COLUMN: Brooklyn’s Museum of Food and Drink Exhibits a Taste of History

Subject-matter experts help MOFAD create exhibitions and programming.

Connecting Through Food

Asked about the aims of the museum, Piccoli responds: “Food is the thing – it is nourishment, culture and central to our shared humanity. MOFAD uses food as a common, joyful and powerful lens to help understand ourselves, each other and the world around us. Everything in our world is interconnected, and food is often central to those connections. We bring people together through the joy of food in order to educate, inspire curiosity, encourage connections and contribute meaningfully to our community.”

To that end, Piccoli explains, the museum’s “exhibitions are multisensory journeys with various interactive touchpoints, from virtual reality to smell machines, small tastings, and more. Our current location does not include a kitchen, so demos and larger tastings are often reserved for programming. As eating and sharing food are central to MOFAD’s mission, our goal is to ultimately move into a larger museum space with multiple galleries, kitchens, and more opportunities for cooking and eating together.”

Stories That Resonate

For those planning a visit, the museum’s Flavor: The World to Your Brain exhibition, which, as Piccoli notes, “explores where flavor comes from, what happens when we experience the flavors of food, the industry that designs flavors, and what natural and artificial really mean,” will run through the summer, and MOFAD has received funding for its next exhibition, slated to open this coming fall, about the history of food cart vending in New York City.

As for what food retailers in particular can take away from a trip to the museum, Piccoli observes that greater awareness often leads to greater engagement: “MOFAD is great at telling stories about food. Part of that is because we work with subject-matter experts … to create our exhibitions and programming and ensure that our work is respectful to the community and culinary history that we are presenting. It is also because we directly tackle difficult stories. So much of the food system is rooted in colonialism, enslavement and racism, and for us, it is imperative to acknowledge and discuss that in every part of our storytelling. That being said, when people have the opportunity to learn about the history of a food, they feel a stronger connection to it, and they seek out those foods beyond the museum.”