Documenting And Cooking New England Food
Brown Company timber, Maine. Woodsman getting a slab of butter for his hot biscuits, 1943, Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Left to right: Journalist Leah Mennies, Restaurant Owner Irene Li, Marc Sheehan, Fred Opie
The following is an excerpt of an ArtScience talk on New England Foodways held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Leah Mennies, Senior Food Editor at Boston Magazine organized and hosted the event which consisted of a Panel discussion. Panelist included Babson Food Historian Fred Opie, Irene Li, chef/owner of Mei Mei, and Marc Sheehan, chef/owner of Loyal Nine. Both are Cambridge based restaurants. The theme of the talk is the future of New England Foodways--How do we define them now? How should that change? What are the challenges? What does a regional sense of place through cuisine look like? How does the past inform this? How can the storytelling surrounding New England cuisine be stronger/better/more informed? What does that look like here in Boston/Cambridge vs. in the region as a whole?
Let's keep the conversation going with panels of experts from different fields and occupations in as many spaces as possible around the region--colleges, public and private libraries and schools, churches, historical societies and museums. And let's record these panel and publish them as a series as the first step in documenting the region's foodways. Please share your ideas and suggestions for advancing the project. Take the time to review the show on You Tube, iTunes, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. If you like what you hear and learn, tell others about it and share and post the link to the show
