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Museums With a Food Theme


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I don't consider it food, but:

feh

Wow . . . . have you been inside?

No, I have an allergic reaction to most places like that.

I don't know, I had thought about going myself, just to say I had. Maybe because it's ironic. I went to school in Rochester but never made it, but know at least one person who has (and bought a shirt!). Maybe when I visit this spring I'll convince some friends that it's a good idea. :raz:

"I know it's the bugs, that's what cheese is. Gone off milk with bugs and mould - that's why it tastes so good. Cows and bugs together have a good deal going down."

- Gareth Blackstock (Lenny Henry), Chef!

eG Ethics Signatory

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I went to the Museu de la Xocolata in Barcelona a couple of years ago, and they sold some excellent churros and hot chocolate in their cafe.

Aside from several mystifying exhibits featuring chocolate Catalan propaganda, it was a worthwhile stop.

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I don't consider it food, but:

feh

No, this is not the "feh" museum, this is the one and only Jell-O Museum in Le Roy, New York. Folks, it may not be food but, admit it, you have probably eaten this stuff and chances are, there was a time in your life when you actually loved it. Okay, maybe if you grew up in mid-century USA.

What other "food" could bind together, in a bright green sheen, the following ingredients (taken directly from a recipe my mother used often):

mayonnaise, cream cheese, cottage cheese, onions, celery, cucumbers, garlic powder, cashews

Admit it, you are just dying to try this, aren't you?

The real joy of the Jello Museum is the book in which people write their fond memories of Jello. You would not believe! Jello fights in the summer on the lawn, Jello desserts served at a WEDDING! Jello used with many more savory ingredients. Jello mixed with Coke! Family gatherings made all the more hilarious for the use of Jello in imaginative ways that did not involve eating it.

And the fact that, when Jello first came out, it was touted as a high-class dessert. They had to tone that down to get ordinary people to buy it. Folks in LeRoy tell of how the local stream would run different colors - the colors of goth hair syles - screaming blue, red, or green, depending on which flavor the factory was making that day. Children would swim in the stream and come out dyed that color. And let us not forget the weird flavors over the years: tomato, Italian salad, coffee, apple, celery and champagne. Oh, no, do not call this "feh." This is pure Americana.

But no, it's not food.

Lonnie

OMG! As I'm writing, a segment about the popularity of Spam has come on the radio, CBC's As It Happens.

"It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all of the answers." --James Thurber

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There's the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis which is all about. . .flour. Well, the history of flour and flour mills in Minneapolis. They have a bunch of old Betty Crocker boxes and various General Mills products (their HQ is in Minneapolis); as well as a test kitchen on the various types of flour and their effects in baked goods.

I must say, the more interesting aspect of the museum, other than explaining how flour particles are combustible, is how Minneapolis harnessed the Mississippi River for hydropower to power the mills.

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. . . . I must say, the more interesting aspect of the museum, other than explaining how flour particles are combustible, is how Minneapolis harnessed the Mississippi River for hydropower to power the mills.
I like their bold slogan on the homepage: "Get a whiff of the best smelling museum ever created". I remember The Prado having an agreeable scent.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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There's a truffle museum in Tuscany: Museo del tartufo.

A description in english: truffle museum

The culinary joys of the fungus are also explored: recipes, and utensils used for serving, shaving and preserving the earthy tidbit, are displayed. At $2,500-4,000 per kilo this season, it's clear why white truffles are referred to as "white diamonds." And like diamonds, they're not much to look at before they're cut, but once prepared by expert hands, can be seductively intoxicating

Cheers,

Anne

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Here's an interesting one, although it doesn't have a permanent home: NY Food Museum.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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and you know there also had to be a Maple syrup museum here in Vermont

http://www.maplemuseum.com/

That looks like fun, but I have to say, Mr. Doolittle looks a little scary.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 years later...

The National Mustard Museum moved a few years ago to Middleton, a suburb of Madison. I was there last month for a celebration honoring the winners of the 2011 World Wide Mustard Competition and the Iron Mustard Chefs Challenge, both fund-raisers for the non-profit museum. You can find a report, undoubtedly with more details than you need to know, on my blog here.

Bob Libkind aka "rlibkind"

Robert's Market Report

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Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, WI. may be able to get there on or back from our trip to Duluth in spring, 2010.

I've been there and it's a small but well-done museum on the main street in downtown. They've got an amazing selection and some interesting displays and literature about mustard. A little touristy, as they also function as a shop, but certainly worth a look if you're in Mount Horeb.

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What a great forum! How did I miss it the first time around?

Anyhow, the displays aren't really food per se, but they could have been when they were alive: Dead Pals of Sam Sanfillippo.

On a more conventional note, there's America's Soul Food Museum in Atlanta.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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I went to Copia in Napa. It was a food/wine themed place funded by Mondavi. Big expensive new building, nice art, some displays, but pretty devoid of very much serious content. I think it folded.

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Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, WI. may be able to get there on or back from our trip to Duluth in spring, 2010.

I've been there and it's a small but well-done museum on the main street in downtown. They've got an amazing selection and some interesting displays and literature about mustard. A little touristy, as they also function as a shop, but certainly worth a look if you're in Mount Horeb.

Note my item a few posts upthread. It's been in Middleton, not Mount Horeb, for a couple of years.

Bob Libkind aka "rlibkind"

Robert's Market Report

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