Transcripts For CSPAN3 Curating Archiving Food History 20180127

University of toronto, so we are more used to this. We still appreciate it. Let me quickly introduce our panelists, give you some initial thoughts and a bit of the rules of the game. Just moving down the line of panelists, Jeffrey Pilcher is a professor of food history at the university of toronto. He is also the editor of the journal of global food history for those of you thinking of publishing outlets. Steve velazquez, next to him, is a curator in the division of home and Community Life at the National Museum of American History. And of course youve met paula. , and next to her is irina michalche, the professor of Museum Studies at the university of torontos i school, and she researches food and museums. And next to her, teresa mcculla is a historian of american brewing history, professor of the American Brewing History Initiative, excuse me, here at the National Museum of American History. And this seems such a wonderful place to have this panel on taste because i cant think of any other place really on a global scale that does such an extraordinary job of raising questions of taste and food history and translating those for the general public. I had the privilege of participating in their food history weekend, for those of you who some of it is still up online, right . Can one see it . Well worth using for your own pleasure, for your own viewing pleasure, but also in using in class. And i would encourage you to spend some time in the exhibit today, before it starts to be transformed, expanded, refreshed. And that, in a way leads to some , of my opening thoughts. What i would encourage you all to do, were going to lay out some initial questions, give you some quick insights into the ways in which these very, very different perspective, curetorial, Museum Studies, food studies, that we address these questions of taste and how thats different from questions of food itself. I would encourage you to start thinking of your own questions as we come along and your own insights. And jen is the one getting the exercise today, carrying around the microphone. And let me encourage you also, because we are on cspan with us that you wait for the microphone before you give your questions. And we will incorporate those questions not in a questionandanswer session, but rather into the dialogue itself. But the very idea of what were doing here today raises some really kind of fascinating questions about what taste is and what food is. In preparation for today, i actually did a little bit of fairly haphazard research on the american historical association. And we make a certain amount of american historical History Today in that this rick, how beenyears as the aha around . This is the 132nd. 132nd annual meeting. And that is the very first time that anyone has used a chefs knife, at least ostensibly just for food. No doubt in the early days of the association, things happened. And one can raise really interesting questions about how the aha would have been different if we had been cooking earlier on and the kinds of , questions that might have emerged earlier on in the history of our own profession. So, 132 years and finally somebody has gotten the idea that perhaps if were going to think about the past, we might as well taste it. That also raises a really kind of interesting question of if question of, if were cooking, what are we actually cooking with and what are we , tasting . And what is the value of taste to historians . Here is the thing that any of us who have ever studied or thought about food realize. Food rots. So those studying it, studying food in the past, we may have containers. We have recipes. We have packaging. We have empty bottles. We have memories. We have handwritten recipes. We may have the occasional little bit of residue that is left at the bottom of the can, or the dregs of the bottle that sort of draw it on to it. But we dont really have the food. And its hard to put food on display for those very same reasons. It rots, or it gets eaten by visitors and mice and whatever else comes to museums. It also raises some interesting questions about, where does the museum end . Where does the archive end . Does it include things like a cafeteria as a part of the visitor experience, not just visitor diet and nutrition . So the questions today that are methodological. Theyre archival. Theyre exhibitionary, and theyre analytical. As we try and figure out where taste is in the museum, given that the food is disappeared. Its rotted or its been digested, for that matter. We raise important questions about how we exhibit food. What is the value to historian of tasting something from the past . And taste is an interesting word and i just want to lay out a few , of the kinds of questions that i know were going to be talking about. We talk about taste as an individual experience, that tastes good to me. But we also think about taste as a social experience. The american taste. The american table. We talk about the taste of chinese foods, for example. We also talk about taste makers, those who shaped taste, people like julia child. We talk as well about good tastes and bad tastes, where the physical experience of putting food into ones mouth or bringing it close to the nose, or indeed, refusing to put it into your mouth, where that enters into the metaphorical, where we use taste to create a whole set of meanings, perhaps to create boundaries. So to begin, im going hand it over to jeffrey and ill ask an initial question, a tantalizing one. How have tastes changed over time . Jeffrey thank you. And to answer that question, id like to start by just asking what exactly is taste . I think we really should think of taste very broadly. Very broadly, as the way that we perceive what is good to eat. And, by implication, what is not good to eat. And of course, that is partly most obviouss, the way in which we perceive food. But of course, as we think about it it is more than just what happens on our tongue. We know that our smell, our olfaction of food is essential to the ways we perceive food. And there is actually now a whole field of scientists known as gastro neurology, that looks broadly at the way we perceive food. And they have found that really all of the senses are critical, not just the taste bud and deal faction. Also, the site of food sight of food, the texture of food, the touch of food, and also the sound of the food, a potato chip crunching, they are all important for how we perceive these foods. And it is really processed through the brain and release through our memories of what we have eaten in the past. And so it is very much a cultural experience of what food is. Thes, our way, understandings of food are as much based on these learned perceptions, these very social processes, taste, and if we think about the moments of change of taste overtime, and again very broadly in kind of world historical terms, we can think of the change from huntergatherers to agriculture, the narrowing of the diets from all the different foods that were in an environment down to the foods that were grown, grains and other things. So its a very, very important change in the diet and some people have felt that that was sort of the beginnings of when food started to, when we started to assign other meanings to taste, that we started to distinguish people by the foods according to race or class or gender. But in fact, actually, archaeologists have now found that even among huntergatherers who supposedly ate everything in the landscape, that if you look the foods they left behind in their little garbage dumps that even within uniformed goods, what would be found there, that some were very different than others, indicating that even for huntergatherers, that there was a sense that you are what you eat, that we are the people who eat this and not that. We can also think of the changes, very significant changes that have come with industrialization, right. If the agrarian revolution or the neolithic revolution was a first big change in the way that wed come with an industry certainly is. The rise