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Newsletter #17 | December 15, 2010 |
Test Your Kitchen Tool Knowledge
By Perry Reynolds
Those of us who love kitchen tools (and that's probably everyone reading this) should check out The Culinary Curiosity Exhibition either online or in person when you visit the International Home + Housewares Show in March.
Part of the Kendall College Charitable Trust, The Culinary Curiosity Exhibition: The Mel and Janet Mickevic Collection— shows off nearly 250 culinary, bakery and confectionery artifacts displayed throughout Kendall College. The exhibition is curated by Vicki Matranga, who is also the International Housewares Association's Design Programs Coordinator.
This "virtual museum exhibit” can be found at culinarycuriosity.org and was donated by Chicago residents Melvin and Janet Mickevic to the Kendall College Charitable Trust. The late Melvin Mickevic, an MIT-educated food scientist and entrepreneur, was also a devotee of the International Home + Housewares Show, where Matranga first met him.
"He would come every year to see the latest products,” says Matranga, who is also the author of America At Home, A Celebration of 20th Century Housewares.
Matranga, the brains behind many of the design exhibitions on display during the Show, forged a relationship with Mickevic and helped him place his interesting collection with Kendall, which offers an outstanding culinary program. During his career, Mickevic engineered innovations in food-processing technologies and production methods and collected manually operated devices that represent technical ingenuity.
"Modern food science stands on the shoulders of the technology of the past, and Mel and Janet Mickevic's hope was that this collection will offer today's students a unique view into the evolution of problem solving in food processing,” says Matranga.
"Artifacts in The Culinary Curiosity Exhibition embody the spirit of inquiry, technical knowledge and innovation that will enable culinary students to apply food science in creating products and services that meet tomorrow's needs.”
The tools in the collection range from agricultural implements and commercial equipment to items used by generations of home cooks, and demonstrate food preparation tasks that are executed today with modern but often similar equipment. Products, for instance, like the gravity-operated spit turner. For more go to culinarycuriosity.org and take the quiz. It isn't easy.
More than 130 items from the exhibition are featured on the website along with descriptions and videos about their manufacture, origin and use, as well as the solutions they provided in the era during which they were employed.
A free tour of The Culinary Curiosity Exhibition at Kendall College can be arranged by contacting Patsy Caruso, executive director of the Kendall College Charitable Trust, at pcaruso@kendall.edu or 312-752-2352.
Kendall College, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2009, offers undergraduate degrees in early childhood education, business, culinary arts and hospitality management.
