Food Heritage

Here's some food for thought. I recently came across the League of Kitchens, a great social practice project by artist Lisa Gross. Another great artist project is Favianna Rodriguez's installation for the recent exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California Art entitled "Who is Oakland?".  I'm also remembering years back when I directed the traveling exhibitions program for the Museum of New Mexico, and a museum in Arlington, Virginia, presented a retablo show that we were traveling as a way of targeting their new immigrant community. Opening night was a celebration they called "Meximania", including Mexican food, drawing many immigrants to the museum for the first time.

The Highlands students were enthusiastic about food heritage and were disappointed that they didn't have time to develop the theme in the way they would have liked. The students from local families who live in town reported that almost all of their families also own farms and ranches outside of town where they grow food and raise livestock. One of them talked about the local tradition of making jerky, a skill their ancestors learned from Native Americans. Mariam, the international student from Spain, talked about how she and her fellow international students bring spices from home, and we talked about the relationship between food and homesickness and how hard it is for New Mexicans to survive in other places without green chile.

One of the guest speakers for our class, Estevan Rael-Galvez, former New Mexico State Historian, spoke to the students about his work at the National Trust and the importance of providing multi-sensory experiences, including smell and taste, and how he instigated the revival of cooking and sharing meals at some of their properties as an important strategy in bringing historic houses and the past to life. Similarly, sharing cooking skills and food traditions seems like a great way for communities to welcome new immigrants.

With all of the emphasis on "local" in the food world these days, it's worth remembering the often forgotten historical diversity of what is now considered local, and showing some sensitivity to how the locavore movement lands on immigrants, whose memories of migration might be intimately connected to their food traditions, the aromas and flavors of their native cuisines and places of origin, and families left behind.