food museum blog

Slaughtering News From All Over, Plus, A Teapot Scandal?

Grateful that I do not have 150 feet of intestines tucked inside, as do manatees, I see that the current crop of free healthy product magazines are recommending a huge roster of "cleansing" items this winter, none of which would be needed if the magazines' audience were eating as advised in the first place, right?

But I digress---a slaughterhouse video from Hallmark Meat Packing in Chino, CA, has prompted Los Angeles schools to withhold meat products from a company called Westland that buys meat from Hallmark, on the grounds that the "downer" cattle unable to walk towards their deaths were being dragged or pushed in, and thus might be suffering from diseases that could render their meat iffy for human consumption. Westland provides ground beef to the USDA's National School Lunch Program.  Many school systems around the US have chosen to reject meat from Westland, including some in Oregon and Florida.

( Meanwhile, rival groups in Kenya have been killing one another not only machetes, but also with bows and arrows. )

Japanese whalers, despite concentrated efforts to stop them, continue to slaughter whales with impunity, though Australian authorities now claim the video evidence they have will bolster their case against the spurious legal claim of the Japanese that they are taking whales for "research purposes."

Apparently The Teapot Museum of Sparta, NC, was the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the Federal Transportation office back in 2006, a fact now revealed to all and sundry with great derision. This report from 2007 says the planned new museum idea has been scrapped. Now as one who applauds any museum effort directed however tangentially at the subject of food, the stuff that sustains us, rather than at yet another monument to war and destruction, I must say that chunk of change would have been a fine first step towards the creation of the National Museum of Food & Farm on the Mall in Washington, DC. Read more about The FOOD Museum's proposal here.

Indiana Team Creates 100 Pound Pierogi In Vain Attempt to Set World's Record

Apparently, Whiting, Indiana has a Pierogi Fest. At this year's event this past Saturday, Tim King, inspired by a dream message from his dead uncle, and Eric Mansfield, a former chef, created a 100 pound pierogi.

The AP story reported thusly: "  Mansfield said it took 25 pounds of flour, 2½ dozen eggs, a gallon of water, 40 potatoes, two pounds of butter and months of planning to make the 48-by-35-inch, 100-pound pierogi.

A custom-made pot was used to cook it. Mansfield and his assistants then slathered it with buttery onions as it cooled. After a round of picture taking, they cut it up and served it."

And it tasted.....how?  I'm guessing gummy.

The Guinness Book of Records people have thus far ignored pleas that this was the world's most enormous pierogi ever. Perhaps because, according to this very Blog, it wasn't! The largest was 150 pounds, and it was made in Cherkasy in the Ukraine.   That town has the world's biggest and, dare I say, only statue of a pierogi.

I am certain the Whiting pierogi was the grandest ever in Indiana, and most likely, the entire American midwest, though.

Looking around the Web at pierogi, I came across a restaurant writeup about a place in Raleigh, NC called J. Betskis Restaurant whose chef, Todd Whitney, evidently takes the comfort food pierogi to a rare and heavenly level. 

( Photo, not of the 100 pound Indiana pierogi, but rather of Chef Whitney's creation, is from http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A156239)

More Than A Tree Grows There: Garden-Wise Greening in Brooklyn at the BBG

Urban foodie gardeners take note: One of our favorite people, Joan Dye Gussow, is the keynoter at this year's 25th annual Making Brooklyn Bloom all day  event at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this coming Saturday, March 10. Her topic is : "Global Reflections on Eating From Home." Explore the day's offerings here.

I would definitely get my hands dirty at the workshop titled Brewing Compost Tea, as long as I could also partake of Best Heirloom Vegetables for Brooklyn.  And also, Growing Organic Food in Containers , a technique I have decided to try this spring here in the high desert of New Mexico, as containing the water is such a daunting challenge.

If you are visiting the NYC metro area, do visit the glories of the BBG. Here's what's blooming in March.  On line take a look at this rich section of the BBG website about Kitchen Gardening

(Pictured: At left, the BBG's Home Composting Exhibit. At right, the Herb Garden.)

SoFab Finds Home in NOLA ( Huh?)

Congratulations to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum of New Orleans which may finally have secured a permanent home. As their email to us this morning put it,

"Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in New Orleans have reached an agreement in principle that SoFAB will open its permanent location of exhibits celebrating the food, drink and cultural foodways of the American South at the CAC. SoFAB will be opening on the third floor of the CAC and also operating a soda fountain/gift shop on the ground floor. There are still renovations and planning to be completed before SoFAB can open.

"We are extremely excited about this unique opportunity to collaborate with the CAC to promote and preserve the foodways and culture of the South," said SoFab president Elizabeth Williams. SoFAB has been seeking a permanent home for 2 1/2 years. In the meantime, it has been operating as a moveable feast, producing a number of acclaimed exhibits. "

Love those okra floating in their logo--but where's the beverage?

Tools of the Table--It Was the Best of Tines, It Was the Worst of Tines...

"Flatware as social commentary?" Apparently poniards, forks, ( chopsticks?) are rife with it. The drama unfolds starting May 5 in a new exhibition from New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. It's called Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005. You have plenty of time to catch this--it runs through October 29. Foodie will try to explore this herself this summer and report back. Right now, however, her mind is straying to her own flatware and blanching at what loitering social commentarians could make of it.