of sugar and sweetness sweetness as such an important part of our diet has been a very important part of change. And so we can sort of think about these different moments and the ways and we the ways in which we can perceive these. Reasons whyrious diet changes and taste changes but for me when of the most important is because of crosscultural encounter. When people who eat Different Things come together and exchange their food, or they dont exchange their food, that is really what i think is one of the most interesting areas for historians looking for changes in taste. My own research is looking at beer right now, how beer traveled the world. And this, actually, is an interesting little map of beer around the world. It was done by the pure travel website and each country is sort of represented by its iconic beer brands. In theot budweiser United States, molson in canada, singtao inmexico, t china. It shows every country has its own brew, even islamic countries are marked by becks , all of these beers are an identical variety, a pilsner, a longer beer, very light, very clear. So its interesting that you have this Global Diversity and yet standardization at the same time. And so what ive been trying to do in my research is sort of look at the ways that this happened. And my own research is really looking at brewing journals, and they dont make very good powerpoint. So what i have done is presented a few scenes. So here is a chinese bear. So the first encounters between germans at the German Colony in tsingtao, of chinese and german officials drinking tea. And then the scene of how beer later ron, came to be associated with the spring festival, chinese think. There is a scene from mexico, where beer starts out as a drink of the elites, and in very much in contrast to the local brew, a beverage that was very strong in on thelater ron later scene, and 20 million mexicans cant beken, the mistaken, shows that beer has gone from an elite beverage to one for all. In india, India Pale Ale was the drink of the british colonists india beerlater on becomes something different. This is actually a brand called knocked out high punch strong beer, illustrated by the iconic image of muhammad ali. And basically this is the beer oft people drink because its, you know, to get drunk. So, lots of different meanings of taste in beer in different societies. And i will leave it at that. Winky. Leave it at that. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the museum. Thank you very much to dan for moderating. And again, i think i need to thank everybody here again for trekking down here in the very cold weather this morning. The American Brewing History Initiative is a project to build an archive of american beer and brewing history here at the museum, with a focus on the stories of craft beer and home brewing. The charge to construct an archive of a recent, if not contemporary phenomenon related to a product, beer, that will not itself be present in the archive, has presented both challenges and opportunities. To build this archive i am , taking Research Trips throughout the country to collect objects and documents for museums holdings. And along the way, i also record oral histories with the people i meet. These are becoming a centerpiece of our growing archive, and it is here that i would like to concentrate my brief comments today. One historian has written, quote, all kinds of people spend a good deal of time accounting for taste, describing the indescribable, measuring the immeasurable. Taste is conceptually slippery and empirically elusive. End quote. I want to argue, however, that oral history holds unique potential for nailing down such a slippery and elusive subject as taste. I will offer a couple examples of how this is possible, but first a bit of historical context. The stylistic diversity of american beer has exploded since the 1970s. The craft beer revolution as we know it today has changed the american palette. Today more than 6,000 breweries produce beers that are bitter, sour, made advice scouse with made this kiss made viscous with alcohol or creamy with lactose. If one were to ask what does american beer tastes like, the answers could be infinite. Beer consumers are key to understanding how notions of taste in relation to beer have changed over time. In oral histories, i approach the concept of taste from different angles, circling around it to consider the multiple kinds of experiences that together compose an archive of taste. For example, i like to begin oral histories with brewers by asking about childhood memories of food and drink. Often their answers shed light on the innovative careers that follow. Fritz maytag of the maytag family Machine Company recalled a formative taste experience as a child in 1940s iowa. During an oral history last spring, he recalled, my father loved really strong flavorful cheese, and he had his own refrigerator. It was years later why i realized why. I can hear his mom saying, all right, fred you get your own refrigerator. I am tired of this. Anyway, he would hand me a piece of cheese with a cracker and this is a mans cheese. By that he means is your mother really doesnt like this stuff, but i do. And dont be afraid to eat things with strong flavors, because come on, were in the big world and dont have narrow point of view. Open your mind to things that smell terrible. Two things that smell terrible. And he opened my mind. About 25 years later, maytag purchased the struggling Anchor Brewing Company in san francisco. He revitalized the brewerys famous steam beer and went on the brew styles that americans had never heard of at the time. Anchor would become the First American Craft Brewery of our era. Maytag remembered a day in 1972. I thought we would make a traditional dark beer. I called it anchor porter, and i can remember the first brew. I was cutting open a bag of black patent malt and i fed it down into the mill and i could smell it, and i thought my god, they sent us coffee. It smelled like espresso. They sent us the wrong stuff. Wed never seen black malt before, but it was the real thing. And that very first brew was just superb. And to my knowledge, until i left we never changed the recipe never changed the porter formula again. Beautiful dark beer, the only dark beer in america and the only porter in the world her cup world. Porter in the maytags sensitivity to the aromas and tastes profile of this black malt would begin i would argue in his familys iowa home when his father handed him a piece of very smelly cheese and encouraged him to think creatively and broadly about the world of taste. I also asked brewers to describe the flavors of their beers and the kind of customer they imagine when they brew. What messages do you intend to convey with the design of your label, i ask, when you walk through a hop field, or sift through samples through samples of malted barley . What terms do you use to describe what youre smelling and tasting . Finally, it is crucial to ask questions about the Creative Process of recipe formulation and modification. Brewers at avery Brewing Company in boulder, colorado laughed about a notable failure. One of our guys came up with an idea for a mushroom ipa, which was the most disgusting thing i have ever smelled in of our guys came up with the idea for a mushroom ipa, which was one of the most disgusting things. Mushrooms in the ipa, we were like, no. And he was like, trust me, this is going to work. All right, man, were going to buy whatever it was, 400 worth of mushrooms and see if this works. Did not work. This beer never made it beyond the cutting room floor, so to speak, but detailing flavors like this are just as important as recording the stories of successes. There are many, many examples i could share with you but so far , but today let me suggest that simply talking about taste and recording that conversation can be a powerful means of translating taste into a more tangible and preservable format. During more traditional archiving research, it can be surprisingly beneficial to open the file folder just before and after the one you think you need. Similarly, asking a creative range of questions during an oral history can be a way to circle around taste, approach it from a variety of angles and in the process make it just a little less slippery. