Current Affairs

How the Museum of Food and Drink is redefining museums, one piece at a time


Brooklyn Food and Drink Museum (MOFAD) is the first institution of its kind, dedicated to exploring the rich intersections of food, culture and science. According to the head of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Nazli Parvizi, the museum’s origins go back to a pivotal question posed by founder Dave Arnold in 2005: “Why isn’t there a Smithsonian-level institute dedicated to studying the culture and science behind food?” Arnold decided to do something about it and MOFAD was the result.

The rest, as they say, is history.

In a recent conversation with Salon, Parvizi waxed poetic about the museum’s programs and events, each offering a unique and fascinating perspective on food and its role in our lives.

From exhibits on the impact of COVID-19 on taste and smell, to the history of American Chinese restaurants, to the foodways of Black Americans—curated by legendary Dr. Jessica B. Harris—MOFAD delves into how food shapes and shapes our histories and identities.

It’s an essential destination for foodies and anyone interested in the culture behind what we eat.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Can you talk a little about the history of the museum?

MOFAD was founded around 2005 by Dave Arnold, who was the founder of the Food Technology program at the French Culinary Institute. I think for him the question was simple: Why isn’t there an institute at the level of the Smithsonian dedicated to the study of food culture and science?

With this question in mind, he set out to try to answer it by creating MOFAD. Things really took shape with the opening of MOFAD Lab, MOFAD’s first space in Williamsburg. It was intended as a proof-of-concept space to show the types of exhibits possible — from a show on the history of grains to “CHOW,” the history of the Chinese-American restaurant in America.

What exactly is a MOFAD laboratory?

This is the space that opened in Williamsburg. We don’t use the same name for our current DUMBO space, but I think for us, our spaces have been sort of experimental, pop-up spaces to prove the concepts that we hope to showcase and prove the value of a food museum to visitors – hopefully we can grow into a larger museum where we can have a pavilion Dedicated to children, a cultural pavilion, and a scientific pavilion and we are able to offer many exhibitions and programs. We have big dreams for the future of MOFAD, and in the meantime, we will start small and build our way to achieving them.

What are some of the current exhibits?

Well, we call ourselves a boutique museum. We were very fortunate to be able to open again last winter inside the historic Empire Stores building in DUMBO. But we still operate more like a gallery than a museum and show one exhibit at a time. Our current exhibition is called Flavor: The World to Your Brain and is our meditation on the coronavirus. Many cultural institutions have not yet figured out how to think about the coronavirus.

As a food museum, we realized that for the first time, tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people had lost their sense of smell and didn’t really understand what was happening in their bodies. The first half of the show breaks down the sensory systems that lead people to experience flavor in a split second. The second half of the exhibition is about the history and birth of the flavor industry and how we decided to classify what is “natural” and what is “artificial.”

Visitors to the Museum of Food and Drink (Photo courtesy of MOFAD)

Are there any particularly exciting upcoming exhibitions or events?

We always have amazing evening programs at MOFAD which highlight the breadth and depth of what we care about. This fall, we are hosting our first party since 2019. We are thrilled! In fact, the theme of the gala is loosely centered around our upcoming exhibition, opening in 2025, which will be a history of street carts and street vending in New York City.

We think it’s a really good time to talk about street vending, especially with the vitriolic language around immigration and immigration in the city and in the countryside – street vending has always been an informal economic ladder upwards and has helped lift up new Americans and city dwellers. economy.

Can you tell our readers more about Flavor: The World to Your Brain?

It’s a meditation on the coronavirus and really reveals the sensory experience that leads to flavour. It’s a really interactive exhibition – you smell things, you taste things. We have a brainwave machine that charts your brain activity while tasting different types of food. We have an amazing scent combination – instead of playing musical notes, you play scent notes and you can really see how things blend together to create familiar scents and unfamiliar scents. So, it’s a really interactive and fun show.

And everyone walks away not only learning more about how their bodies work, but also discovering that there’s a flavor industry, I think, which is really surprising to people. I think it’s something that most people don’t think about — that there’s this whole sector of the food world and food scientists out there and they’re responding to climate change, cultural shifts, migration patterns, trends and predicting flavors of the future.

So I always say when I tour, like you think you like matcha, but you know, 10 years ago there wasn’t anything matcha flavored outside of Japan. It’s a “The Devil Wears Prada” moment: You think you chose that jacket, but it was probably chosen by 10 food scientists working in a lab in Princeton, New Jersey somewhere.


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MOFAD has had some amazing exhibits in recent years. Was there anyone in particular that stood out to you?

MOFAD has really had some amazing exhibits in recent years, but the one that particularly stood out to me was African/American: Making the Nation’s Table. In college, I did a research project focusing on black women in Harlem and their relationship with soul food.

