Museum on Main Street: Key Ingredients
Hot dish and Jello salad contests. Ethnic food festivals and cooking demonstrations. A musical program for children about food on the farm called "Singin' in the Kitchen." Recipe re-creations from the 19th and early 20th centuries in Minnesota. The Minnesota Humanities Center is collaborating with county historical societies and other organizations across the state to offer these and other programs exploring Minnesota's food and agriculture history, to complement the Smithsonian Institution's Museum on Main Street exhibition Key Ingredients: America by Food.
Key Ingredients explores how the foods we eat reflect our nation's rich immigrant experience, innovations in food preparation and preservation, the expanding availability of foods, and our changing tastes.
Twelve Minnesota communities hosted the exhibition in 2006-2008. Each host site created a companion exhibit highlighting the food history and culture of its region, and the exhibit featured a traveling library of historic cookbooks, a collection of poems by Midwestern poets on the theme of food, and a Food Map of Minnesota, contributed by the Minnesota Humanities Center.
SCHEDULE
Scott County Historical Society, Shokopee
July 1, 2006 – August 7, 2006
Murray County Historical Society, Slayton
August 12, 2006 – September 19, 2006
Clearwater County Historical Society, Shevlin
September 26, 2006 – November 2, 2006
The Crossing Arts Alliance, Brainerd
November 8, 2006 – December 15, 2006
Waseca County Historical Society, Waseca
December 22, 2006 – February 1, 2007
Otter Tail County Historical Society, Fergus Falls
February 12, 2007 – March 26, 2007
Wright County Historical Society, Buffalo
June 16, 2007 - July 25, 2007
Ironworld Discovery Center, Chisholm
August 1, 2007 – September 12, 2007
Austin Public Library, Austin
September 19, 2007 – October 31, 2007
Roseau County Historical Society, Roseau
November 7, 2007 – December 15, 2007
Winona County Historical Society, Winona
December 22, 2007 – February 2, 2008
Brown County Historical Society, New Ulm
February 9, 2008 – April 5, 2008
The Key Ingredients tour of Minnesota was made possible with generous support from the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation, Land O' Lakes Foundation, and Great River Energy.
For more information, please contact Elizabeth de Soto, Outreach Specialist,