Edible Treasures– foodobjects from the National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands

 

Introduction

Objects in European ethnological museums are strongly connected to the colonial and scientific exploration of the non-western world. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a great variety of objects and material, edible objects included, was collected and shipped to Europe.

 

At the turn of the twentieth century, ethnology disengaged itself from natural sciences and evaluated in a new discipline. Modern anthropology took shape, concentrating on analyzing and interpreting social structures of primitive societies and functional connections between people. With this change, organic and edible objects became irrelevant for anthropological research.

 

Once collected as valuable objects for scientific research, but in the course of years downgraded as less relevant things for which the ultimate date of consumption had passed more than a century ago.

That is how they survived.

Without any meddling of museum conservators the contents fermented, dried, molded or evaporated; a process of slow museum preservation that is still going on.

 

The National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands owns an exceptional and wonderful collection of edible foodobjects. Although very few of them are on display in the national museum, they were collected by famous researchers and explorers like Phillip Franz Von Siebold (Japan) and Albert P.H. Hotz (Persia). Besides that, an important part of the collection can be regarded as ‘leftovers’ from the World Trade Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1883.

 

For obvious reasons the FoodMuseum has a special interest in foodobjects in museums. We research and collect them, with exhibitions we give them a new context and make them accessible for those who are interested in food in historical, cultural and gastronomical perspectives.

 

Enjoy the exhibition!