nicole orphanides, independent historian and National Library of Medicine
Proposal Type
Panel
Seeking
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
Related Topics
- Material Culture
- Memory
- Museums/Exhibits
Abstract
In an age of “stay-at-home dads,” dieting fads, and mobile ordering food delivery, how has the food industry changed over the years and what does this say about our lives? How might food history and foodways studies contribute to our understanding of the past, present, and future? What do stories about food reveal about a community or place? As public historians, how can we use food history to repair the narrative of identity or culture?
Description
I am looking for others who would be interested in taking part in an interdisciplinary panel discussing the above questions or other related questions. Areas for exploration may include:
Food and identity, gender and food, diverse food cultures, expressions of people and place through food, food and power, food landscapes, food and medicine, wellness, and nutrition, food history in programs and exhibits, specific histories of foods, and more.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Nicole Orphanides, [email protected]
All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 1, 2018. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Hi Nicole,
This is a great topic and I think something that’s going to have a lot of interest given the recent surge in “foodie” programming. For example, you might want to reach out to folks at Gastro Obscura (https://www.atlasobscura.com/gastro) or the Philadelphia Library’s Culinary Literacy Center (https://libwww.freelibrary.org/programs/culinary/) both are places that have clearly pivoted to food and away from their past mission.
My suggestions are basically to use fewer rhetorical questions and more statements that people can respond to or know what they’re getting into if they attend your panel. So instead of “As public historians, how can we use food history to repair the narrative of identity or culture?” try something like, “the panel will discuss how food history is used in public history spaces to repair or reexamine identity.” I think it’s rhetorical stronger and also provides more sense of purpose. To that end, a clear statement about why you’re interested in the topic would be useful– how did you come to this as a working public historian? Is it that you’re seeing lots more institutions take it up? That scholarship has moved faster than its application at historic sites, etc. That can also help focus your panel so that it’s not all of food studies in a single session.
I think it’s a great idea but would like to see it more narrowly focused– perhaps something you can work on once you’ve found the collaborators.
I’m interested in how museums/libraries/universities incorporate live-cooking demonstrations into their programming and curriculum. I’d like to create a panel where participants talk about their primary objectives with live-cooking demonstrations (or other sensory-driven events). What are the driving goals? Who participates? Who is the audience? What are the outcomes?
Secondly, I’d like to work with panelists to come up with best practices for sensory-driven events and a how-to guide for institutions seeking to incorporate cooking/eating into their spaces.
This is one iteration of the panel. I’m open to other directions!
Thanks Ashley Young! I am so glad that you are interested in forming a panel. I would be really interested to hear about your work with cooking demonstrations in the museum space. Your questions asking about what are the goals and what are the outcomes are great ways to evaluate the programs. I’m curious if institutions with food programming have found audiences to be more likely to engage with other areas of the museum after their “food experience”. Sensory experiences are powerful!
Thanks Ashley B.! Thank you for sharing those links. I completely agree that focusing the topic is necessary. Right now, I am leaving things open ended to see who might be interested. When I know what kind of work or programs the panel might highlight then we will narrow in on the topic as a fully formed panel.
To answer your question, why are you interested in the topic, I can share a little more. I am interested in how meals and recipes create culinary identity. I am interested in how museums and programs make use of food history. I want to learn more about successful projects that use food history to explain historical concepts, show diversity, in a public space. How can food be incorporated into a cultural institution and be used “do” public history?
I think this sounds like a really interesting and timely topic! I wish that I had some research in this area that I could contribute. I wonder if y’all could invite someone like Michael Twitty who does a lot of this work at historical sites. I don’t know him, but maybe someone here does?
Hi Nicole,
You may want to reach out to Michelle Moon who wrote AASLH’s book on Interpreting Food at Museums Historic Sites (2016). She’d be a great resources on possible things to include. On Twitter @MichelleNMoon
Also, I manage a number of food and the war programs at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans–would be happy to chat about the things we do on your panel.
Glad to see a proposal on this topic! Others’ comments here are in line with what I would suggest in terms of defining it further – and in fact you could narrow things even more than “how food history is used in public history spaces to repair or reexamine identity” and say something more specific about what you see as broken or in need of repair, beyond the general category of “identity.” Michael Twitty is obviously a key example of someone who’s doing that!
The idea of “repair” might also relate in terms of its connections to ideas about health (physical but also environmental, economic, and social).
We’ve had several panels and working sessions on food and public history at NCPH in recent years, so there are definitely conversations going on around this already. Here’s a report from the initial working group that focused on this, from five years ago. You might also want to have a look at the recent book that I co-authored with Michelle Moon, Public History and the Food Movement: Adding the Missing Ingredient (Routledge 2018).