The Georgia Archives Lunch & Learn presentation, Georgia’s Historical Recipes, by Valerie Frey, will take
place on-site on Friday, December 12, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., at the Georgia Archives, 5800 Jonesboro Road, Morrow, GA.
This event is free and open to the public, with no registration required.
Many cookbooks and recipes still exist from Georgia’s early years, yet most have been forgotten. They sit
quietly in archives, waiting to be rediscovered. These sources not only preserve traces of delicious foods that
are new again to current generations, but they also hold many clues about what home life was like for Georgians
in the past. Archivist and writer Valerie J. Frey, author of Georgia’s Historical Recipes: Seeking Our State’s
Oldest Written Foodways and the Stories Behind Them (UGA Press, 2025), will help you explore recipes from
1733 through 1945 with a historian’s eye, helping you learn about yesteryear’s cooks and savor a taste of the
history of Georgia, the South, and the U.S.A. through foodways.
About the Speaker
Valerie J. Frey (pronounced “fry”) is a writer from Athens. She holds degrees from UGA and UT Knoxville.
Valerie’s archival career began with a Junior Fellowship at the Library of Congress, and she went on to serve as
Manuscripts Archivist at the Georgia Historical Society and the Georgia Archives. UGA Press published her
foodways books, Preserving Family Recipes: How to Save and Celebrate Your Food Traditions (2015) and
Georgia’s Historical Recipes: Seeking Our State’s Oldest Written Foodways and the Stories Behind Them
(2025).
