Joyce's Bio

Joyce's work as a food historian began in college in the late 1980s when she was a museum education intern at the Geneva Historical Society/Rose Hill Mansion in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Joyce's first experience cooking historic food occurred there while performing the role of an 1840s kitchen maid at Rose Hill, where she cooked cakes with every 4th-grade class in the county! 

After college, Joyce became the Education Curator at the Square House Museum, an 18th-century tavern on the Boston Post Rd, operated by the Rye Historical Society in Westchester County, NY. While there she cooked frequently on the tavern's 18th century hearth.

In Maryland, Joyce began work in 2006 as the Education Director and Foodways Consultant at the c. 1801 Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park, MD, was the consultant for the restoration of the 18th-century kitchen at Annapolis’s William Paca House in 2006, was the guest curator for the Maryland State Exhibit for the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans, LA in 2012, and is a Trustee of Annapolis’ c. 1774 Hammond-Harwood House Museum. 

Joyce is also an independent consultant to historic museums and offers PowerPoint presentations on a variety of topics, writes articles for local publications such as Outlook by the Bay, MarylandRoadTrips.com, Chesapeake Family Magazine, and assorted blogs, and is now creating historically accurate faux food items of use at historic sites.

Joyce has a B.A. from William Smith College, an M.A. in American Studies from Penn State University, and has studied food history with leaders in the field at various historic sites in England and the US. 

Joyce has been featured on television shows several times: State Plate with Taylor Hicks, Eatin' the Chesapeake for MPT, CBS News Sunday Morning (2023), America the Bountiful (2024), and the PBS News Hour (Nov. 28, 2024).  In September 2024, Joyce's first book, Cooking Maryland's Way: Voices of a Diverse Cuisine, will be available through Hammond-Harwood House Museum.

You can find Joyce on Facebook at A Taste of History with Joyce White or at www.atasteofhistory.net. Joyce lives in Annapolis with her husband and has two grown daughters.

• My recipe for Fried Oyster Puffs included in "Hot Times in Oyster Season" in Chesapeake Bay Magazine ​(November, 2017)
• “Ham for the Holidays: A Hard-to-Find Southern Maryland Delicacy with a Fervent Following” by Sarah Meehan in The Baltimore Sun (November 7, 2017)
• ​​"Food Historian Brings Residents 'A Taste of Maryland'" by Tiffany Watson in The Maryland Independent (March 30, 2016)
• "Food Historian Shares Taste of Maryland's Past" by Megan Johnson for Chesapeake360.com (February 29, 2016)  
• Historic Recipes for an Epic Maryland Thanksgiving by Meagan Baco for www.preservationmaryland.org (November 24, 2015)
• Click here to connect to an interview with me on the Old Line Plate Blog (September 30, 2015).
• Food Historian: Joyce White, a blog post about me written by the FLIP Program, (Food Insurance Liability Program). January 26, 2015
• "18 Recipes for Leftover Mint" by Rachel Kelly for the Guardian (United Kingdom, August 26, 2014); #5 is a link to my blog. 
• "Consider the Lemon Stick" by Richard Gorelick for The Baltimore Sun (May 3, 2013)
• Illuminating Christmas Past” by Mary Quattlebaum for The Washington Post Weekend, December 21, 2007
• “All Fired Up, Annapolis Woman is Expert  on 19th Century Hearth Cooking” by Theresa Winslow for The Sunday Capital, November 4, 2007
• "The Food of Independence" by Susan Reimer for The Baltimore Sun, July 4, 2007
• “Brown Bag Lecture on Colonial Food, Feasts,” The Capital, March 5, 2007
• “Looking Back at History of Food” by Carrie Ann Knauer for Carroll County Times, August 8, 2005
• “As Last Child Begins School, Woman Pursues Passion for Living History” by Darragh Johnson for The Anne Arundel Extra Magazine, Washington Post, August 22, 2002
• “Rye Group Digging for Historical Garbage” by Edna Arguello for Gannett Suburban Papers, May 12, 1993
• “Discovering c.1670 Knapp House History,” Rye Chronicle, Rey, New York, May 6, 1993
• “Deja Food: Feast Gives Rye Landmark’s Young Guides a Chance to Dig Into Local History” by Mitch Broder for Gannett Suburban Papers, July 24, 1992
• “Looking Back Through America’s First Road” by Brian Black for Scholastic Newstime, September 20, 1991​