Dr. Jeffrey Pilcher

Biography

Jeffrey Pilcher is a leading figure in the emerging scholarly field of food history. His early research focused on Mexico and Latin America, expanding to a broader scope of food world history. He is the author of several influential books: ¡Que vivan los tamales! Food Making Mexican Identity (1998), Sausage Rebellion: Public Health, Private Enterprise, Meat in Mexico City (2006), and Food World History (2006). His latest book, Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food (2012), seeks to historicize authenticity and shows how Mexico's national cuisine has developed through global interactions, particularly the influence of Mexican American cooks. Professor Pilcher is also the articles editor of a new, peer-reviewed journal called Global Food History, published by Bloomsbury, and he edited the Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012) and a four-volume anthology entitled Food History: Critical Primary Sources (2014). His current research project examines the world history of beer over the past hundred years, focusing on the spread of European lager through networks of trade, migration, and empire. His research uniquely explores how European brews became situated within local drinking cultures, including Mexican pulque, Japanese sake, and South African sorghum beer. At the University of Toronto Scarborough, Professor Pilcher teaches courses on the history of food and drink in Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

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Awards