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Think you for coming to the museum. Im going to talk a little bit about my work as a curator, documenting food history through oral histories connected through sa rose, former mexican guest workers who came during world war ii. Looking at mexicanamericans in the Wine Industry. I will give you examples of how men, men who came here on work contracts, were fed up with the Dining Options that were given to them through this you program. Into their ownrs hands, creating more familiar tastes in food to their liking, giving them kind of an agency, giving them a little more power in this program that was really stacked against them. Id with the wine workers looked at several families, and looking at how they are shaping the Wine Industry and how they put taste at the center of their wine business. Rooms, foodtasting menus, they are using this cultural identity to claim space and make a space on the american table and in the global Wine Industry. Off, we did a lot of these oral histories. It was a collaborative project between the university of texas el paso and brown university. We documented about 800 oral histories of these men and their experiences in the labor camps and in the railroads. And food was one of these questions we asked them. What were their memories of the food . Over their memories of the Housing Conditions . Things like that, and not everybody answered those questions and not everybody asked those questions but for this project it was kind of interesting. How do you search for taste in these archives, and in these oral histories, and whatever . George Mason University helped us create this timely come online website so they are all available to search. Most of them are in spanish, however, so that adds a little more challenge. So i had to do some creative eating,g for food, sandwich, luncheon, lunch, things like that. So it was an interesting challenge that you kind of need to think about a little bit more. But a bit about the history of asero program. Government program. It was both a Railroad Program and and a cultural program. About 2 million men came through and work in about 30 states between 1942 and 1964. It was administered through growers associations, skateboards and the rrb. And they recruited men and put an order in from and order in for the men to come from mexico and work in these places. Housing, transportation, food, medicine was all supposed to be provided for them. The different sized locations of camps were determined if you were fed by a commissary, by cooks, or if you had to make your own meals. There were no set menus for these camps, for these men, so there were a lot of suggestions. In 1944, a memo from the read,ad retirement board it hints at the employment of mexican laborers and point number fours diet. Next can laborers have difficulty becoming accustomed to American Food, efforts should foodde to provide mexican whenever possible. Mexican diet is simple and of no great variety. Another report by a commissary worker for the Railroad Owners includes a few recipes and in the closing of his memo states, as long as mexican workers get their rice and beans in turkey is, they are satisfied. Some recipes includes in his memo are fried beans, refried cites, the dish is considered a delicacy by spanish rice, which is rice soup apparently in his memo, mexico green chili sauce, chili con carne and soup. 1959, the charge for food was 1. 75 by the employer, by the concessions and the law at the time prohibited making profits from the food service. And an activist for these workers claims that camps only of foodne dollar worth and used the other money to line their pockets. In another report he reports that bag lunches are universally disliked. In some camps efforts have been ine to very the diet more accordance with mexican tastes. A cold sandwich lunch with a piece of fruit, however, persists almost everywhere as a principal cause of discontent. Next, im going to tell you what the men themselves said about food and about taste in the how theyd keep in mind are considering food and making food as a way to give themselves Agency Within this program. Benito sierra wrote about a camp that had good food, and he liked it a lot and he said fried eggs and beans. In another camp, benito had to make his own food, their own tortillas, and a soup or stew with green peppers. And he says they made the readers for the next day. Remembers his time in wisconsin camp where they served sandwiches for lunch. Between twobaloney pieces of bread, nothing else. Not even mayonnaise. Nothing. Thats all they gave us. Bread, two slices of baloney. Thats it. All day, every day, for months. A man was asked about food and meals were soome tragically sad that there was no way to eat. But it was so bad and we were so hungry we had to eat it. In the lettuce camp there were about 100 of us with mexican thes, the same day the same thing, the same day, day after day, and badly prepared. Perez recalls they had to make their meal all the time in texas. There were people who didnt know how to fry and a. I had friends who didnt know anything, not even have to frantic. Manual henriquez worked as a cook and had three meals that he rotated. Butwiches for lunch, sometimes with chili peppers. Americans and mexican officials would also eat his food, food he called clean and tasty. Recalls being discriminated against in stores and restaurants, being refused service, but he brushes it off as being in a new place. He moves to discussions about how he would make his own food, sometimes with no flavor, sometimes with too much salt, but learning on his gut with his friends, making eggs, soup, tortillas. Life intalks about another camp where the food was so bad, he and others became sick for days on end with diarrhea, waking up the next day look like quote, dead skeletons. It got so bad somebody got in a fight with a cook and stabbed him. Later a mexican official came to investigate this incident and of served them chicken soup, salad and beans. All good. When they went back home, the same horrible sioux, the same horrible food, soup made with liver and next. One remembers the most frequent complaint was the food, they were served early bed food to clean up the systems, he said. So they went to the grower and they got another american cook, and finally a chinese man who had spent some time in mexico and made food for them, more appropriate to the mexicanstyle. They gathered how together in protest to make changes, like these cooks demanding changes. I am going to do one more quote you tevan sold on soldanya, who says and were picking carrots sat down for lunch at the together food and threw it out. They couldnt stand it anymore. They were all mad. Lunch. Tossed our we took out our fruit and threw it out. Mad. Were all lets toss out this cook they said. He goes on further and says morning, no one got the truck to the field. The grower came over and asked us whats going on . I told him we were not happy with the cooks because they dont serve us good food. Not happy. Later, he says everything is all set up. I said to the boss ill take over the kitchen. Over the kitchen. Ill toss out the baloney where theres no work ill make a hot meal. Got cake. Im going to skip ahead to the winemakers really quick. The emphasis on the roots of mexican migration for wine work has an element of activism, raising awareness from our positions as workers and elevating immigrants to new levels of visibility and importance. Point she rap the family winery explains her approach. I was really excited because the winery was going to carry our name and it was something that we could not fail in. One of the things that i knew that had to happen is to include our culture and our food and to be able to share that with people. So in everything we did, we mom cooking and then the furniture that we have tasting room we brought in. She goes on