Connie Kirker

Passionate about art, food, culture and travel, Connie Kirker is an Art Historian with thirty years of experience at Pennsylvania State University, teaching as a visiting Instructor at the National University of Singapore and most recently, teaching cultural history to aspiring chefs at the Singapore campus of the Culinary Institute of America.  

A member of Les Dames d’Escoffier since 2014, Connie has an undergraduate degree in painting and art education from the University of Cincinnati, a graduate degree in Art History from Syracuse University, and a certificate in Chinese brush painting from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore.

Turning to culinary history, Connie’s books, Global History of Edible Flowers, Cherry, Global History of Coconut, and Global History of Mango, (Reaktion Press), are illustrated with many of her own watercolors and photographs.

Serving as the art history faculty member three times for the Semester-at-Sea program now administrated through Colorado State University, Connie has taught around the world for an entire semester with more than 600 university students and adults. As a widely-traveled culinary historian as well as an art historian, Connie enjoys sharing her broad expertise of many different international cultural traditions, from Islamic, Chinese, and Japanese calligraphy to Persian miniature painting, providing introductions to ports of call for travelers of all interests and ages. She regularly presents her culinary history research at international conferences.

Conne’s current research interests include the cultural histories of rhubarb, asparagus, squash, and culinary lotus, as well as international practices of food gifting and the phenomena of faux/fake food.