New England Cuisine at the Museum

Don't break out your lobster bibs quite yet! No, we are not offering a grand buffet of New England cooking classics. However, we have the next best thing in store for you.

On Saturday, May 28, at 2 PM there will be a really fun Lowell Lecture that you won't want to miss. Kathleen Fitzgerald and Keith Stavely will relate the tale of "Pressed Heads, Pottages, and Pippin Tarts: The Surprising Story Behind a Typical Diner Meal." Authors of Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England (2011) and America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking (2004), Stavely and Fitzgerald will treat us to a culinary tour that traces the precursors of franks and beans and apple pie, as well as other traditional New England foods. Their talk will be illustrated with images of some of the foods they have prepared and served in their home.

The author team has a wealth of experience as speakers, having presented at international conferences, at numerous historical societies, libraries, and museums, and to a variety of community and professional groups. Through lively presentations and sprightly give-and-take with their audiences, they bring the hidden history of New England foodways to light, along the way showing how a region's food practices can illuminate its broader social and cultural history.

Stavely is a writer and scholar whose interest in the Puritan influence on American and English culture has resulted in a number of critically-esteemed books and articles. He has been a Guggenheim and American Council of Learned Societies fellow and a winner of the Modern Language Association Prize for Independent Scholars. Fitzgerald worked for five years as a college chaplain and for eight years as a coordinator of a soup kitchen. Except for one brief stint in an academic library in Ohio, she has worked for over twenty years as a public librarian in urban settings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. She is currently a librarian at the Newport Public Library.

This free public lecture is funded by the Lowell Institute and complements the exhibition Night Road: Photographs of Diners by John D. Woolf. After the lecture, please join us for a book signing. Copies of both Northern Hospitality and America’s Founding Food will be available for purchase, thanks to a collaboration with an independent bookshop in Winchester, Book Ends.

Please call the Museum at 781-861-6559 if you have questions about this public program.

Credits:

Courtesy of Katheleen Fitzgerald and Keith Stavely

Courtesy of Katheleen Fitzgerald and Keith Stavely and the University of Massachusetts Press

Lecture on Classic Diners, Saturday, Nov. 20

If you have ever eaten at a diner--and who hasn’t?--the upcoming Lowell Lecture is for you! We are excited to welcome guest speaker Richard J. S. Gutman, director and curator of the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI.

He will join us on Saturday, November 20 at 2 p.m. for an illustrated presentation entitled “What Is It about Diners? More Than a Meal, That's for Sure!” Mr. Gutman, about whom Yankee magazine said, “Nobody knows more about these classic eateries,” will elaborate on the staying power of the American diner, based on 40 years of eating and research. He has consulted on more than 80 diner restoration projects across the United States and in Europe. The leading authority on the history and architecture of diners, he has published several books on the topic, including American Diner Then and Now (2000) and The Worcester Lunch Car Company (2004). Long-time visitors to the National Heritage Museum may fondly recall two exhibitions he guest-curated with Kellie  Gutman: “American Diner: Then and Now” (1995)  and “Summer Camp” (1998).

This free public lecture is funded by the Lowell Institute. It is held in conjunction with the new exhibition, “Night Road: Photographs of Diners by John D. Woolf."

Photo credit: Courtesy of Richard J.S. Gutman