to explain more about how she approached selling wine to restaurants and customers, making sure it connects with the food pairing that normally would not associate with. I never had any doubts, i doubted anything that we did. Certainly, sales werent easy in the beginning because i would go into mexican restaurants and they would say we dont sell any wine here. We sell tequila. Was challenging. Things have changed now. Wine now. Similarly, she uses her Cooking Skills to pair Traditional Mexican food with her winerys products. And wineses food while taking full advantage of the internet and the web where she hosts cooking with her family pairing her wines with her food. This 2001 poster cooking demonstration and class indicates quote you will firsthand about mexican culture and the art of wine pairing, end quote. Most likely the first time that a mexican winemaker was pairing wine with mexican food in a public space in napa like macys. Their inclusion in culinary and Department Stores point to the importance and acceptance and continuous change of the mexican wine and American Consumer tastes. Thank you. Okay thank you again. My remarks are from the perspective of a museum uses existing archives, who creates archives through oral history and documentation and collects archival materials from companies, andviduals organizations for the benefit of scholars and the public alike. Several years, ive headed the American Food history project here at museum, an initiative that explores aspects of food, history and culture in states. Ed since collecting julia childs home kitchen in 2001, we have paid particular attention to the broader period of julias culinary in history from 1950 to the present. This is the time frame for food,hibition transforming the american table and it really was in exhibitionthe that we delved into our Archive Centers collections, while also conducting Field Research and identifying new material to add to the museums holdings. In considering how we currently slice and dice our history,s to food i have to admit that taste primarybeen the focus of my research and collecting. Im much more comfortable in the realms of food and labor, technology, cultural expression, community, and even health. For me, taste is a lens that connotes the taste epicure or is associated with selfinvolved foodies. Yet thinking more deeply the sensory aspect of food, how theyre imagined, how theyre remembered, experienced, how theyre expressed and constructed. Notionear that some of taste does underlie the collecting we do and the we tell. The foodle in exhibition is the story of the paris tasting, the 1976 event at which wines made by a new generation of were put up against the best of bordeaux and burgundy. Tasters were all french wine experts and the event blind. Ducted that is the judges didnt know which wine was which. Americanspstart took first place in both the reds and the whites, the wine world was shocked and the new american and global Wine Industry was launched. So we collected bottles of the winning vintages and we them it opened promise and, you know, but, as you can see, in these photographs what we would love to have are the judges tasting notes, but apparently, they were destroyed after the scores were tallied. So we also conducted oral interviews with the american winemakers and i that they were creating wines in the new, style of california that developed after the repeal of prohibition. That assumption was dashed by the testimony of both winemakers, whose stylistic templates were very european and very restrained in comparison to fruity wines of the postprohibition era. Warren who made the winning cabernet said it deliciously ironic that the french tasters thought they were tasting and preferring their own french wines. That is, they thought our 73 cabernet and the chardonnay were from france. You can see well clearly layersere are many of intent and taste and tile story. As we created the exhibition we also collected the wine developed by dr. Anne noble, a sensory scientist at uc davis, which a shared vocabulary for describing wine aromas and tastes. We also collected this flip chart, which tracks a discussion among winemakers chrysalis winery in virginia as they were trying determine the best regionls in their and you can see the reference to the significant of their discussion. While developing the exhibition we also brought collections. Part of our work as curators is to identify objects and materials that we believe should be added to the museums holdings for the benefit of the public and the historical record. We work very closely with in doing so. Heres an example from 2007 nordic ware loading dock actually in minneapolis. We collected some other wonderful material recently, including the moosewood collection. She published the moosewood in 1974. This is the very First Edition and she was inspired vegetarian restaurant she helped establish in ithaca, new york. Cookbook was incredibly important and life changing for many people who had vegetarian diet as part of a lifestyle based on andiolence environmental awareness and communal and collective values. Collection contains a treasuretrove of material about the cookbook, there notebooks showing her recipe development, detailed costs as you can see of the ingredients, some original drawings you know, how to a tostada and various wentrful things that into the making of the cookbooks, but theres also a box in the archives marked mail that contains evidence of moosewoods role in creating and expanding the boundaries of a vegetarian diet, beyond the ethical and Health Considerations and boot realm of taste. With a few selected lines from one of those letters, the one by casey. Or she says, please tell molly that the moosewood cookbook made meatless safe for the rest of us. Having lived in the empty forced toenter, eat endless meals of tofu and steamed broccoli, i felt vegetarianism was a hideous plot why the people who celibacy and hair shirts. Then i got the moosewood thatook and discovered it was possible to eat tasty, meatless meals that didnt feel like sacrifice. And ending with i think molly has done far more for Sustainable Agricultural economics because she made it not only important, but tasty to eat right. Have it,you finding taste in the archives, which is where i end. And i look forward to our discussion in just a bit. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My talk today is based on the work i am doing with historic recipes for an exhibition about canadian cuisine, the exhibition is messages,ed making and shaping culinary culture in copied and it features artifacts from the culinary collections of books fisher rare library at the university of toronto. Its driven by material culture and include a objects,f manuscripts, community cookbooks, historic Home Economics manuals, photographs and audio clips from radio classes. With these objects we intentionally wanted to tell disorderly story of culinary culture in canada as to ask what is canadian cuisine. Ather than drafting definition of canadian tosine, we opted instead focus on the negotiations that take place between different communities. Homemakers, home economists, cookbook authors, journalists, government and food brand ambassadors. Historic recipes analyzed throughout time and in dialogue with each other are great resources for the voices,tions of which produce culinary culture and also an ideal observe absences of others. Wewith this in mind polished over two to three exhibitions theses or big idea as it is to sound like this. This is my only slide. History, post 1850, women and some men ofrcised different forms agency as makers and users of culinary knowledge. In the process, they produced numerous types of material culture. With a focus on toronto and surrounding areas, and stories from other areas of the country, this exhibition demonstrates the processesd messy of negotiating agency while making and shaping culinary culture in canada. The exhibition also points out that many communities, indigenous, migrant and remote were absent or marginalized while their foods were appropriated into