The Washington Post — Upon entering Aliko Dangote Hall at the Africa Center, you’re immediately confronted with the breadth and scope of the role African Americans have played in shaping our country’s food and beverage. Standing nearly 14 feet tall and 30 feet wide, the Legacy Quilt — part of the Museum of Food and Drink’s (MOFAD) latest exhibit, “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table” — includes 406 tiles that illustrate Black people’s impact on American cuisine.
“We’re in a few thousand square feet and we’re trying to tell 400 years of history. How do we do that?” said Catherine Piccoli, the museum’s curatorial director, on the process of assembling the exhibit. “We discussed early on the concept of a quilt — since quilts are so deeply rooted in African American culture — being part of the exhibition, and as we continued to talk about the quilt it became the sort of holding place, if you will, for telling as many stories as we could.”
Scheduled to run through June 19, a.k.a. Juneteenth, the first-of-its-kind exhibit puts Black people’s culinary contributions in agriculture, culinary arts, brewing and distilling, and commerce on full display and allows guests to see, experience and taste — yes, there is food available — the results. In addition to the quilt, it includes the Ebony Test Kitchen, a bastion of African American cuisine that was saved from demolition by preservation nonprofit Landmarks Illinois, along with photographs, artifacts and virtual reality experiences. Read more.
