# Our Common Table: The Sweets That Bring Us Together

For more than 250 years, Americans have gathered around sweets to celebrate milestones, build community, express creativity, and share traditions across generations. In “Our Common Table: The Sweets That Bring Us Together,” three leading voices in culinary history explore how cake, pie, and ice cream reveal larger stories about memory, migration, entrepreneurship, regional identity, and belonging.

The panel features Dr. KC Hysmith, food historian, historical editor of “When Southern Women Cook”, and author of a forthcoming history of cake; Stacey Mei Yan Fong, baker and author of “50 Pies, 50 States: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the United States Through Pie”; and Lokelani Alabanza, pastry chef, ice cream maker, and author of “Ice Cream Queen: Flavors from Black America’s Past, Present & Future”, whose work explores Black culinary history.

Dr. Stephanie Stillo, chief of the Library of Congress’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, delivers introductory remarks.

Dr. Ashley Rose Young, a curator of American history in the division, serves as the event organizer and panel moderator.

Presented by the Rare Book and Special Collections Division as part of the Library’s America 250 programming, the conversation is inspired by the division’s culinary history collections, including historic cookbooks, handwritten recipes, advertising ephemera, and community publications.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2026
- Runtime: 59 min
- By: Young, Ashley Rose
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/video-13214/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/video-13214?play=1)