Food not Fear

I'm lucky enough to visit lots of places in the world. This year alone, Senegal, Rwanda, Cambodia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Lebanon, Lithuania, Turkey, and Mexico have all been stamped in my passport.  I've discovered that there may be two fundamental approaches to exploring the world.

When I tell people where I'm going, one kind of person says, "Isn't that dangerous?"  And that danger might mean everything from sectarian violence to food poisoning.

But there's another kind of person--and fundamentally, I'm the second.  This is the person who asks me, when I say I'm going to one of these places, "I bet the food is great!  Tell me what it's like!"  That's the way I hope all of us would approach the world--with an openness to difference, to traditions, and to what represents comfort and hope to all kinds of people.

What have I learned from food?

Migration and Meals
I've had the chance to see long trails of migration and changing borders.  I learned about the work of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul over meals with colleagues from the Hrant Dink Foundation.  In Lebanon, I ate wonderful Armenian food with two Germans now living there, and learnt about how many Armenians made Lebanon their home after the Armenian genocide of 1915.  But in Puebla Mexico,  on a food walk with Eat Mexico, I learned about Tacos arabes, a speciality of the city, created by Lebanese immigrants.  Those trails of food connect us.

In Saint-Louis, Senegal, I watched bakers creating fresh baguettes, a legacy of French colonialization. In Sarajevo, my hotel served me special Bosnian coffee, which owed much to Turkish coffee. Dinner in a Romanian cafe had echoes of the Austria-Hungarian empire in its food, and at the same time, mama liga (usually called banosh in Ukrainian) reminded me how much interchange happened in this part of the world.  No matter where you are, the newest residents bring their own food traditions, which are mixed, adapted and embraced by others and old traditions hang on.

Local still Matters
Despite the fact that there sometimes seem to be a Starbucks or KFC on every corner, everywhere, local still matters.  Whenever I can, I seek out local markets, the best place to see that local still matters.  Along the road in Senegal you can see mango season ending and melon beginning.  In Mexico, mamey sapote had just arrived at the market when I was there.  In Cambodia, there's a riot of fresh fruits and vegetables in the crowded market--diving into the crowds is a feast for all the senses. 

When I persuaded a friend to pull over for a village market in Romania, it was hard to resist the large handmade copper still for sale.  I love when any waiter is happy to explain a meal--at one restaurant in Puebla, a waiter didn't feel his English was up to the task, so he went and pulled the owner into the conversation.  In Newfoundland, Canada, a new movement towards local food means not just partridgeberry jam but also house-made charcuterie including moose sausage.  Local food still mattering is just another way of saying local stories--everyone's stories--still matter.

Fried dough matters everywhere
Goes without saying--try it when you see it!

Meals are about talking, not just eating
Whether it's talking with African colleagues over a meal in Kigali, or eating seafood with a museum colleague in Antwerp, or laughing as we attempt to buy fruit from a street vendor in Phnom Penh with Sites of Conscience members from all over Asia, or drinking beer on the steps of the art museum in Lithuania (as above) meals have brought me together with so many amazing people around the world.   

This week, of course, like most Americans, I got to celebrate Thanksgiving with my own extended family (large and growing).  As we head into the holiday season, do remember how many people don't get the opportunity to gather around the table with family and friends.  Remember them. 

We're too big a family group to fit into a single photo, so I'll end with one from this summer--my Italian friend Martina, from Rome,  and her family visited Drew and me at the very beginning of their cross-country adventure.  We talked, we laughed, we ate--the best!

Building a Learning Culture: Food Included

A few weeks ago, I spent two days working with board and staff at the American Swedish Institute (ASI) in Minneapolis, MN.  Since that visit,  I've been deep in learning about my own new job, but I find myself thinking about those days and about how collaborative learning cultures are built. I first visited ASI this summer, when I keynoted the Association of Midwest Museums conference. I was unexpectedly impressed (truth be told) with a place I pictured as a sleepy place with folk dancing and woodworking.  But I found a museum that was humming with invention. At a reception there, an ASI board member spoke about how the museum had shifted its mission as the community around it changed: now the museum was not just about the Swedish experience, but about the immigrant experience (particularly the Somali and Hmong communities) for many, past and present; through the lens of Sweden and the other Nordic countries.  As a result, I was thrilled when Bruce Karstadt, President & CEO, asked me back to talk creative practice in the context of strategic and interpretive planning.

What made ASI a learning organization?

Some of a culture of learning comes in an organization's DNA. It's hard to identify exactly where it comes from and hard to see from the outside (that's ASI on a gray January day, above).  For the board meeting, I shared a reading list before coming. It wasn't focused on strategic planning as a task, but readings that touched on the values of ASI: stewardship, hospitality, learning, innovation and sustainability and the museum's key themes of culture, migration, the environment and the arts. We know that our creativity is enhanced when we take in a broad range of information.  On the list were articles, Ted talks and podcasts, ranging from Theaster Gates' Ted Talk “How to Revive a Neighborhood with Imagination, Beauty and Art," the New York Times series on welcoming Syrian immigrants to Canada, Dr. Fari Nzinga's “Public Trust and Art Museums,” on The Incluseum Blog and a tech article on why Sweden is a great place for innovation. It was a broad list and I was surprised that everyone at the meeting had done the readings and were anxious to dive into conversation about the relevance to the museum.  Boards bring a wealth of experiences to their board service and finding time for them to think big picture is one of the most important things a leader can do.  Bruce Karstadt encouraged that conversation which I'm sure will bear fruit as the planning continues.  

