Tickets are now available for an unusual dinner event that will blend food and history in celebration of the 160th anniversary of the California Gold Rush of 1849.
The evening gathering, titled “The California Gold Rush: What We Ate” will be held at 6 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 31, in the Roundhouse of the California State Railroad Museum. Coordinated by 69’ Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and the California State Parks, it is open to the public with tickets costing $75 per person.
Guests and speakers will explore the Gold Rush flavors and dishes that characterized everyday life in the Mother Lode, and learn how California’s modern-day cuisine has been shaped by the diversity of the “forty-niner” gold prospectors.
The speakers will be local Gold Rush historian James Henley, former manager of the Sacramento Archives and Museum Collection Center, who will speak about James Marshall’s discovery of gold at the American River in Coloma, and nationally recognized food historian Ann Chandonnet, author of “Gold Rush Grub: From Turpentine Stew to Hoochinoo.” She will discuss the foods and beverages consumed in the miners’ camps, taverns, boarding houses and hastily constructed grand hotels. She also will discuss the contributions of Northern California’s Native American population.
The talks will be followed by a three-course, historically accurate meal, showcasing dishes consumed by the miners and denizens of California’s Mother Lode. Included will be a “California Common” beer, an American beer produced in California for the first time during the Gold Rush. The commemorative beer will be freshly brewed by the 69 brewing program in collaboration with Sacramento’s Brew It Up.
Also served will be Boudin bread from San Francisco’s first sourdough bread bakery, established in 1849, and wines by Barton & Guestier, which produced some of the first imported French wines to arrive in California during the Gold Rush.
Proceeds from this event will benefit the 69 Good Life Garden, located within the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.
To reserve tickets for “The California Gold Rush: What We Ate” and obtain more information about the Good Life Garden, visit .
Media Resources
Pat Bailey, Research news (emphasis: agricultural and nutritional sciences, and veterinary medicine), 530-219-9640, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
Kira O'Donnell, Good Life Garden, (530) 754-8368, kdodonnell@ucdavis.edu