This month's museum pick...

Culinary Archives and Museum,
Johnson & Wales University

It's Little Rhode Island That Hosts The Biggest U.S. Culinary Museum

Eating and talking about good food, and traveling far to find it and learn about it inevitably raises the question, are there any museums devoted to the history of food and the culinary arts?

In the U.S., the answer is a surprising one: Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI, houses a culinary archives and museum that contains more than 500,000 items related to cooking and cuisine through the ages. The objects, amassed and donated to the university by the late Chicago chef Louis Szathmary, include spoons from ancient Egypt, China and Rome, cooking tools dating back 5,000 years, a gallery of great chefs through the ages, and documents, dinnerware, periodicals and recipes dating back up to hundreds of years.

The 21-year-old museum also houses a collection of culinary-related memorabilia from U.S. presidents, dubbed “The First Stomach Collection.”

Visits to the Culinary Archives & Museum require guided tours, usually led by student docents who are enrolled at Johnson & Wales University’s hospitality school.

— Patrick Totty