culture. The exhibition is material culture driven and places artifacts in conversation with stories and voices of them. Who consumed an engagement with historic artifacts is an opportunity criticalthen thinking and increase culinary literacy for our visitors. In preparation for this exhibition, the past three years i read and analyzed recipes from one of the canadas main lifestyle magazines and other lifestyle magazines starting 1910s and upy 1 to the 1970s. Interestedrily in recipes as sites of encounters, especially as white canadians who are meeting newcomers, the migrants and old inhabitants of our lands which are the indigenous people. The unequal power relations between different groups are noticeable in the content recipes. Ng of at the same time and i would argue much more interesting through which new ingredients and recipes make their way into what we main stream culinary culture. Integration, adaptation or foreignation of ingredients, such as curry, happenedp rica gradually, sometimes to spice up a more traditional a roast ands other times to demonstrate the Cultural Capital of the cook. Rare cases new canadians were actually invited to ande their expertise become present and visible. So a systematic and comparative exploration of recipes suggests that established culinary practices are reinterpreted, rejectedd and until they become accepted as canadian. For example, i read through recipes from as early as 1905 shows some creative cultural translations of chinese cuisine which was primarily by canadian homemakers as a cuisine of contrasts, sweet andby the sour taste profile so it becomes quite common, even or 1911, to1910 encounter dishes, such as sweet and sour spareribs, sour beef, sweet meinour shrimp chow labeled as chinese. So in mixed messages we utilize recipes as historic documents, which provide access to information about food tasted, why it became popular and how it changed through use. Recipes int the relation to the numerous contexts, paying particular attention to the Magazine Readership culture of the time. Recipes go in and out of fashion, but they leave numerous traces of their production and consumption analyzing their communication environments. A recipe and communications it indicate how users interact with the recipe, accepting, negotiating or challenging it through cultural, political and social gestures. Most oftentimes not intentional. These are all elements which could elucidate questions the past andn the initiatives pain to preserve our change it. Tastes for specific dishes iss and regulated by many communities. Inencounter each other different spaces. In the case of my project i look at culinary ammunication as significant space where culinary experts, cookbook cooks, foode companies and lifestyle Magazine Reader meet to orlectively produce dismiss aspects of culinary theure and i argue that recipe is extremely central to this process and i must because i read more than 500 of them. So thank you very much. Im going to do going to now is a couple of things. First, im going to plant have ahere so that i chance to moderate our discussion among our ask yous and ill guys to share it had microphone and also to begin, coming up with some of your own thoughts, questions, insights, debates. On a fewe reflect elements of these fantastic presentations. Of struck by a number big ideas here and indeed, the very up from beginning. In theresas comment about creating an archive, a initiative of something that isnt going to be present in the museum leaving aside the question of whether the has or hasnt opened up its bottles of California Wine and if i had my way we would open them up this afternoon, but im not going way. T my theres this fascinating ofstion of methodology, museum practice, of archival practice, historical practice, of things that are not going to be there. That raises i think for me some really Great Questions taste does to the materiality of food, when food is so of beautifully ephemeral, its really what attracts me as a a diner to as the act of cooking, to the eating, to the very labor of it. Do tastes operate at the between soeting, many different peoples and forces, between the cook, eater, ther, the er, and so many others. Is this what theresa means by that phrase, accounting taste . Is it really accounting for taste, those different very fraught encounters . Does taste force us to think about that . Facttruck also by the that we talk about accounting for taste and that metaphor that came up orale of your histories of the world of taste, which i think is a that so many people globally are deeply invested in, that world of taste is that sort of blithe, very metaphor of the world is a kind of massive festival in which you can range from one culture from one place to the other. It opens up the world as a extraordinary infinite pleasures, turns ofersity into something sheer joy and yet where we came back to in so many of our presentations is of contestation. How do we square the idea of world of taste and the metaphorts in that with the idea as steve puts it that a meal could be tragically sad . So connecting the investment metaphor ofthe theworld of taste with realities of contestation. We might think of as the act of bringing food to our mouth and then the digesting to those very same questions of andr, Technology Cultural expression that drove some of the early here at the museum itself. With some of those questions, why dont i turn it over to some of you, folks. I have more questions as questions. Usand but i will let you folks respond to some of those as you folks invite to raise some questions. If you have questions ready, raise your hands now. But let me turn it over to you folks first. You may choose to off. Us i think that question on . Is it okay. That you raised first about, you know, sort of how do we things and paula noted the wine wheel right of how we create a shared vocabulary of what our individual tastes, how can we know that were talking about the same thing . Involvesurse, it metaphors, it involves comparisons between something, you know, and so thats why with wine, when a wine expert kind of lists all of these different flavors that theyre finding, theyre not really those flavors. Ways theyre metaphors, comparisons with it. And i think that, you know, of momentsnds where you have cross whenral encounter people who may have very different understandings of taste that we can really see in my own research, the very first tasting note from japan on beer, it was actually during treaty when the Commodore Perry signed the treaty with japan, opening japan to trade with the United States in 1854 and he brought with him a couple of to celebrate. And one of the samurai in wrote down, tastes like horse piss. And actually, this turns out a very common perception about people writing about beer their time and so you know, as a cultural historian, sayingactly was he when he said this beer tasted like horse piss . Samurai hadhe not actually tasted it. That this beer was simply inedible, that only a barbarian would drink this . Was he talking about the color, just that it was a bright yellow and it looked it . Was he talking about the smell . Remember this is in a society, everyone who lives in societies knows what horse piss smells like, but theres lots of different ways we can interpret that. Its just like any other cultural histories that we do, that we try to, you what thesere meanings might be. I actually have a comment d my research in reading recipes, the idea of tastiness, especially when with recipes from the 40s and 50s, such salads,d perfection things that would not necessarily be tasty, i youally noted that if think about taste as a discourse in itself, it innt as much present all these recipes and in discourses that existed journals. So i started to think about as being very much constructed through the ways in which we talk about food were many other competing narratives. So, for example, recipes desirable for being efficient at a time when in the postwar years when women were entering the workforce, less time at home so taste was not even on the time. For quite some it would