Munroe Dairy's popular cow truck. Milk still gets delivered to your door today in glass containers if you want, along with food from other local businesses and farmers. Munroe delivers to our home once a week and I just love it! This mini version was made for the owner's children which they could actually drive.
The recipe for Rhode Island's famous Del's Lemonade originated in Italy in the 1840s.
Autocrat coffee syrup has been made by a family owned business since 1895. Coffee Milk, like chocolate milk but made with coffee syrup, is typically made with Autocrat's coffee syrup and is so popular that it became Rhode Island's official State Drink in 1993.
Ahhh, Rhode Island's Coffee Cabinet. No, it's not a cabinet painted in a mocha shade of brown. It's a coffee flavored milkshake made with ice cream and, in Rhode Island, many prefer to make it with Autocrat coffee syrup. I'm not sure where the name originated from because I found two different stories: 1) Coffee Cabinet is a name made popular by creative diner and drugstore operators, and 2) it's called a cabinet because the originator kept the blender in a cabinet.
Kenyon's Grist Mill, in Usquepaugh, Rhode Island, still grinds the finest corn meal, meals, and flours from an 1886 building and from the same location where they started back in 1696.
Rhode Island Johnnycakes have a long history in Rhode Island, dating back to the pilgrims. The recipe is basic, but when eaten with butter and maple syrup, it's oh so good. If you're looking for a recipe, check out Kenyon's Grist Mill or my Rhode Island Johnnycake post.
And, of course, Rhode Island being the ocean state, we love our seafood and have our unique seafood dishes like stuffies (quahogs with bread stuffing), clams casino (a popular Rhode Island appetizer), clam cakes (similar to fritters) and clam bakes.
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| Aunt Carrie's, www.auntcarriesri, is still in Narragansett today |
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| A thing of the past. Large shore dinner halls were popular family style seafood restaurants at Crescent Park and Rocky Point amusement parks. |
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| George's Of Galilee, www.georgesofgalilee.com, overlooks Block Island Sound and serves fresh seafood right from the docks. |
A very popular Woonsocket food is the dynamite. A dynamite is a sandwich like a Sloppy Joe except it's a spicy meat sauce with tomatoes, onions and peppers and served in a "torpedo" roll. Dynamites were always made in big batches to feed large crowds at family events, outings, and festivals and still are today.
"I'll have mine all the way" is what I'd say when I ordered a New York System Weiner. The dogs are boiled and the buns are steamed. Dressing these weiners starts with a generous amount of a spicy meat sauce, laying a long squirt of mustard over the top, loading on chopped onions and several shakes of celery salt. Ordering "all the way" means add all these toppings. If you're hungry for a weiner, check out Fork In The Rhode's NY System Weiner restaurant review for a place to eat.
More!
After the Rhode Island section, we viewed many interesting culinary items. There's a vast assortment of culinary tools, photos, biographies, and much more that I didn't photograph.
Here are photos of some of the museum's collections.
This exhibit is called Food On The Move. It's about the development of food as the travel industry grew in the United States. And, again, the collection is much larger than what I'm showing.
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| Food service on a train |
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| Food delivered to your car |
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| A ship's stove |
Pasta making machines. This sign is for the famous historic Italian Camille's restaurant located in Providence, Rhode Island.
Vintage books and ancient vessels
We got a sneak peek of the library. We tried to search for the oldest book. This wasn't it, but it's pretty old dating back to 1803! Speaking of old stuff, there's a room full of ancient food vessels. Because the items are on loan from private collectors, photography was restricted. And there's a very interesting food time line, photos and stories of archeological digs. What intrigued me about the archeological digs is how techniques are being used today to extract ingredients of foods that were stored in those vessels in order to recreate ancient recipes.
At the movies!
This beautiful vintage steam table was manufactured in Providence, Rhode Island, in the 1920's and was in the First Universalist Church of Woonsocket. It was recently used in the filming of "Mildred Pierce" an HBO mini-series starring Kate Winslet.
Hope you enjoyed your "visit"
I didn't want to reveal too much as to spoil the surprise if you get a chance to visit the museum.
Food competitions
This is the Country Fair to Culinary Olympics area. There are so many food competitions today and I never thought about the connection to country fairs.
Diners
I'll have a "mug of murk, some elephant dandruff and two dots and a dash". That's diner slang from the museum's brochure. The museum has a big section about diners and I enjoyed hearing the curator's stories. Richard started his very impressive and varied culinary career as a diner architecture consultant and through his large collection he provided the musuem with many diner artifacts.
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| Children can come and act out in this mini diner |
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| Historical diner installation |
Vintage books and ancient vessels
We got a sneak peek of the library. We tried to search for the oldest book. This wasn't it, but it's pretty old dating back to 1803! Speaking of old stuff, there's a room full of ancient food vessels. Because the items are on loan from private collectors, photography was restricted. And there's a very interesting food time line, photos and stories of archeological digs. What intrigued me about the archeological digs is how techniques are being used today to extract ingredients of foods that were stored in those vessels in order to recreate ancient recipes.
At the movies!
This beautiful vintage steam table was manufactured in Providence, Rhode Island, in the 1920's and was in the First Universalist Church of Woonsocket. It was recently used in the filming of "Mildred Pierce" an HBO mini-series starring Kate Winslet.
Hope you enjoyed your "visit"
I didn't want to reveal too much as to spoil the surprise if you get a chance to visit the museum.
An Upcoming Event
On May 5, Mark Bittman is visiting the musuem with proceeds to benefit the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and he'll be signing his book "Food Matters". Auction items are available to purchase even if you're not going. Visit RI Community Food Bank for more information.
Culinary Arts Museum Blog: http://culinaryartsmuseum.blogspot.com/
Photography was permitted and content of this post was approved.Culinary Arts Museum Blog: http://culinaryartsmuseum.blogspot.com/
