NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY
What’s Happening in October: Food History Weekend and More!
Here’s what’s happening this month at the National Museum of American History
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Thursday, Oct. 17
Gala Tickets: online here
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the National Museum of American History’s Smithsonian Food History Gala and the presentation of the Julia Child Award, given by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts to an individual or group who has made a significant impact on how Americans cook, eat, and drink. This year, chef, author, food activist, and restaurateur, Alice Waters, will receive the award at the Gala held at the National Museum of American History, home of Julia Child’s kitchen, October 17. Waters has been a champion of local, organic and sustainable agriculture for over five decades. In 1971, she founded Chez Panisse Restaurant, in Berkeley, California, and the Edible Schoolyard in 1995. Through her work in food education and advocacy, Waters exemplifies the spirit and legacy of Julia Child. Previous recipients of the award—Jacques Pépin, Rick Bayless, Danny Meyer, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, José Andrés, Danielle Nierenberg, Toni Tipton-Martin, Grace Young, and Sean Sherman—will be present to celebrate the last decade of food history research and programming at the National Museum of American History.
Purchase gala tickets online here.
Friday and Saturday, Oct. 18 -19
Location for all events: Wallace H. Coulter Plaza; First Foor, West
Free, but registration is required here
As part of its 10th annual Food History Weekend, the National Museum of American History will host two days of free programs featuring Julia Child Award recipients from the past and present. Through cooking demonstrations and moderated conversations, the chefs will share their experiences with food education and advocacy for communities. Museum staff will also present a special objects-out-of-storage event, showcasing materials donated by the award recipients over the past ten years. The full schedule follows:
Cooking Up History: Hibiscus Tea: A Drink for Independence with Toni Tipton-Martin
Friday, Oct. 18, 11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Toni Tipton-Martin, award-winning author and food journalist, and recipient of the 2021 Julia Child Award will engage in a conversation with host Jessica Carbone, Food historian and Contributing Editor to Saveur and Joanne Hyppolite, Supervisory Curator of the African Diaspora at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Tipton-Martin will prepare Sorrel (Hibiscus) Tea as featured in her book Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking and describe the history of the drink in Jamaica and its cultural meaning as the unofficial beverage of Juneteenth, the celebration of emancipation from slavery in Texas, which took place on June 19, 1865—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Book signing to follow.
Cooking Demonstration and Conversation with Rick Bayless
Friday, Oct. 18, 12:30–1:15 p.m.
Rick Bayless, chef, television host, cookbook author, humanitarian, and recipient of the 2016 Julia Child Award will speak with Steven Velasquez, the museum’s curator of Latino History and Culture. Chef Bayless will prepare a dish from his book Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, a dish he made with Julia Child in her home kitchen for the television series, In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs (1994). Book signing to follow.
Conversation Circle: “Cultivating Community, Honoring Traditions, and Nourishing the Future” with Alice Waters, Danielle Nierenberg and Sean Sherman
Friday, Oct. 18, 1:30–2:15 p.m.
Danielle Nierenberg, president and co-founder, Food Tank, and 2020 recipient of the Julia Child Award will moderate a conversation with Alice Waters, chef, author, food activist, restaurateur, and recipient of this year’s 2024 Julia Child Award and Sean Sherman, chef, founder and executive director NATIFS (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems), founder and CEO The Sioux Chef and Owamni by The Sioux Chef, and recipient of the 2023 Julia Child Award. Both are owners of influential and iconic restaurants that reflect their deeply held values regarding food production, activism, and health and they have also founded distinctive educational organizations that bring people together to share knowledge of traditional foodways and community empowerment through food. Book signing to follow.
Conversation Circle: “The Future for Women in Food” with Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger
Friday, Oct. 18, 2:30–3:15 p.m.
