Museum of Food and Drink

You are so very warmly invited to join us in DUMBO for some more fabulous May programming! This Thursday at MOFAD! 🍅 The Talisman of Happiness: Ada Boni and Cooking the Italian Way with Michael Szczerban and Deb Perelman Tuesday, May 14 7 - 9 PM Book talk, (A LOT OF) salumi courtesy of @eatframani , and refreshments from @viacarota . Join us for a special evening celebrating one of Italy’s most influential culinary texts, The Talisman of Happiness by Ada Boni with @smittenkitchen founder Deb Perelman and @voraciousbooks publisher @foreverbeard —who spent a decade bringing this landmark work to English! Next week at MOFAD! 🌀Women of Color Rewriting Our Food Stories: Transnational and Intersectional Feminist Food Studies with With Dr. Farha Ternikar, Janaka Bowman Lewis, Ph.D., Armani Stewart, and Willa Zhen, PH.D Tuesday, May 19 7 - 9 PM Book talk and refreshments Join us for an early celebration of Culiniaria: Women of Color Rewriting Our Food Stories, a dynamic entry in the evolving field of feminist food studies. Editors and professors @farha_bt and @janakab will be in conversation with contributor Armani Stewart and moderator @drwillazhen to discuss how gender, race, class, geography, and religion all shape the ways women use food.
 Also next week at MOFAD! 🍯 MOFAD Book Club: Like Wafers in Honey with Leah Eskin and Sari Kamin Wednesday, May 20 7 - 9 PM Book talk, bites and discussion Join us for a MOFAD book club event as we discuss @leah.eskin 's new novel, Like Wafers in Honey, which was inspired by the life and recipes of Edda Servi Machlin, joined by @sarikamin to discuss the process of converting Machlin’s recipes for the modern cook all while showing how memory, food, and storytelling can resist erasure. And we're wrapping May with a bang! 🥃 Drunk Black History: Street Food Edition Thursday, May 28
7 - 9 PM Comedy + refreshments The critically acclaimed Drunk Black History show returns to MOFAD! Join comedian @frodo_blackins for this special edition of @officialdrunkblackhistory exploring Black street food traditions and entrepreneurs. Tickets include access to our exhibition, Street Food City. More info + tickets: 🔗 in bio.

🌀 Next week at MOFAD! 🌀 Women of Color Rewriting Our Food Stories: Transnational and Intersectional Feminist Food Studies with With Dr. Farha Ternikar, Janaka Bowman Lewis, Ph.D., Armani Stewart, and Willa Zhen, PH.D Tuesday, May 19 7 - 9 PM Book talk and refreshments Join us for an early celebration of Culiniaria: Women of Color Rewriting Our Food Stories, a dynamic entry in the evolving field of feminist food studies. Editors and professors @farha_bt and @janakab will be in conversation with contributor Armani Stewart and moderator @drwillazhen to discuss how gender, race, class, geography, and religion all shape the ways women use food. "We need this volume in the lexicon of food studies research and analysis. It challenges us to think differently—not just about food but about the connectedness of food. Food and wellness; food and social care; food and caste, religion, and apartheid; food, dance, and performance; food and modern language, media, and communication; food journalism; and food and the performances of joy. This is an exciting volume because it includes all these vantage points and an array of methods and methodologies to advance these narratives." — From the foreword by Psyche Williams-Forson 🌀 Copies of Culiniaria: Women of Color Rewriting Our Food Stories available for pre-sale via @kalnyc ! As always, ticket holders have access to our newest exhibition, Street Food City ahead of the program from 6-7pm. See y’all soon! Link to tickets in bio! Click: MOFAD Programs 🌀🌀🌀

🍯 Next week at MOFAD! 🍯 MOFAD Book Club: Like Wafers in Honey with Leah Eskin and Sari Kamin Wednesday, May 20 7 - 9 PM Book talk, pickle tasting, and discussion Join us for a MOFAD book club event as we discuss Leah Eskin’s new novel, Like Wafers in Honey, which was inspired by the life and recipes of Edda Servi Machlin. Machlin’s important cookbook The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews (along with its sequels) offers the compelling story of a vanished community — Machlin's family, along with the other Jewish townspeople of Pitigliano, known as Little Jerusalem, fled during World War II. @leah.eskin will be joined by @sarikamin to discuss the process of converting Machlin’s recipes for the modern cook all while showing how memory, food, and storytelling can resist erasure. Copies of Like Wafers in Honey are available for pre-sale via @kalnyc ! As always, ticket holders have access to our newest exhibition, Street Food City ahead of the program from 6-7pm. See y’all soon! Link to tickets in bio! Click: MOFAD Programs 🍯 🍯 🍯

