Museum Exhibitions and Food

Abstract

With the rise of popular food culture, public interest in food and food history is at an all-time high. Capitalizing on this momentum, museums have created exhibitions of all sizes to encourage visitor engagement with the complexity of issues related to food and food culture. The inclusion of food in museum exhibitions—both in its edible form and as a topic of discussion—offers unique and complex cultural insights into a particular subject, place, or historical moment in time. The method by which a museum chooses to incorporate food varies greatly and may include interactive activities such as taste tests, cooking and food production demonstrations, and food experiments, as well as exhibits with fake food props, food art, or features on food-related processes and materials. Since food and the study of food, or foodways, are inseparable from the people who make and are sustained by it, many museum exhibitions about food often include descriptions of the people and labor required to grow, prepare, and cook the foods and drinks important to them. Major debates about food-related exhibitions include defining what counts as a food museum (size, permanency), whether corporate entities can have a role in their creation, how a food museum differs from other sites of culinary tourism and experiences, the context in which the food is situated, and ultimately who decides which foods are worth featuring. The curation of food-related objects has a rich and diverse evolution ranging from preserved historical sites and 19th-century World Expositions to botanical gardens and single-subject digital museums housed on the internet.