be interesting to think about how we start to ategrate tastiness as very important aspect of our interaction with food. So its more of a question like to pose to everybody. Say briefly, one other oral history that i wanted to share that speaks to this question about the termsof taste and the you used and the shifting definitions of what tastes spoke with, i steve dresler, the brew master at Sierra Nevada and of our discussion focused on the role that this particular brewery has played in essentially bittering the american palate, when they introduced their pale ale, it was considered phenomenally bitter. Little by little, very progressively, American Consumers came to love it and they came to want more canmore, and now, you buy beer that is incredibly bitter. And so brewers have a way to measure bitterness, but we as consumers and historians it differently and so this conversation with him, which is now recorded as part of our collection, its now preserved, its helpfuld in a very way i think as a way to measure this changing world taste in relation to beer. Me unless theres others who want to dive in on this let me open this up to the public, let me encourage you, too, because we are going to be recording this for later, me ask you to introduce yourself very quickly as you questions. Question over here. Thank you. Im rick from the University Toronto and i want to thank all of you for five presentations. Food for thought. I had to say that. Said. Needed to be but i do want to suggest that i identify an interesting tension that occurred to me earlier, not even when we were putting this panel together between the notion of archiving taste and curating taste. Archiving taste meaning really the collection and the cataloging of documentary evidence and curating taste meaning how create an experience for a student, a museum goer, an interested member of the public. Jeffreys first remarks was alluding to the fact that taste relies on and theyre all processed through the brain. The artifacts privilegellect sight and the ability to read. And there are of course senses that we get at in a more difficult fashion or not at all. Sound, for instance. Ways of archiving taste as a collection of senseerary experiences, but the sound of cooking. Some of us were at a exhibit a Chinese Canadian herst recreated parents restaurant. She had videos of her dad sound ofith the food frying and being prepared. Smell. Some of us here have been to singapore where theres a of food where there is the recreation of smell, theres scholarship on smell scapes, the museum of food has iink in brooklyn think a less successful smell, anuse olfactory sense. Onesel of food in hand, particularly as ones handng, whats called taste can also be recreated classroom or museum setting. And then, of course, theres the palate itself and what paula when me, you were talking about the judgment at paris and the exhibition, if we open those bottles today, the bete probably would undrinkable. The red might be palatable, thin. Would be but ive recently seen this wonderful documentary called grapes which is about wine counterfeiting, but it suggested all sorts of possibilities of working with chemists and vitners to recreate what the white and the red would have tasted like in the early 70s napa. Out of so i offer these comments effort to sort of push you back to these ideas how weting taste and move from archiving to and lets try to get at that directly rather than dance around it, but for just again five fantastic presentations. Thank you very much for that comment, because that is something that were working with here at the museum. When we opened the in 2012, we did an evaluation and we look at how people who have different learning styles access the material, what experience they have and youre absolutely right. For people who came, who to read text, who look at objects, who actually a family group so that they could have an intergenerational discussion the tv dinner and that sort of thing. Successful. Y for people who are sensory a mores who have interactive desire to learn, they were a little frustrated. They basically said how can you have an exhibit called and have no food . Sense of the sensory aspects of the smell, the sound, all of the of food. And that was really a powerful thing for us. Had always had this dream that we wanted to somehow, take julia childs legacy and just explode it into, you know, the for our visitors to havee able cooking as part of the exhibition. Tasting as part of the exhibition. Perhaps learning a new technique and skill, andening to julia learning how to do this. And so this was something that again because of characteristics of museums, we were not able to build a kitchen right next kitchen. S but we do have a kitchen on this floor, which is, you the samet on building, at least on the same floor and that opened of 2015. And since then weve really tried to experiment with different ways of cooking bring both the of live fire on the stage, a different tradition, different techniques, different regions of the country. Different, you know today be doing something from the archives from the late 19th century. Notknow, were still there because we are not low licensed food providers and so we cannot invite our guests to taste the food. Work closely with our chef downstairs to have that available for purchase. Its not the same, but i feel like were on a pathway, were on the spectrum where we will this out because as veryay its very, important and it is a way of morecting in a fundamental way around food with our many visitors to the museum. So thank you very much. Rick i think your question raises an important point within food history and that is just how knowable is the food of the past . And there are people who argue that if we take a cookbook and we follow the rules strictly and just completely will we come accuraten recreation of those foods . And its the same question, if we could biochemically recreate what that cabernet inld have tasted like 1973, but the problem with that is that we would not be the people in 1973. Memories of California Wines over the last, you know, four decades, you shape how we would experience that and by the same token were not theres eaters so no way that we could, in fact, taste what those tasting. Re nevertheless as an educator, i think that these kinds of exercises are very useful for getting our students and openlves to kind of our mind, right . Have thisn we Kitchen Laboratory in our food studies class at the toronto and we have the students cooking gettasting and just to them past the incredible sweetness of industrial processed food and to start thinking about maybe culinary traditions that hadnt experienced before is a wonderful pedagogical technique. And i just also want to say something, i love the distinction between orkind taste. And curating you know, the archives the the museum and, you know, we may think were curatorsrtant as here, but the collections are really important. Theyre going to be here are after all of us gone and there is, you know, part of the work that we do as we are privileged to work here for the little time in the longn to history of the smithsonian, is that these collections brought in, they are here and we bring our sensibilities to the interpretation. Looking at some of the material from the perspective of the early 21st century, we are going something that people 50 years ago didnt see and thats kind of one of the really keeps us interested in bringing the material here is that we know that its important to us, its very its really speaks to me. But its going to speak to people in the future probably in a way that we even know yet so i really appreciate you making that distinction. Thank you. Just wanted to add something, just in relation the sensorial in the museum. Ways,k in many including senses in peoples experiences is somehow not threatening, maybe is too big of a word, but its very museums whoom try many ways to create a story, create a narrative and have a bit of control how the audiences understand the narrative, senses are so risky, bringing food in a museum individualg the with