THINGS: A Global Conversation About Taste, Place, and Memory

Описание: The subtle smell of grease from chicken dinners long ago. The scent of cookies inside a cherished childhood cookie jar. Food, and the containers we use to cook it and keep it, are storehouses of memory that connect us to the past and to place. In this conversation, join visiting curator Simiyha Garrison and culinary historian, Jessica B. Harris as they explore the stories behind a Salem-made pottery chicken roaster and well-loved McCoy pottery cookie jar from Jessica’s childhood. This episode will be moderated by American studies scholar Marcie Cohen Ferris, PhD., author of The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region.

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬:
Jessica B. Harris, PhD. is the author of twelve cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora. She has been a professor of English in the SEEK Program at Queens College/C.U.N.Y. for almost five decades. She is a regular presenter at the annual Literary Festival in Oxford, England, a ontributor to Garden & Gun, has been honored with many awards including a lifetime achievement award from the Southern Foodways Alliance and was inducted into the James Beard Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in the United States.
Simiyha Garrison is a North Carolina native and graduate of Winston-Salem State University. She holds a Master’s degree in Heritage Studies and Public History from the University of Minnesota. Her research explores and documents the intersection of women and Africana culture, history, and social movements, with emphasis on how cultural meaning and memory are (re)produced, preserved, and interpreted. She led the community and visitor research part of the Southern Pathways project and developed a Southern Pathway focused on the intersection between our collection, historic foodways, and Old Salem’s Horticulture and Seeds with Stories Initiative.

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 𝐀 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
THINGS is an online program that features curators, makers, and other experts from around the world in conversation with people and objects from the Old Salem and MESDA collection. You’re invited to join the conversation via Zoom. Our things may be old, but the lessons we can learn from them are as contemporary and relevant as ever!