On December 1, 2022 the Folger’s virtual book club discussed Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. To prepare for the discussion, we pulled together a list of Folger resources related to food and food pathways.
- EXPERIMENT in the kitchen with recipes from the Folger collection
- Early modern recipe combinations to get you through the winter
- Taffety Tarts: How Folger manuscript recipes helped a 17th-century pastry make it into the Oxford English Dictionary
- Mince pies and mirth: Transcribed 17th-century recipes
- LEARN about food pathways
- Making rum in unexpected places
- A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
- Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures
- EXPLORE the connections between black cake and Emily Dickinson
- The Messy History of Emily Dickinson’s Black Cake Recipe
- Make Emily Dickinson’s Black Birthday Cake with The SugaChef
- CONTINUE the conversation with this year’s Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute
We would like to thank the following organizations for their generous support of this program


Join us for a future event
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400

Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Come see a First Folio — the book that gave us Shakespeare — and explore how some stories are preserved while others are lost.
Sat, Apr 01 — Sun, Apr 30, 2023
The Bard, the Griot, and the Hip Hop Tradition

The Bard, the Griot, and the Hip Hop Tradition
Actor, writer, and musician Malik Work leads this interactive workshop designed to unveil the tools of theater and storytelling.
Sat, Apr 01 — Thu, Apr 06, 2023
Our Verse in Time to Come @ DC Public Library

Our Verse in Time to Come @ DC Public Library
Inspired by the works and words of Shakespeare, this new Folger-commissioned play bridges the past with the present through verse, song and memory, and interrogates whose stories remain and whose role it is to ensure they survive.
Sat, Apr 1 — Sun, Apr 23, 2023
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