Why do so many Americans drive for miles each autumn to buy a vegetable that they are unlikely to eat? While most people around the world eat pumpkin throughout the year, North Americans reserve it for holiday pies and other desserts that celebrate the harvest season and the rural past. They decorate the front of their houses with pumpkins every autumn and welcome Halloween trick-or-treaters with elaborately carved jack-o’-lanterns. Towns hold annual pumpkin festivals featuring giant pumpkins and carving contests, even though few have any historic ties to the crop.

Ethnographer Marcia Stegath Dorr traveled to the Sultanate of Oman in the 1980s and encountered a timeless culture virtually unknown to the rest of the world. Join her to learn about Oman’s kaleidoscopic food culture, from cosmopolitan souqs to desert camps, mountain terraces and coastal plantations – and encounter authentic traditional recipes along the way.

Glidden Pottery is a unique stoneware-bodied dinnerware and Artware that was produced in Alfred, New York from 1940 to 1957. This presentation by Margaret Carney will highlight the rich history and inspirational Glidden Pottery designs, glazes, and decorations. Part of the the IMoDD Unforgettable Dinnerware lecture series.

This event is in partnership with the International Museum of Dinnerware Design.

Are you interested in eating more plant-based foods (e.g., non-dairy milk or butter, eggless mayo, plant-based meat)? Attend a brief talk about how eating more plant-based is climate-friendly, beneficial to animals, and can improve your health. Sign-up for our 30-day pledge to eat more plant-based meals and receive a free bag of delicious, popular plant-based items. 

This event is in partnership with VegMichigan.

Are you interested in eating more plant-based foods (e.g., non-dairy milk or butter, eggless mayo, plant-based meat)? Attend a brief talk about how eating more plant-based is climate-friendly, beneficial to animals, and can improve your health. Sign up for VegMichigan's 30-day pledge to eat more plant-based meals and receive a free bag of delicious, popular plant-based items. 

This event is in partnership with VegMichigan.

Are you interested in eating more plant-based foods (e.g., non-dairy milk or butter, eggless mayo, plant-based meat)? Attend a brief talk about how eating more plant-based is climate-friendly, beneficial to animals, and can improve your health. Sign-up for our 30-day pledge to eat more plant-based meals and receive a free bag of delicious, popular plant-based items. 

Local Asian-American bakery owners Grace Han of Porch Bakery and Rachel Liu Martindale of Milk and Honey will lead a conversation and demonstration about Asian-American cooking and baking, touching on themes of process, community-building, and identity.

This event is presented as part of the 'We are here because you were there' exhibit at the A2AC Gallery, in co-sponsorship with the Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission.

The Gilded Age was defined by extremes of wealth and want, and those extremes played out dramatically in the ways Americans ate. For the elite, daily meals were extravagant and formal banquets became complicated rituals of luxury and intentional waste. While a wealthy minority feasted, many other Americans struggled to feed themselves, and hunger and misery were widespread among the rural poor and those in city slums.

Manitoga, located in Garrison, NY, is the former home and 75-acre woodland garden of American industrial designer Russel Wright and his wife Mary Einstein Wright. This tour, presented by executive director Allison Cross, will share how a creative and sensitive adaptive reuse of a modernist national historic landmark realized a long-time institutional goal to present the complete work of design and life-style visionaries Russel and Mary Wright to the public. This event is part of the International Museum of Dinnerware Design Unforgettable Dinnerware lecture series.

In this talk, ceramic artist David MacDonald will talk about how he got started in ceramics (pottery specifically) and what inspires him to continue to make vessels. The principle concern of his art is the articulation of the magnificence of the human spirit and a celebration of his African heritage. Part of the IMoDD Unforgettable Dinnerware Series.

David MacDonald has a BS from Hampton University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. He is a Professor Emeritus at Syracuse University where he taught for 37 years.