Museum Director Anthea M. Hartig will moderate a conversation with Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, co-chefs and owners, Border Grill, and co-recipients of the Julia Child Award in 2018 as they discuss their history as among the first women to conceptualize, own, and operate their own restaurant, beginning with City Café, in Los Angeles, in 1981. Their innovative ideas helped grow their business and expand their influence into food television and community advocacy for women chefs, LGBTQ rights, and global gastrodiplomacy. Book signing will follow.
Objects-Out-of-Storage: “The Smithsonian Food History Collections and the Julia Child Award Recipients”
Saturday, Oct. 19, 11:30 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
Each year, the National Museum of American History’s food history curators work with the most recent recipient of the Julia Child Award to identify objects and archival materials that reflect the essence of their culinary experiences and their contributions to the history of food in the United States. The recipients donate the objects to the national collections. Visitors will be able to see a selection of those objects out of storage and curators will be on hand to answer questions.
Conversation Circle: “Julia Child’s Kitchen - A New Book and Fresh Look at a Beloved Artifact”
Saturday, Oct. 19, 1–1:45 p.m.
Paula Johnson, curator of Food History and author and Jaclyn Nash, photographer will discuss their new book about Julia Child’s kitchen, which has been on view in the National Museum of American History almost continuously since it was collected in 2001. The new book, published by Abrams and released Oct. 8, is a beautifully illustrated and carefully researched volume on the history and legacy of the kitchen, from its 1961 design to its place of honor in the museum’s exhibition FOOD: Transforming the American Table. Johnson and Nash will share how the book came together over several years and answer any questions you may have. Book signing will follow.
Cooking Demonstration and Conversation: “Cooking and Community - Updates from Chinatowns”
Saturday, Oct. 19, 2 – 2:45 p.m.
Coulter Plaza, First Floor West
Grace Young, award-winning cookbook author and Chinatown activist will speak with hosts Jessica Carbone, Food historian and Contributing Editor to Saveur and Yao-Fen You, acting director of the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Center. Young has been called “the poet laureate of the wok” and has served as a “wok whisperer” and “stir-fry guru” for students and frustrated cooks in need of guidance. She is the James Beard award-winning author of three cookbooks and videos that have introduced scores of Americans to traditional Chinese cuisine, demystifying ingredients, recipes, and culinary techniques. During the pandemic, Grub Street dubbed Grace the “accidental voice for Chinatown” and her advocacy for the preservation and protection of small businesses and Chinatowns across the country remains unwavering. Join Grace Young as she prepares a dish from one of her cookbooks and discusses the challenges facing America’s Chinatowns Book signing: to follow.
NEW BOOK
Julia Child’s Kitchen: The Design, Tools, Stories and Legacy of an Iconic Space
By Paula Johnson with photography by Jaclyn Nash. Foreword by Jacques Pépin
Published by Abrams Books Oct. 8
“The Smithsonian Associates Presents: Julia Child's Kitchen" Evening Conversation Monday, October 28, 6:45 - 8 p.m. EDT
Online, purchase tickets at Julia Child's Kitchen - Smithsonian Associates
Members $20; Non-members $25
Julia Child's kitchen in her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home was a serious workspace and recipe-testing lab that exuded a sense of warm mid-century comfort. On display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for 20 years, the kitchen contains more than 1,000 parts and pieces—tools, appliances, utensils, furniture, artwork, knick-knacks, books, and bits of whimsy—all reflecting Child’s status as an accomplished chef, gastronome, delightful cooking teacher, television trailblazer, women’s advocate, mentor, and generous, jovial friend.
Author and Museum Food History curator Paula Johnson provides an intimate portrait of Child and examines how the kitchen’s layout, design, and contents reflect Child’s philosophy of cooking as well as a period of social and cultural change in the United States. Johnson in conversation with Jessica Carbone, a food writer and historian will discuss Child’s home kitchen., and how the legacy she created in this iconic room continues to influence the ways people cook today.