First of all, the obvious tarnishing. Secondly, the evidence of  mutilation by disposal. Thirdly, the utter mis-matchedness--his mothers', her mothers', her grandmothers', her mothers' friends bits and bobs. Still, it's there, it's used on a daily basis and its feel does satisfy.

But so, oddly, does plastic these days. Just the other day Foodie carefully wrapped up some handsome, sturdy black throwaway forks and knives she had just used at Bumblebee's Baja Grill in Albuquerque. Social comment?  Excellent car cutlery, ready for any gustatory road experience.

p.s.  Check out this writeup on the Cooper-Hewitt show from the Associated Press' new on-line feature aimed at the under 35 crowd, www.asap.ap.org.

(Photo from Cooper-Hewitt, presumably a serving spoon.)

War, Sports, Trump Food History, Again--Smithsonian

  As you may have read recently, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will close for two ( we're betting 4-6 )  years for an overhaul. During that time the sports section will be especially enhanced and the spectacularly refurbished Star Spangled banner will be displayed in a new, dramatic setting.  ( In November 2004, the museum opened a $22 million permanent exhibition called "The Price of Freedom: Americans At War." )

The Bread and Circuses arena will also be re-habbed, evidently. No, wait!  Sorry...Foodie is feeling a tad ornery today.

The plans for the renovations at the museum apparently do not include any efforts to revisit the story of food.  Since nothing happens in any field of endeavor until the people involved have been fed ( see Napoleon Bonaparte: "An army marches on its stomach,") we continue to find this oversight curious.

The FOOD Museum is promoting the concept of a National Museum of Farm and Food  on the Mall. Many have written us in support of this idea.  Maybe as more Americans tire of a certain war now on-going, we can collectively embrace the notion of a lively, tasty exhibition celebrating what nurtures us all.

"Gastronomie! Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France." Buy This Book!

      Yes, fellow foodies, our glorious book ( says Foodie modestly,)  is now in stock and raring to be bought by you and yours. 

Christmas is coming, so snap up this one for your foodie friends and family members hunkered down in armchairs, waiting for fuel prices to drop. Or buy the book for active foodie travelers bored with all the usual sites. Gastronomie! is the first extensive exploration ever of French food historic sites.

No one else delivers you this kind of book, food-lovers, packed with colorful photos from our trek and from The FOOD Museum's collections. We traveled over 10,000 kilometers around France ( someone had to do it) to bring you the backstory of French food.

France, the mother country of Western cuisine, is the home of more museums about food, and more initiatives to preserve food heritage traditions and sites, than any other.

Explore the Saffron Museum in Boynes, the world food museum at Agropolis in Montpellier, the ruins of a huge Roman mill outside Arles, the Olive Museum in Nyons, the fig orchards of Sollies-Pont, the oyster beds of Ile d'Oleron, the turkey parade and festival in Licques, the village ovens of Bugey, the Chocolate Museum in Biarritz, the Newfoundland Fishing Museum in Fecamp, the Honey Museum in Gramont, the melon statue in Cavaillon, the truffle market in Lalbenque, and more.

And sample a few choice recipes, as well.

Buy it! ( Only 19.95.)  In stores, via Amazon, or on-line.  ( By Meredith Sayles Hughes and Tom Hughes, Bunker Hill Publishing.)

Spuds to the Rescue: Visit The Potato Museum On-Line

If potatoes are not being fed to the weakest 0f the  Gulf  Coast's  rescued, they should be. It has long been known that severely malnourished people do well on simple mashed potatoes, a bit at a time.  The pure potato' s virtues are many and varied.

That's a Foodie segue to alert FOOD Museum Blog readers to the presence of our other rejuvenated website, that belonging to The Potato Museum,  and to its Potato Blog.
We started out with the potato back in 1975 in Brussels, Belgium, and were pioneers in creating a museum about food.

The Potato Museum grew from three classrooms to the world's largest collection about the history and social influence of the potato,  a vegetable considered the most important globally. TPM was a key contributor, simultaneously, to the Smithsonian's Quincentenary exhibition, Seeds of Change,  and to Canada's  The Amazing Potato, a 6000 square foot exhibition in Ottawa at the National Museum of Science & Technology. 

Take a look around TPM, now on-line,  the seed entity that led to The FOOD Museum.

The FOOD Museum Announces Global Food Heritage Project

Just to let all you foodies out there know, we are pleased that our Global Food Heritage Project is launched--it celebrates the world’s food history and traditions, honoring the foods that sustain us, as well as the ancestors who nurtured, domesticated, developed, grew, transported, processed and cooked these foods. It explores the places where food history has been made, and spotlights the people who continue to preserve these traditions today.

Check it out. ( Official release day is March 21,  a day of planting and new beginnings in the northern hemisphere.)

We welcome suggestions from you all on food-historic  places worthy of further exploration and recognition. This is an on-going effort to recognize much that has been overlooked.

Thanks to the Chinese

New York City's Museum of the Chinese in the Americas, based on Mulberry Street in Chinatown, recently featured two exhibitions on food--one titled "Chop Suey," was a photographic review of Chop Suey houses. The newest project looks at the history of the Chinese restaurant in America. "Have You Eaten Yet?" explores the role of the restaurant as a cultural forum.

The museum's website explains---"'Have you eaten yet,' is a standard Chinese greeting sharing the same connotation as "how are you?" Its incorporation into the daily vernacular attests to the significance of food in the Chinese culture, where meals are a fusion of art and entertainment and a venue for dialogue and reconnecting with family, friends and guests. "
The exhibition runs through June 2005.