So I’ve always been interested in both African foodways and Afro-Caribbean foodways. Dr. Jessica B. Harris, who was our guest on the show, was one of the few sources I had. You know, 25 years ago, when I was doing my research, there were almost no scholars writing and speaking about Black food.

And to be able, after all these years, to have an exhibition about Black food and have it so rich and so documented, and just to see the Black food canon, especially the cookbooks, but also scholars, to see it grow so much since that time, you know, 25 or 26 years ago, When I was trying to do research, it was really special.

I also think it was incredible because I got to see the impact the show had on black and non-black audiences. I think for the black fans, there was a lot of pride. Each of our stories, whether about rice farming, whiskey distilling, fine dining, or the civil rights movement, was rooted in the immense pain and violence of enslavement. But I think it was really special to see that the foundation of agriculture, the foundation of fine dining, really just the foundation of what we know as American food, was born from the practices and skills and teachings of African American farmers and chefs and scholars. and artisans – whether those contributions are forced or freely provided.

And then I think about non-Black audiences, just to get the full breadth and depth of what we mean by Black food and what we mean when we say it’s the foundation of American food and the extent of what we know today, whether that’s foods like ice cream or French fries, agricultural practices and tools or distilling methods – to uncover About those stories, I think they really caught people’s attention.

I think the legacy it left, and even to this day, who benefits from this work and who doesn’t, we must continue to reckon and acknowledge and try to correct the inequalities that have been built into the food system – as they have been built into so many other systems.

But again, I think we showed that in a really useful way. And intellectuals in a way that was very friendly and cheerful without hiding a dark past behind any of those stories.

What kind of other programs does the museum offer?

MOFAD offers other types of software. Of course, we offer school tours, so we love to welcome, to this exhibition, grades 4 all the way through to college and graduate school students. We love to welcome them to the space and give them guided tours. We also offer evening programmes, again across a variety of topics.

Just last week, we had a great program. There were many ancient artifacts of Mayan and Aztec origin that were used in chocolate making that were returned to the Mexican National Museum and the objects were displayed at MOFAD en route. We had chocolate experts and historians talk about the artefacts, and what they could have been used for. We had amazing chocolatiers providing us with chocolate and hot chocolate. So a lot of our programs, as our name says, educate, inspire and feed you. We also offer morning programs and book programs for both children and adults.

“So it’s like a ‘Devil Wears Prada’ moment: You think you chose that jacket, but it was probably chosen by 10 food scientists working in a lab in Princeton, New Jersey somewhere.”

How can people in New York City and surrounding areas participate in MOFAD?

There are lots of ways to get involved in MOFAD. We are always looking for volunteers and docents, whether they are volunteering for the program or during the day we are open. We love having docents who can help guide visitors through our space. Then of course, if people want to get involved in bigger ways, we’re always looking for creative partners to help us activate MOFAD or partner with us in interesting ways.

There have been a lot of small museum closures, and museums have had to think about how to operate in different ways while remaining true to their missions. But I think it also opens the door to really fun collaborations. And when you run a food and drink museum, there are really fun and interesting ways to partner with different brands.

Visitors to the Museum of Food and DrinkVisitors to the Museum of Food and Drink (Photo courtesy of MOFAD)

Can you talk a little about the MOFAD Fall Gala held at Essex Market?

Comedian Wyatt Cenac was the host, and we had a toast to Assemblymember/mayoral candidate Zahran Mamdani, activist/author/influencer and angel investor Hannah Bronfman, actress/comedian/community organizer/host of Shop Cats Michelladonna, Street Vendor Project President Mohamed Attia , from MOFAD, author and bar genius Dave Arnold and Ousteda maker of OysterMania Rubinstein vodka.

We had burger king George Mutz on the logs spinning on the deck, and the Night Kitchen provided a fantastic meal and desserts from Dhamaka, Baby’s Buns, Solid Wiggles, Karl’s Balls, Via Carota, and Lady Wong. The ceremony was a dedication to the Ross family and Mark Ross Federman, Nikki Ross Federman, and Josh Ross Tupper all gave beautiful speeches full of wonderful stories about the Rosses and daughters! (Did you know that the R&D department had a canned fish restaurant during World War II?)

We broke bread, shared stories, talked about the importance of telling food stories for all walks of life and raised a lot of money to continue our efforts to continue amplifying voices that spread hope and kindness and uplift scientists and food workers, chefs and writers who are using the power of food to learn how to create a more thoughtful, equitable and delicious future. .

This is the first part of the Salon interview with Foreign Ministry Head Nazli Parvizi; Part two will run later this week.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect that the MOFAD FallGala is now happening.

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