a food in the process could be chaotic and could disorderly so i think, you know, a challenge that i see in museums moving forward is how to be comfortable with creating havingos and not full control over that narrative, but at the same i also am a strong believer that museums have to be advocates for certain ideas. So if you expose visitors to them to you expose historic recipes that today might seem distasteful, you have the responsibility to give your audiences the tools to be able to read originalpe in its context and to understand why was this dish, for modern, tasty and and popular in the 1950s, but not today . So for me, that has been a working in this exhibition, because i didnt there aput out recipe that could be seen as or a romantic lens without actually creating that strong background and context. Very difficult to do when youre dealing with fad and Everybody Knows something about food and has a perspective about food. So it would be interesting to hear from your challenges this, also. Over here. Thank you. Winerock. Previously at university of pittsburgh, now the shakespeare and dance am a dancei historian as opposed to a historian, but im by they struck similarities of the between how do you tell a history of ephemeral . And i have a bigger veryion, and then a small specific one. Question is one of the things ive encountered is thatce historian theres a certain taint of you studyhat if the history of something today,ople perhaps perhaps yesterday found theres a that sort of roadblock to overcome from academic, from scholars, of oh, my goodness want toight just know about this topic because its fun or and that theres and sometimes, from scholars, you get more or that its like the topic has to be couched in particularly obscure terms to avoid that taint of delight. And so it seems like food studies is sort of further along than dance studies in surmounting this challenge, im wondering whether this issue of taste right have allcan the things weve been moreng about here, is sort of stuck with that problem than say labor and food. Notr and food does necessarily have that same taint of enjoyment because womensalk about labor and all of these problems, as long as you can talk about problems right its okay. So i was sort of wondering about and particularly with this idea of experiential learning right, a fun buzz say actuallyu propose doing a dance tasting or a food and suddenly say your really bigas eyes and they say what, you room . N empty well, we dont have those. So im sort of wondering about maybe some sort of collective comments on how we be how do weres about what doing without stamping out the reason that people want to come to an exhibit about food is because they like food, right . And how can we sort of preserve and augment that without seeming unserious. Thats my big question, and then my little question is mixed messages be looking at honey garlic sauce, which i believe is a canadian food as far as i can tell. So thank you. For your great question and you articulated and i dont ando have answers to give, but certainly, i very much understand where youre coming from, and i think very much food studies, the study of beer, excites people and yes, absolutely the initial reaction that i have experienced and probably my ofleagues, too, is one excitement and pleasure and oh, how fun and how much beer do you drink every day ofwork and that kind thing, but i think your question about taste is a really good one because have talked about, its ephemeral, its imprecise. Been efforts to historicize it for many years, but its something that can truly never be nailed down and so it a kind of historical precision in ways that other not. S do but at least the one thing i might try to say in my other focuseship, too, it on food history and certainly, the kind of more difficult histories related representations of race and ethnicity in a very pleasurable setting of new orleans. What are the kind of implicated assets of this place that generates experiences of pleasure day and night . Think of food and the pleasure it invites as a into a entree conversation that sure yes, were going to get a lot of people into our exhibition because people do love food people have experience with it and take that as a moment of opportunity to conversation that, you know, you love beer so let me use that to talk and aboutory immigration and about labor with you, even if those are slightly less perhaps fun topics at least as they first. Ppear at ill just add to that, that when we do events and programs that have a tasting reallynt, were looking at this is more than whats in the glass. This is more than thats on plate. Lets talk about that and we have found that people really do get engaged by that, that finding out i remember we had a whole with some of the latino winemakers and we had had nowho said i thisthat there was whole approach to learning involved theat people who planted the were in the field and, you know, who are now making their own wine justhey said this makes it more than a glass of wine. We hear feedback like that, then we feel that road were on the because it really is more beverage. It really is than a morsel on a plate. And engaging the public in that exploration is what were all about. Now to the question of honey garlic . I need to do more on it. H so i will gladly share my findings with you. Well talk. Can i jump in on this too . Because i think this is something that any of us who have ever brought food the classroom have dealt with raised eyebrows, puckered lips, questions us not being serious enough. A reallynk thats important question, and i think it speaks to the very history museums, history classrooms, where we can continue to hire in and this sort of retreat into saving the field by being extraordinarily serious is maybe the lesson for our own doom. Ofres enormous amounts meaning and incredible students, too the public, when we think about pleasure because, is what mostat of us lead our lives trying can trace and we this through any number of different historical field from the field where i had my start in labor history, the eightabout hours for what we will, and thinkingourselves about drink, about saloons. In serious ways, but we found ourselves histories oft that incredible rather historic, rather remarkable search for carving out those spaces of pleasure. Brings anomment interesting one, if im taking the measure of what weve been talking about taste, terms of weve talked about taste as a thing, right . Its tasty, it has bitter taste, it has sweet taste. Weve talked about taste as as sharedt it vocabulary, a set of words that we use, a set of thatistic practices allow us to read strange flavors, my own work has about tropical fruit and the ways in which we flavors, what that means for the articulation of difference. We talked about taste as an experience, the act of tasting something. Weve talked about taste as practice. Weve talked about taste as what we dont eat, and now about taste as pedagogy, which is really meaningful. After all, and again, any of us who have ever had that classroom experience of serving food to students or to use tastets as an analytical sense has has had colleagues say to us well they cant taste the past. And i had a colleague and out whocan figure said these things since were in the same department well arent you doing something wrong for students . When youre inviting them to taste, arent you asking them, arent you just performing historical reenacting . Arent you yet another guy who puts on a blue or gray aiform and walks out onto field . If youre having students read Early Morning diaries, can they ever read it as anything other than as a 20th century reader . Why wasnt historians been cooking all along . What does that say about us. I will just say that i spent my entire career ,nswering those questions and right now here at the smithsonian institution, National Museum of national history, talking about taste, i dont feel so bad host. Nks to our some other questions . Im jacqueline and i at Augsberg University in minneapolis and last year, i designed a new food history course for the