Food and Art with Masters of Social Gastronomy (Online)
Taught by Sarah Lohman and Jonathan Soma
Sarah Lohman is a culinary historian and the author of the bestselling books Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods and Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. She focuses on the history of food as a way to access the stories of diverse Americans. Endangered Eating was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by Amazon’s Editors, Food & Wine, and Adam Gopnik on the Milk Street podcast. It was a finalist for the Nach Waxman Prize for Food & Drink Scholarship and winner of the Ohioana Library Book Prize for Nonfiction. Lohman’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and NPR. Lohman has lectured across the country, from the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC to The Culinary Historians of Southern California
Soma was born in the South, is what someone from the North would say. He co-founded the Brainery, is the sciencey half of Masters of Social Gastronomy, and plans on getting married to Waffle House. In his more droll moments he is a tragic sellout to higher ed as a professor of data journalism at Columbia University's journalism school.
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*This is a live, online talk via Zoom.*
Each month, Masters of Social Gastronomy takes on a curious food topic and breaks down the history, science, and stories behind it. This time, we're exploring the intersection of ART and FOOD!
Sarah will take you through the histories of Zoomorphic Tureens, Ginger Jars, Renaissance Sugar Sculptures, and Swan Eating. Then she'll cover two more modern art pieces, Agnes Denes's 2-acre wheat field in lower Manhattan and Lucy Sparrow's Felt Bodega and Felt Delicatessen.
Always a slave to the aesthetic trappings of consumerism, Soma will regale you with tales of plastic display foods and why food advertising can look so darn appetizing. He'll also spill the beans about the role of food in the fine arts. (He spent a lot of time trying to come with a Warhol-can-of-soup joke for that one, but it just never worked out. But "beans" is a food, at least.)