In case you missed our latest event with Michael Szczerban of @voraciousbooks , check out the latest episode of Radio MOFAD! Hear Michael talk with Bernadette and Ivan about his latest project: resurrecting the most iconic Italian cookbook of all time, The Talisman of Happiness, written by Ada Boni in 1929 and finally presented in English in full. Link in bio! 📻🎙️🎧

🗣️ Extra, extra! Drunk Black History returns to MOFAD with a special Street Food Edition! 🥃 Drunk Black History: Street Food Edition Thursday, May 28
 7 - 9 PM Comedy + refreshments! The critically acclaimed Drunk Black History show returns to MOFAD! Join comedian @frodo_blackins (New York Comedy Festival) for a one-of-a-kind, booze-fueled deep dive into the delicious side of Black history. This special edition of @officialdrunkblackhistory will explore Black street food traditions and entrepreneurs. This isn’t your typical history lesson. Expect laughs, unexpected twists, and fascinating facts about how Black culture has shaped what we eat and drink on the streets today. All guests must be 21 years of age or older. Tickets include access to Street Food City from 6 to 7 PM and two (2) drink tickets. More info + tickets: 🔗 in bio.

Museum of Food and Drink Museo de la Comida y la Bebida 55 Water Street, 2nd Flr Brooklyn, NY, 11201. Open until August 2, 2026 Thursday - Sunday 12PM - 6PM LA CIUDAD DE LA COMIDA CALLEJERA ¿Se imagina la ciudad de Nueva York sin comida callejera? Durante siglos, los emprendedores inmigrantes de la comida callejera han moldeado el sabor y la cultura de la ciudad, un *hot dog* y un plato *halal* a la vez. «La ciudad de la comida callejera» celebra los negocios gastronómicos más pequeños de la urbe, revelando el mundo oculto detrás del emblemático carrito de comida neoyorquino; asimismo, reconoce la manera en que los vendedores ambulantes —y los alimentos que ofrecían— han configurado las tradiciones culinarias de la ciudad, y traza un recorrido desde los desafíos que enfrentaron los emprendedores del pasado hasta la lucha actual por los derechos de los vendedores. ¡Gracias por seguirnos y compartir! ¡Para estar bien informados los invitamos a que sigan nuestras redes sociales Instagram /latinosennuevayorkoficial/ Tik Tok /@latinosennuevayork X /latinosenny YouTube /@LatinosenNuevaYork Siga nuestra página latinosennuevayork.blogspot.com

In case you missed our event with @saengdouangdara , check out our latest episode of Radio MOFAD! Saeng talks to our co-host Bernadette Cura about embracing the funk of Lao culture and cooking, his upbringing in Wisconsin, and his love of pandan water. Link in bio 🎙️📻🎧

Street food vendors are woven into the fabric of New York City.   Yet, their contributions in shaping the NYC’s gastronomy—not to mention the daily grind of nourishing people with flavorful and economical food—have often gone overlooked.   In a 19th-century brick warehouse turned food hall in Brooklyn, visitors can find a museum experience that sheds light on how vendors fought for their place in the city’s landscape.   The Museum of Food and Drink (@mofad ) operates on the core tenet that food is culture.   Its latest exhibition, “Street Food City,” brought together scholars, chefs, activists, farmers, and entrepreneurs to tell the story of street food.   Selling food on the streets of NYC dates back to the 1600s, when people turned strollers, baskets, and carriages into makeshift food carts. With every wave of immigration, new food cultures were introduced.   Nowadays, 96% of NYC street food vendors are immigrants, according to the Immigration Research Initiative. Nearly half are women, though many mainly cook and sell for their own communities.   “Many of New York’s most iconic foods (think hot dogs, halal plates, and pretzels) got their start on Gotham’s streets,” says Jesica Ann Vaughn, MOFAD curatorial fellow. “The exhibition is a celebration of the hard work it takes to carve out a slice of the American Dream.”   The exhibition pays homage to the entrepreneurs who weathered changing laws and fought to decriminalize street vending and advocate for vendors’ rights.   Visitors learn how the business behind food carts often involves high permit fees and long waiting lists for licenses—all while owners work to sustain a livelihood in one of the most expensive cities in the country.   Visit “Street Food City,” on view at the Museum of Food and Drink, to learn how street food entrepreneurs have made it work for centuries.   Find out more at our link in bio.   🎥 Chuy Gutierrez (@chuyftw ) for MOFAD

