CAMBR I DGE ON A P L ATE E at, F e ast, Fa s t THIS MONTH, DR SUE BAILEY DISCOVERS A FRUIT WORTHY OF THE KING’S TABLE, WITH A 300-YEAR LINK TO CAMBRIDGE AND THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM
For the exhibition, he has created a European feasting table replete with swan and peacock pies, plus a Georgian confectioner’s workshop with a pineapple ice cream mould among the display. In addition, there is a Jacobean banquet featuring a beautiful sugar paste, tabletop version of the banqueting house at Melford Hall, including many disguised sugar foods, such as eggs and bacon, which draw in the senses to challenge the visitor to work out what is real and what is edible. Dr Victoria Avery, keeper of applied arts at The Fitzwilliam, says: “One of the aims is to reanimate the objects and art work in the collection, and take people on a journey as to how these were actually used – for example, in Jacobean or Elizabethan times. Ivan has worked creatively, but accurately to interpret these, and the displays are visually stunning”. Cultivation and consumption, together with the political, economic and cultural aspects of food, are linked to displays of preparation, equipment, early English cookery books, china, silverware and artistic inspiration.
s you pass by the spiky, bright- golden pineapple ends on the
black railings outside The Fitzwilliam Museum, you won’t find any bikes tethered to defile the historical site. But what is an enormous glowing yellow pineapple – lent by jelly makers Bompas & Parr – doing beside the somewhat affronted stone lions flanking the grand entrance to The Fitzwilliam Museum? This symbolic fruit of welcome heralds a stunning exhibition that focuses on food in all its forms and is a feast for the senses, which is running from the end of November until mid-April. The ambitious interdisciplinary event not only includes hidden and newly conserved treasures, but also focuses on the physicality of food. The creative elements linking the objects and art are the spectacular historical reconstructions, with food at the centre, produced by renowned food historian Ivan Day. Ivan is a scholar, broadcaster and writer, producing historic food recreations globally, as well as being a gifted professional cook and confectioner.
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