express purpose of in nonhistory students into a history classroom, and its worked. So this fall i taught globallled food, a history. I had 25 students and not a single one was a declared history major. And we had a great deal of fun. We started with the paleolithic period and we went all the way to the we endedury and with a reacting to the past game. Some of you might be familiar with that. So it was the game, reacting the past is consortium out of barnered college, and this particular game was 1991, and it was the foode over the pyramid. Students loved it. Class,le time in the though, i kept asking myself of my head what are the Students Learning . Had clear themes running through. We focused on production and andumption, trade, taste. And i had that little genie in my head asking, so what this all about . Heres the comment that inviteand i would feedback. It is very hard to construct this todayke from the textbook materials that we have. There are terrific individual monographs, theres so much work, thank you, jeffrey for all the work that you have done. There are these there are taste and yet there really hasnt been the together of the material into a single deliverable to students that can bring it all together. And particularly around the taste. F so there are there are studies, you know. We can talk about which ones are there of taste . Theits hard to find right textbook. These broad overviews, jeffrey youve more but we need materials to help bring this thee for students in classroom. People can comment on what work is being done and were going to build this the apparatus for those to students in the classroom. Jeffrey, do you want to start . You just had the experience global food a history textbook. Did. S, i you know, theres i think as the field grows that theres just going to be more people working on those kinds of questions and we make about how them accessible and ive done various kinds of ofngs, but just to sort keep it in the context that were here and particularly thinking about museums, im actually now asking myself for the first time, perhaps it shouldnt have been, i should have done this earlier is that are the materials may not be to take your students here to the smithsonian and show them, but im wondering if there of online materials that are available and this onens like that you could put together something that would and how museums can kind of reach beyond their doors. So i guess i would sort of theres a lot of way we could answer that question, but i guess that would be the one that i turn to my colleagues on the panel and see what say. Have to so i actually im glad there isnt a textbook think itbecause i would be how do you even create a textbook that would course like that . I use and i teach at the intersection of museum and food studies so i do rely on volumes the edited that exist in various areas, food studies, sociology, history. I actually find myself overwhelmed with the sources that exist, but i would struggle with using a wouldok because how that textbook even look like . Know if that its not really helping you, but thats the way that i is bych the teaching selecting as much as i can from the richness out there, complexity of the material for me is an ally myher than an enemy in classroom. Any thoughts . In,ould i just jump because i was struck by you used the word disorderly and chaos and several times in your presentation, and thats been something that been thinking about as i design this class because you want a class that has both order and disorder in yet is notfield quite older, maybe and yes, are amazing online materials, obviously. Recipea whole project using all the materials at the msu collection, looking at century cookbooks. So theres such a wealth of there,ls that are but its to some degree bringing the order from the disorder for an introductory students mind. Theres a very interesting question that i were all asking and i pose this really as a those who have done some of that work of synthesis as Museum Scholars jeffreyriters like is were at an interesting place in the field where i think we can ask questions of doingthe point whathistory about people ate and why they ate it . About what they experienced and the meanings the process of eating . Or the refusal to eat . Eating thatover steve in his oral histories so brought out magnificently . The tragically sad meal, which speaks to the question pleasure, too . Perhaps ill throw that to you folks to think about, invite some other questions and comments and ask you to comment on some of that. Ill pause for a moment to let others digest and also guys to think. I dont know how were doing on time. Lunchtime so an invitation. Thatsave a space set aside in the cafeteria for those who want to continue this conversation . Downs, the cafeteria one level is open today and its probably a very low visitation day among the public because of the weather so there should be ofnty of space for those you who all who were at food history weekend last october. Lets just look for that part of the cafeteria, its right and lets just take the discussion there. At 1 00 or before 1 00, bob horton do you want again . E your hand bob is the archivist so we will meet him over at the Ella Fitzgerald area for the tour. Collections out of storage for us and we can also then meet up with wishes to see the food exhibition and well give special tours for that. Then a reminder, 2 00, ashley on the stage making cake there. Thank you all for coming and for this wonderful opportunity for us to talk work, but also to get your thoughts and we look forward to continuing the discussion. Thank you. Thank you all. [applause] this weekend, american 3. Tory tv on cspan tonight, at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, on real america, target zero. On firefightodiest occurred not far from downtown saigon. Here the army succeeded in the communists a chance to use the women and children of the area as human shields. And then on sunday, the wests from point center for oral history with vietnam war helicopter pilot and then 1968, made the major assault into the valley during that time frame and that was a major effort. We lost 24 aircraft the helicopters, and the distinct memories c t i have of that is a ch447 chinook flying down the fire coming out of back of his aircraft. And at 6 00 p. M. Eastern artifacts, Wake Forest University professor david lubin shares images from his booking, grand middles. American art and the first war. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan 3. Night on after words, Republican National Committee Spokesperson book the new american revolution, the populist a movement. Conservatives say to me why do you use this word . And ive had liberals express aversion to that word, but it sums up what this book is about and its the people and i really wanted to honestly profile the people on the left and and most of the voters i profiled were trump voters, but i did profile so toho were not and me, it was capturing the sentiment that drove an electorate to deliver one of the most astonishing thinkral defeats i weve seen certainly in my life lifetimlifetime and modern. It was a profile of the American People on issues from terrorism to poison water in flint, michigan. Watch after words south on te vietnamese new year holiday called tet. Bookshelf, James Robbins talks about his book this time we win, revisiting the tet offensive. He argues the tet offensive was a failure for the north vietnamese and that the u. S. Media and leftwing academics created a false impression of its importance. It was recorded in san diego in 2011. It is about an hour. James thanks, tj. Good morning, everybody. Happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Im really delighted. I noticed on your website that it identified me as writing for the Washington Post and not the washington times. [laughter] james im not offended. Maybe they are. [laughter] james slight difference. Just wanted to point that out. Im really happy to come and talk about talk about my tet , offensive project and also talk about current events, and first id like to address tet