Food is a funny thing; while eating is a natural and necessary ritual, the experience of having a meal and the implications of what—and how—we eat are not things we think about. Food: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000, a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, discusses the cultural and social changes in how Americans make, prepare, process, and ultimately eat food.
While a seemingly mundane topic for any non-foodie, this exhibition fascinates in its ability to illustrate how the history of food and wine in America is nearly impossible to extricate from political and social narratives.
The first thing viewers see upon entering the exhibit is the kitchen of culinary legend Julia Child. Donated to the Smithsonian in 2001, the kitchen was reassembled from Child’s Cambridge, Mass. home. Throughout her long career, Child encouraged Americans to treat cooking as an art instead of a chore and the exhibit highlights her television show, The French Chef, and her seminal book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, as the ways in which she introduced new dishes and methods to Americans hungry for a taste of the exotic and unfamiliar.
Child’s kitchen is both a focal point of the exhibit and a reference point for viewers. As they make their way through the exhibit, visitors confront changes in food production and consumption that challenge the ideals embodied by Child’s kitchen.
While Child’s kitchen is fit for a culinary master such as Child herself, kitchens of suburban mothers and wives across the country in the 1950s were furnished with the latest technology to make cooking fast and simple. Displays of microwaves, Tupperware, and TV dinners replaced the careful charm of Child’s kitchen in this part of the exhibit, aptly titled “New and Improved!” The focus on easy-to-prepare food reflected American gender roles during the prosperous and comfortable ‘50s—advertisements promised women that with a quick meal, they would have more time to take care of their husbands and children. Food shows viewers how wartime technology made a smooth transition to suburbia, as advances in processing allowed food a longer shelf-life, food could be transported longer distances and stored in local supermarkets. This cultural contradiction is just one of many ways in which Food illustrates the various approaches to the American table which characterized the latter half of the 20th century.
Expanding beyond the traditional wartime narrative, Food presents viewers with examples of how different cuisines and cultural practices interacted within the American social consciousness and ultimately at the American table. A desire to expand cultural horizons led to the rise of ethnic eateries, ranging from Ethiopian food in Washington, D.C., to Cambodian cuisine in New Jersey. In fact, Food has an entire section devoted to the rise of Mexican food in the United States—undoubtedly a consequence of immigration and cultural diffusion. The rise of environmentalism, in part a consequence of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, manifested in the vegetarian and local food movements.
As for the 1960s counterculture you hear about from rock ‘n’ roll music and historic political protests? Their approach to food was a rejection of the processing and packaging that grew so popular among American consumers.
The American table was both a melting pot and a battleground—Americans of all backgrounds came together to share their ideas of what we should eat and how we should eat it. From the backyard barbecue to the parking lot of the McDonald’s drive-thru, Food shows the breadth of ways people, technology, and culture transformed the American table.
The exhibit sheds new light on a history we’re all familiar with, placing important cult ural and social movements in a new, unusual context. It sure gives us something to think about next time we decide what to eat at Leo’s.
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