such as Venetian Carnival Fritters and Oliebollen Dutch Donuts. My husband was inspired to make the Nutella filled Bombolonis-Yum! Remember BCCLS patrons have 20 checkouts for Hoopla per month of books, movies, music and more!
Get Cooking and Baking with Universal Class
For those looking for a more interactive learning experience check out some of the cooking classes available to Hoboken Patrons from Universal Class including online courses on:
- Cooking and Baking 101
- Pie Baking 101
- Italian Cooking 101
- Tex Mex Cooking 101
- Spanish Cooking 101
- Canning/Food Preservation
- Cake Decorating
If you don’t have a Hoboken Library Resident Card to access Universal Class from home, you can access the courses from within the library on the library’s computers or from your wi-fi enabled laptop. The courses each feature an instructor who you can email about assignments with. The courses are self-paced and you have a six month period to complete them. This is a great way to expand your repertoire and learn some new skills. I love baking cakes and cookies, but have always found pies intimidating so I’m hoping to take the pie baking course and be able to have homemade rather than store-bought pumpkin and apple pies for Thanksgiving. Courses are available 24/7 so they are perfect for a busy working mom like me since I can work on them after my little guy goes to bed. Besides the classes that will appeal to beginning cooks there are also ones on a variety of other topics such as Excel, Grammar, and Resume Writing. The courses are easy to navigate.
And if you are looking for an in person class for foodies we have that too; on Monday June 13 back by popular demand I will be co-teaching a class on ice cream making using a machine as wells as an easy recipe using just plastic bags, ice, salt and a few simple ingredients. This is a fun class for adults, older kids, and teens!
-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference
Hoboken Library Staff Picks 
Leave a Reply