Sarah Peters Kernan

Culinary Historian

I am an independent culinary historian and Scholar-in-Residence at the Newberry Library (Chicago, IL). While earning my PhD in History at The Ohio State University, I discovered that I not only love eating a wide range of foods, but also thoroughly enjoy researching historical food topics. My research cumulated in a dissertation based on the physical examination of manuscript and early print cookeries held in archives throughout the United States and England. I am currently working on my first monograph based on my dissertation research, Creating Cookbooks: Networks of Recipe Readers and Writers in England, 1300–1700. Together with Helga Müllneritsch, I am editing Culinary Texts in Context, 1500-1800: Manuscript Recipe Books in Early Modern Europe, to be published by Amsterdam University Press in 2024. I am also developing a digital edition of Lady Anne Percy’s Recipe Book (NYPL Whitney Ms 2) based on my transcription and research of the manuscript while a 2014 Food Studies Fellow at the New York Public Library. My research on bread and baking in medieval England has been published in the Food and History, a journal for which I now serve as a Corresponding Member. I have also served as an editor of The Recipes Project since 2019. My research has been supported by several organizations, including the Bibliographical Society of America, Linda Hall Library, Medieval Academy of America, and the New York Public Library.

Since moving to the Chicago area in 2014, I have become active as a public historian. I teach a variety of culinary history courses in continuing education and adult learning programs at the Newberry Library and the College of DuPage. Also through these programs, I present virtual cooking demonstrations of historic recipes. I collaborate frequently with the Newberry Library, assembling modules on food history topics for Digital Collections for the Classroom and teaching programs on culinary history for teachers. I have also worked with The Met Cloisters (New York), the Manuscript Cookbooks Survey, and the Culinary Historians of Chicago.