New Museum of the City of New York exhibit celebrates city's diverse culinary world
NEW YORK -- A new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York is celebrating the past, present and future of what New Yorkers love to eat.
New York City is one of the culinary capitals of the world. Our food is worldly and diverse, with fascinating histories.
"Food in New York: Bigger Than the Plate" invites people to take a bite of the Big Apple.
Self-described foodie Penelope Wyllie was there with her mother, Judith Favor. They learned how long before the pizza slice, the bacon-egg-and-cheese and hot dog, New Yorkers loved the oyster. It was historically the city's top treat because oysters were once plentiful.
"This is a beautiful way to display oysters, but I don't think they'd hit the plate. They're going straight in my mouth," Wyllie said.
New Yorkers literally loved oysters to death, explained Monxo Lopez, the historian who helped curate the exhibit.
"By the late 1800s, we had overfished them, we polluted the waters," Lopez told CBS2's Dave Carlin.
A diorama illustrates a city food market that ran from 1699 until the 1800s.
From the get-go until now, meat is what dominates the typical New Yorker's diet, but the meat-free options on display were more to Favor's liking.
"I like the arrangement of beans. I'm a vegan, so I eat a lot of beans," she said.
The mother and daughter said they were most impressed by the centerpiece of the exhibit titled "Biosphere," illustrating a structural ecosystem allowing us to grow native plants in saltwater.
"Opens up a lot of possibilities as far as crops," Wyllie said.
The exhibit also includes a very special collection of photographs celebrating nourishers. That area of the show is a thank you to food service workers in our neighborhoods, including the chefs who nourish us.
Room for dessert? How about piraguas, or shaved ice, delivered in style?
"And delicious and refreshing on a hot day," Wyllie said. "I'm hungry. I'm totally hungry."
They made beeline from the exhibit to a restaurant table -- food history in their brains, and food, the real thing, in their bellies.
The exhibit is on view at the Museum of the City of New York until September 2023. For more information, click here.