The bequest will establish a permanent curator of food and wine history. The $4 million gift from Warren and Barbara Winiarski, and the Winiarski Family Foundation, of Napa, Calif., comes 25 years after the Winiarskis provided initial funding for the museum to launch a research and collecting initiative on the history of American wine and winemaking.
That initiative has expanded to become the widely recognized “American Food History Project,” the museum’s dynamic, transdisciplinary program that, in concert with diverse audiences and partners, explores American history through the all-encompassing lens of food.
The new position will be known as the “Winiarski Curator of Food and Wine History” and will ensure the continuation of the museum’s robust research, collecting, exhibition and programming activities in food and beverage history.
To support the curatorial position with funding for ongoing research, collecting and programming, the National Museum of American History is launching the “25 at 25 Initiative: Food Fund for the Future” to sustain the American Food History Project. With the goal of raising at least 25 gifts of $25,000 or more, the museum has secured a lead donation from the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. That gift commemorates another foundational milestone in the museum’s exploration of food history, the acquisition of Julia Child’s kitchen 20 years ago. The kitchen is central to the museum’s “Food: Transforming the American Table” exhibition.
The culmination of the museum’s 2021 food history offerings will be a hybrid fall event hosted by the museum Nov. 4 that will accompany the presentation of the 2021 Julia Child Award by the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. The museum and the foundation will release more details later this summer.
The 25 at 25 Initiative will also create new opportunities for the museum to work with individuals and communities on documenting, collecting and presenting food history to wider audiences. The museum’s “Kitchen Cabinet,” composed of chefs, food historians, authors, and other industry professionals, advises the museum’s Food and Wine History Project.