INVENTION & INNOVATION
Sports Technology and Innovation: New Perspectives Symposium
Oct. 21-22, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily
Free, registration required here
This two-day in-person symposium will examine the different motivations that inspire inventors to develop game-changing technologies, their creative processes and the often-surprising sources of their ideas. It will investigate the high-tech apparel, protective gear, adaptive prostheses, medical advances, officiating technologies, Artificial Intelligence algorithms and training equipment that infuse all modern sports. How athletes, coaches and general managers engage in non-technological innovation when they introduce new training regimens, “bodily techniques” and front office strategies will be explored. The social and cultural reception of sports technologies, the passionate debates they spur, and the myriad ways they change the games, for better and worse will also be discussed. The symposium will also explore different approaches to the assessment, regulation, and governance of sports technologies and examine why game-changing innovations are ultimately adopted or rejected.
Innovative Lives: Gary Brantley
Monday, Oct. 21, 6 – 8 p.m.
Free, registration required here
National Football League Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) Gary Brantley will headline this “Innovative Lives” session. Working with numerous technology partners, Brantley and his team develop data-driven solutions that power various aspects of the NFL’s operations, including television, radio, and streaming broadcasts, secure coach-to-coach communications, instant replay, NextGen Stats and historical record-keeping, the NFL’s extensive media archive and player health and safety analytics. Since joining the NFL in October 2022, Brantley also established the league’s Innovation Hub, a think tank in which the NFL and its 32 teams evaluate emerging technologies such as generative AI and augmented reality to understand how they might enhance game play and the fan experience. The conversation will be moderated by Dan Kaufman, managing director for sports technology at Sports Business Journal.
MUSIC
CHAMBER MUSIC Oct. 5 & 6
Smithsonian Chamber Music Society Presents:
The Axelrod String Quartet – Stradivarius and Amati Series
Nicholas and Eugenia Taubman Hall of Music; Third Floor, West
Saturday Oct. 5, 2024, 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Sunday Oct. 6, 2024, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
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To purchase tickets:
Saturday, Oct. 5: The Axelrod String Quartet: Stradivarius and Amati (Saturday series) - Smithsonian Associates
Sunday, Oct. 6: The Axelrod String Quartet: Stradivarius and Amati (Sunday series) - Smithsonian Associates
Members $32; Non-members $36
JAZZ: USAF Strolling String Concert
Thursday, Oct. 10, Noon – 1:30 PM
Taubman Hall of Music, Third Floor
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The Chamber Players Series features unique programs, developed by members of The U.S. Air Force Band, that highlight their virtuosity and creativity. This free recital provides an opportunity for the audience to enjoy a performance focused on the all string quartet with one piece for string quartet plus a solo cello. Among the featured music will be “Amazing Grace,” “The Battle of Manassas,” and music from Johannes Brahms.
VISITING
What to know:
The museum is open seven days a week, except Dec. 25, between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Admission is free, and passes are not required. For more information, go to https://americanhistory.si.edu/visit
Food:
The Eat at America’s Table Cafe is open for complete food and beverage service. Hispanic Heritage month continues through Oct.17 and Chef Kyre features highlights from the cuisines El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Mexico. Beginning Oct. 18 the Café will feature a new Fall menu with roasted port loin, braised chicken, butternut and acorn squash. The Leroy Neiman Jazz Cafe offers light lunch, including sandwiches and pastries, as well as hot and cold beverages. The Jazz Cafe serves Starbucks coffee. For more information, visit the website.
Bottled water is allowed in the museum. We recommend bringing a refillable water bottle for fountains.
Stores: Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
Through incomparable collections, rigorous research and dynamic public outreach, the National Museum of American History seeks to empower people to create a more just and compassionate future by examining, preserving and sharing the complexity of our past. The museum, located on Constitution Avenue N.W., between 12th and 14th streets, is open daily except Dec. 25 between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. The doors of the museum are always open online and the virtual museum continues to expand its offerings, including online exhibitions, K–12 educational materials and programs. The public can follow the museum on social media via Instagram and Facebook. For more information, go to https://americanhistory.si.edu. For Smithsonian information, the public may call (202) 633-1000.