Lesson 1:  Good ideas come from everywhere. Cast a wide net in your information sources and share.

The next day, the staff convened for a day and a half of thinking and planning. ASI is large enough that not all the staff know each other well, so the chance to learn more about each other was an important part of this process. Everyone, including senior staff, put aside time to participate in the process.

Lesson 2:  Make time to think together.  Every time there's a conversation about community engagement, people ask where they should start. My answer is always the same.  Get out there:  go to different, new places in your community.  Meet people, talk, listen, learn, repeat.  We divided up into groups and headed over to Midtown Global Market, walking distance away, with food, crafts and more from vendors serving food from their home countries, hipster foodies, and more.  The groups' assignment was simple:  observe everything you could about how a market experience could help shape a new interpretive experience in the museum's historic Turnblad Mansion.  And of course, we all needed to eat--so we each went armed with $10 to get a great lunch.

Lesson 3: Get out there and listen. What did we learn at the Market? One, the way different stall owners introduced new information to us about food. They were interpreters, in the museum sense of the word, but so friendly and always starting where we were, not where they thought we should be. We found one restaurant that gave you a discount if you did a Bollywood move or two--and even provided the instructions. We realized that the audience for the museum and the users of the market had very little intersection. How could that be changed?  The museum already has some collaborations underway with different communities--but this visit gave the team ideas about new collaborations and how to deepen other partnerships.

Lesson 4: Lead by doing. That's Bruce Karstadt, ASI President and CEO, at left, with other staff members in the photo above. Leaders who don't participate send the message that others don't need to either. Bruce, Peggy Korsmo-Kennan and other senior staff were enthusiastic participants for all the time I was there. It makes an enormous difference when your staff knows that your leadership believes in what's happening--and wants to hear from all of you.

Lesson 5: Have fun. After our market visits, the groups were tasked with coming up with new interpretive experiences in the house. Those were serious experiences, but we had a great time planning and sharing them.

Lesson 6:  Communicate, communicate, communicate.  The time spent together built new understandings of the staff dynamics. At the end of the visit, the entire team dedicated some time to talking about how to streamline communication (those long email chains?  everyone everywhere hates them) and how to design ways for creative ideas to thrive throughout the whole museum.  

The museum also had 2 elements already established that you might consider adopting at your organization:  first, the annual Elsie Pederson (I think I have her name right) Day, named after a dedicated, tidy volunteer. The day is devoted, once a year, to cleaning up and refreshing staff offices. It's that time to get rid of those old brochures, the flip chart notes, the whatever.  The second is a regularly scheduled staff fika, drawing on the Swedish tradition of a coffee break, with baked goods, to take time out of a busy day and connect.

One brief side note:  I was moved by their current exhibit, "Where the Children Sleep - Photographs by Magnus Wennman,"  memories of which returned to me when I watched the Oscar-nominated short documentary, 4.1 Miles, about a Greek coast guard captain  going out, every day, to save thousands of refugees at sea.  Look at the photos; watch the documentary.

Still Good? A Museum Re-Visit

Have you ever visited a museum again after a number of years, wondering if it will still be as interesting or exciting as you thought it once was? A couple weeks ago I had the chance to revisit Plimoth Plantation, somewhere I had last visited probably twenty years ago.  The memory of that long-ago visit was a lovely one, around Thanksgiving, with my big extended family.  Our kids, now all grown-up, fully engaged with the interpreters, and I still remember how the way one wowed my nephew, who described himself as living beyond the Hudson, by switching to speaking in Dutch.

Would it still be good?  Would there be interactive media everywhere?  Do people still suspend belief at a living history site?  What would I think?  Here's the good news:  I still found it compelling, and found some additional changes that deepened the experience even more.  The better news:  the things that matter are those that any organization can do.  Ask deep questions, seek answers, care about the visitors, and be unafraid to shake things up.

Some of what I saw:

The biggest change is that your first stop in the 17th century is the Wampanoag village.  When I visited before, the village seemed an afterthought to all those Pilgrims.  Now Native people, rightly, are who you encounter first.  But you didn't encounter them without any guidance.  This large clear label, addressing directly, the misconceptions a visitor might have and what is considered respectful behavior, was read by almost everyone as they walked down the path.  The label begins, "Do you have a picture in mind from movies or books of what 'Indian' looks like?"   The change in approach--both physical and conceptual--helped to shift your perspective.

