Called the nation’s preeminent food journalist, Mississippi-born Craig Claiborne trained in Switzerland as a chef on the GI bill after World War II. On his return to the United States, he began writing articles for Gourmet and became an editor at the magazine. His career skyrocketed when the New York Times hired him as its first food columnist in 1957. Claiborne's columns, reviews and cookbooks introduced Americans to a wide range of international and ethnic food. Other newspapers followed the New York Times’s lead, and soon a cadre of authoritative food writers helped attune millions of Americans to the finer points of good food and cooking.

On Thursday, June 11, at 6:00 p.m., the Food Studies program at The New School will host a panel that will explore Claiborne's life, work, and his seminal influence on food journalism in America. The panel will include: Molly O’Neill, former New York Times columnist, and author of the New York Cookbook; Betty Fussell, author of The Story of Corn and Raising Steaks; Anne Mendelson, author of Stand Facing the Stove, and Milk: the Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, and a contributing editor to Gourmet;David Leite, publisher / editor-in-chief, Leite's Culinaria, and author of The New Portuguese Table; and John T. Edge, director, Southern Foodways Alliance, University of Mississippi, contributing editor, Gourmet, author of Southern Belly.

The panel will be held in the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, and will be moderated by Andrew F. Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, and Food Studies professor at The New School.

Admission to this event is $5; and free to all students and New School faculty, staff, and alumni with ID.