👨🏽‍🍳What’s cookin’??? 🥘We enjoyed our recent visit to @mofad for a fabulous conversation with our host @ernied and author Adrian Miller, aka the @soulfoodscholar and Deborah Chang. 🥢Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History: Cooking to the President’s Taste” is more than a cookbook. It pays homage to the little known stories of the many Asian chefs and kitchen staff who cooked for the presidents. 🔗For more tap link in our bio to watch our 2025 interview.

🍅 Tonight at MOFAD! 🍅 The Talisman of Happiness: Ada Boni and Cooking the Italian Way with Michael Szczerban and Deb Perelman Tuesday, May 14 7 - 9 PM Book talk, tasting, and refreshments Join us for a special evening celebrating one of Italy’s most influential culinary texts, The Talisman of Happiness by Ada Boni. Bestselling cookbook author, podcast host, and @smittenkitchen founder @debperelman and @voraciousbooks publisher @foreverbeard —who spent a decade bringing this landmark work to English—will explore Boni’s legacy and relevance to cooks today. First published a century ago, The Talisman of Happiness is the cornerstone of Italian home cooking, the mother of all Italian cookbooks to come. Famously, the book taught Marcella Hazan how to cook, shaping generations of Italian cooks in America. Yet Boni’s emphasis on seasonality, thrift, and respect for ingredients is strikingly modern. Amid weeknight time crunches, tight budgets, and endless recipes online, The Talisman of Happiness is a reminder that cooking should be less about perfection and more about pleasure. Perelman and Szczerban will discuss the journey of bringing this classic to the US, the world Boni captured, and how her lessons resonate today. This event offers a rich look at a pioneering woman in food, and how culinary history is preserved, translated, and brought to life for new audiences. With salumi courtesy of @eatframani . Copies of The Talisman of Happiness: The Most Iconic Italian Cookbook Ever Written available for pre-purchase via @kalnyc ! As always, ticket holders have access to our newest exhibition, Street Food City ahead of the program from 6-7pm. See y’all soon! Link to tickets in bio! Click: MOFAD Programs 🍅 🍅 🍅

🍜 This week at the Museum of Food and Drink! 🍜
 From Refugee Roots to The Lao Kitchen with Saeng Douangdara and Jujubee Friday, May 1 7 - 9 PM Book talk and tasting 🚨We are SOLD OUT of in-person tickets!🚨
BUT We still have virtual tickets for the livestream available! Join MOFAD for an evening celebrating Lao food, culture, and history as we host @saengdouangdara , founder of Saeng’s Kitchen and author of The Lao Kitchen. Saeng will be in conversation with @jujubeeonline , a Lao American drag queen, reality television personality, and recording artist. Together, they will explore the personal journey behind the book, the resilience rooted in Lao refugee stories, and how food can be a joyful expression of one’s truest self. Bites courtesy of @hugesannyc and sips courtesy of our friends @theluckyoxco . Big shout out to our partner bookseller @kalnyc  for supplying copies of The Lao Kitchen: Lao Flavors and Stories Told Through Family Recipes. As always, ticket holders have access to our newest exhibition, Street Food City ahead of each program from 6-7pm. Get there early to secure your seat!! See y’all soon! Link to VIRTUAL tickets in bio! Click: MOFAD Programs 🍜🍜🍜

Still going through the incredible shots from Ceres X 🌿 We’re so grateful we returned to MOFAD’s space for such a special evening of film, food, and conversation with @krishnendu_ray , @sarahkkhan , and @esnx36 . We screened Arepas en Bici (preview), following @arepasenbici as he cycles through San Francisco sharing Venezuelan traditions; Birria Landia, a look into the Moreno brothers’ journey bringing Puebla’s flavors to Queens; and Yantar (Eat) by @betursus2 , where Ana reflects on how what we eat shapes who we are. From NYC to California and beyond, these stories celebrated migration, memory, and the ways food keeps us connected to home. 👉 Swipe to catch a glimpse of the evening 📸 @taylor.danielle