LIVE! Cookin' Up Stories

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Science, The Smithsonian, Tony Cohn, Art19, African American History And Culture, Exhibit, Dc, Exhibits, Pop Culture, Zoo, National Museum, National Zoo, Natural History, Air And Space, Smithsonian, Postal Museum, History Of The World, History, Sidedoor, Museum, Washington, Society & Culture, American History

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Does your ham sandwich have something to say? Quite possibly. Food can be a powerful storytelling tool. Many chefs, like authors, carefully craft meals or menus to transform a dining experience into a cultural, historical, or educational adventure. This week on Sidedoor, chef Jerome Grant from the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Maricel Presilla, who was the first female Latin American guest chef at the White House, discuss the story-rich menus that put them in the spotlight. Recorded live at the National Museum of American History’s Food History Weekend.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from a Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:13.6	I'm Tony Cohn.
0:19.4	When I cook a meal, even when I spend the time to go grocery shopping and mix the food together in a way that wouldn't embarrass my grandma
0:26.2	My goal is to follow the recipe and wind up with something that will just fill me up and
0:31.8	Hopefully it tastes good as well. But when some chefs cook a
0:35.5	meal and arguably these are the best chefs, they think about way deeper things.
0:40.3	Sure, spices, a meat's grain, eye-catching presentation. But also they think about
0:48.4	what this meal says. In a way, they're kind of like authors, but instead of words, they're creating stories using ingredients.
0:57.0	We eat in the present, but food binds us to the past.
1:01.0	It's rooted in a time and a place. Think about cultural
1:04.5	celebrations like Passover or Ead or even Thanksgiving. The best meals have a
1:10.0	lot to say, where we've been or where we're going. They tell stories. So today
1:17.0	we invite you to feast on a live show we produced for the Smithsonian's
1:20.6	National Museum of American History's third annual food history
1:24.6	weekend focused around the theme, Many Flavors, One Nation. We spoke with two chefs
1:31.3	from different culinary backgrounds, but one thing they have in common,
1:35.7	they both think a lot about what food says. So coming up next on Side Door,
1:41.5	we shared the stories that their menus told.
1:44.0	Right after a live show. Our first story starts almost 10 years ago. The year is 2009, which feels like it was yesterday, right? But here's
2:05.6	some of the things that were going on. Beyonce releases her HALO single.
2:09.7	Michael Jackson had just passed away. The iPhone is just two years old.
2:15.0	The hangover is one of the top performing films of the year and
	...

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