New York City Food Voices at the Smithsonian: The Visual, The Audible, The Edible

Abstract

Eachsummer the Smithsonian Folklife Festival takes place in Washington, DC. For close to four decades, this outdoor event highlights "diverse community-based traditions in an understandable and respectful way, to connect the public directly and compellingly with practitioners of cultural traditions ... in a rich cultural dialogue on the National J\1all"(Smithsonian Institution, 2000). Here, ongoing presentations in tents and staging areas reflect a region or theme and cultural traditions. Over a two week period in June and July, the 2001 Festival featured New York City. Flanked by the museums of the Smithsonian, aspects of Gotham's dynamic urban life were shown through transportation, music, Broadway theater, fashion, Wall Street, and foodways presentations. New York stories live or on radio and daily stickball, stoopball, skullies and other street games, provided rich cultural context. Any of the festival's million visitors had the opportunity to walk through a mercifully air conditioned city bus, a #7 Flushing line red bird subway car and a Rosenwach water tower, typical of the age old technology that delivers fresh water to urban high rises, including during the Blackout of 2003. I was asked to curate the foodways component. An exciting and large task, my work started long before the festival with issues of curating and how they would come to fruition at the festival. Myriad considerations arose about ways to convey New York life through food. There are more food !Joicesin this town than there are New Yorkers, food voices expressed in a multitude of ways influenced by ethnic, cultural and community affiliations, the economy, the environment, socioeconomics, health and nutrition concerns, food access, production, supply, preparation, sharing, and above all, personal identities (Hauck-Lawson, 1991).