Ten Mass. museums, more food history 2010

10  Symposiums, exhibits

Arcimboldo, 1526–1593: Nature and Fantasy. The paintings and detailed information may be viewed at: Exhibition brochure or click: Exhibit webpage and select the link 'Exhibition Brochure' along the right side of the museum web page.  16 of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's composite heads...are bizarre yet scientifically accurate, the unusual heads are composed of plants, animals, and objects."

Table for 10: The Art, History and Science of Food features museum exhibitions, public programs, and special events in ten regional museums. Museums10

For the Year of the Heirloom Apple, 2010, The National Agricultural Library in Maryland hosted Celebrating America's Unique Apple Diversity: A Roundtable Discussion Featuring Some of America's Leading Apple Experts. Five apple growers (Nick Botner, OR, Tom Burford, VA, John Bunker, ME, Dan Bussey, WI, and Lee Calhoun, NC) discussed "...their perspectives on America's fading apple diversity and what steps we can take to preserve it."

Food for Tomorrow at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. For more info click: Smithsonian webpage "How do invention and innovation shape the ways we grow, prepare, and enjoy food? Discover the history and future of food and related technologies, from sustainable agriculture to molecular gastronomy."

Cheers! The Culture of Drink in Early Maryland at Baltimore's Homewood Museum. "50 objects drawn from local private and public collections... wine, spirits, beer, and “cyder” in early Maryland’s finest homes... Homewood’s Carroll family. Superb examples of wine bottles, decanters, coasters, glassware, corkscrews, bottle tickets, sideboards, cellarettes, wine coolers, and other related equipage, all created between 1790 and 1840..." Museum webpage

Historic Plants Symposium. Come to Table—Historic Plants in the Kitchen, "will focus on the garden’s harvest in early American recipes from a regional perspective. Speakers include New England food historian Sandy Oliver, heirloom vegetable collector and author William Woys Weaver, and John Martin “Hoppin’ John” Taylor, author and expert on Charleston foodways and Lowcountry cuisine, along with Monticello’s Leni Sorensen on African-American cooking and Peter Hatch with a look at Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable garden and kitchen."

Bon Appetit: Food and Dining in the Hudson Valley, a conference held in Hyde Park, NY.  The Great Estates seem to have stopped their wonderful annual conference.

Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered. Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is over but there is a 45 min Youtube There are over 300 items (wine coolers, tureens, cloches, candelabra, candlesticks, dozens of plates, porcelain-mounted cutlery, and other kinds of tableware) from the set made for Duke Albert Casimir of Sachsen–Teschen (1738–1822) and his consort, Archduchess Marie Christine of Austria (1742–1798), daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, by the Imperial court goldsmith Ignaz Josef Würth.

Each year there are two terrific free events on the same Saturday in Sept. Throughout the country, over 1,000 museums participating in the 6th Smithsonian Museum Day will be free to visitors. HERE

On the Mall, in front of the Smithsonian in DC, many authors will give talks and sign books as part of the Library of Congress' 10th Book Festival National Book Festival 2010.