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Joyce White is a food historian, educator, and consultant specializing in historic foodways and material culture. Her passion for food history began in the late 1980s while she was a museum education intern at the Geneva Historical Society’s Rose Hill Mansion in New York’s Finger Lakes region. There, she first brought history to life in the kitchen, portraying an 1840s kitchen maid and cooking period recipes—often alongside every fourth-grade class in the county.

Following her undergraduate studies, Joyce served as Education Curator at the Square House Museum, an 18th-century tavern operated by the Rye Historical Society in Westchester County, New York. During her tenure, she regularly cooked on the site’s historic hearth, deepening her hands-on understanding of early American foodways.

After relocating to Maryland, Joyce expanded her impact in the field. Beginning in 2006, she served as Education Director and Foodways Consultant at the c. 1801 Riversdale House Museum. That same year, she consulted on the restoration of the 18th-century kitchen at Annapolis’s William Paca House. She later served as guest curator for the Maryland State Exhibit at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans (2012) and is a Trustee of the c. 1774 Hammond-Harwood House Museum in Annapolis.

Today, Joyce works as an independent consultant to historic sites and museums. She presents engaging lectures and programs on a wide range of food history topics, writes for publications including Outlook by the Bay, MarylandRoadTrips.com, and Chesapeake Family Magazine, and creates historically accurate faux food displays for museum interpretation.

Joyce’s work has been featured on numerous television programs, including State Plate with Taylor Hicks, (2017)  Eatin’ the Chesapeake (MPT), CBS News Sunday Morning (2023), America the Bountiful (2024), PBS NewsHour (November 28, 2024), and Maryland Farm and Harvest (February 18, 2025). In addition, Joyce has been featured in a wide range of publications, podcasts, and websites, including The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Banner, DCist, The New York Times, Feed Your Face Radio with Merrill Schindler Podcast, The Guardian (UK), Huffington Post,  Preservecast by Preservation Maryland, Food & Wine Magazine, Southern Living Magazine, BBC Travel, Upstart Art, and Chesapeake Bay Magazine, among others. 

In September 2024, she published her first book, Cooking Maryland’s Way: Voices of a Diverse Cuisine, for the Hammond-Harwood House Museum.

Joyce holds a B.A. from William Smith College and an M.A. in American Studies from Penn State University. She has also pursued specialized study in food history at historic sites in both England and the United States.

She is the founder of A Taste of History with Joyce White. 

Joyce lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband and is the proud mother of two grown daughters and two exceedingly cute grandchildren.