And something I saw over and over again, throughout the visit, was how skilled the interpreters were at meeting visitors where they were.  Here's a conversation about deer hunting, with a tourist from the midwest.  They chatted about bow hunting, about the return of deer to suburban neighborhoods, about recipes using venison, and more.

And here's an interpreter talking to students.  I only heard part of the conversation, when a boy asked if the interpreter gave someone a butt-whipping.  "I killed him,"  said the man, to somewhat stunned silences from the group.  He continued to explain and engage, but the sense that this was no easy place, came through loud and clear.  Below that, a visitor from the UK has a long conversation about where she's from, and where the character the interpreter is playing is from.  Just down the road, as it happens.

A question about a interpreter's bandaged finger, deftly handled, led to a broader discussion about the different kinds of religious beliefs at the Plantation, all the while the multi-tasking women continued their daily chores.

Every single interpreter I met, listened to, or eavesdropped on, was thoughtful, kind, and exceptionally responsive to visitors.  It's the end of the busy summer season and I'm sure loads of those questions (and bad visitor jokes) were ones they had heard many times before.  But they never seemed that way.  I want to know more about their training!

There were some new elements.  Down at the bottom of the road was "America's first test kitchen."  In a house no longer considered accurate, an uncostumed interpreter was testing recipes, on the day I visited, using quince.  The signage outside, her dress, and the printed-out recipe, all easily transitioned you back to a contemporary space and let you easily shift your conversational focus.  A new crafts building outside the village allowed close-up looks at the production of pottery, flies for fishing,  bread and textiles.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day with great light, so I was also struck with the messiness and everydayness of the site.  Reproductions allow the visitors to fully embrace the site:  to see the messy bed, the dirty fireplace, the wrinkled clothes hung up rather than the original draped artfully over the bed. There's no preciousness of artifacts here.

I ended my visit with a colonial meal--that's a peas cod (a sort of handpie),  squash, and some cucumber pickles and left feeling refreshed and rejuvenated in all sorts of ways, not least about the ways in which we can, when we work hard enough, connect with our visitors.

A Newfoundland Tale: Social Media Made Me Do It

I know there are lots of people in the history museum field who are really interested in physically trying out elements of the past--what people wore, how they lived, what they made, but that's never been precisely my thing.  But this past weekend I tried versions of 17th and 18th century recipes in my own kitchen and I thought I'd share what made me do it, and what I learned.

The Colony of Avalon, perched on the eastern edge of Newfoundland, Canada, was established in 1621 by Sir George Calvert (the First Lord Baltimore) and is one of the best preserved early English colonial sites in North America.  It happens to have, as you can see at the head of the post, a spectacular location. I visited a few years ago, a friend is on their board of directors, and the museum was a participant in last fall's International Experiments in Community Engagement course I taught for JHU Museum Studies, working with my graduate students. All of those things made me pay more attention to it:  I followed their Facebook page and began to see them regularly in my Instagram feed.

This is the second summer of their experiment--the Colonial Cookoff.  Each week, from their reproduction period kitchen, they post a recipe and invite you to try it.  They share their results on social media and invite you to do the same, with the chance to win a weekly prize.  I entered the Twice and Thrice Challenge this week, making apple fritters and ginetoes and sharing my results on their Facebook page.  Apple fritters, pretty easy;  ginetoes, strange, bagel-like lumps with basil, mostly a failure. My ginotoes, top picture; experienced colonial cook ginetoes, bottom picture.

What made me do it?

• Encouragement from my friend Jane.  A personal connection remains the one of the most important way to encourage involvement at your organization.
• A website that made it seem fun.  There was historical information, but the whole site is written in a lively, accessible voice that shared failures and successes.  Not too much detail and very welcoming.
• The fact that I'd been connecting with Avalon all summer long through their Instagram feed. It's there that I got to see, discoveries they'd been making that day (not months or years later), appreciated the enthusiasm of archaeologists for a day (even in less than ideal weather), and wondered about the connections between what was being found on site and the recipes I was reading and experimenting with.   

And what are the takeaways, particularly for small museums?  I think three primary ones.  Make it fun; make it now, not then; and keep at it!  Instagram and Facebook posts that come weeks (or months apart) and only feature boring photos of people sitting at an event, or only inviting you to an event, will never hack it.  You'll never get me to spend a Friday night making ginetoes that way!

History at the Table: Let the Conversations Begin!

In April,  I'll be joining a dozen or so historians in a convening of the Public Historians and Local Food Movement Working Group at the National Council on Public History annual conference in Ottawa, Canada.  The working group is led by Michelle Moon and Cathy Stanton, who've encouraged us to begin the conversation through a series of entries on Cathy's blog.  Mine, inspired by the ablove photo that came through by Facebook feed one morning (thanks Katya Kuchar)  explores the connections between the personal and the political as we think about food--in Ukraine, in the United States, and in museums.  For the full post (and other great posts as well) please go here.

I'm really looking forward to the conversation about the ways in which public historians and museums might connect more deeply to an understanding of food--but it does require, as I titled the post, moving beyond the butter churn.   How does your museum connect to stories of food and place?