KEY INGREDIENTS: AMERICA BY FOOD
SMITHSONIAN EXHIBITION TO TOUR MINNESOTA

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

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.

Click here for more information on the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and Key Ingredients.