From their high school years in the 1960s at Holy Trinity High School in Winsted, MN, where Kim won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow award and Tim won third place in a regional cake baking contest (and each one the other's heart), the authors have been interested in each other, the cultures of food and the role of food in cultures, and especially in sweet treats.
Timothy G. Roufs continued in his professional life to do anthropological research on Native American foods with the Dr. Joseph H. Cash's American Indian History Project (NY: Clearwater Publishing Company, 1981), and on the ethnography of Minnesota Anishinabe peoples. Tim, a pioneer in on-line education, currently teaches an Anthropology of Food class on-line and at the University of Minnesota Duluth, a class popular with both traditional and nontraditional students alike. Tim holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota.
Kathleen S. Roufs is Director of the Advisement Coordination Center Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Kim’s published works include papers on hearing loss in higher education faculty members and on applied theory in academic advising. Kim holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota.
Tim and Kim have lived and traveled in more than thirty countries, enjoying their culinary traditions and collecting, testing, and creating recipes. Few things represent cultures as does their foods, and among foods, sweet treats are universal, and it is to these that they most often turn their attention. |