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Umami Festival Urges Artists to Play With Their Food
By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 10, 2008
Modified Apr 11, 2008
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By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 10, 2008
Modified Apr 11, 2008
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Photo of Orphic Memory Sausage by Matthew Weinreb 2008, printed with permission from the artists: Mimi Oka and Doug Fitch.
Lots of chefs consider their food to be art, but few artists see their art as food. A new festival called Umami – a Japanese word meaning "savory" or "meaty" – is trying to change all that. The ten day smorgasbord, which started Tuesday, spotlights artists and performers who use food as a medium, and also features culinary events ranging from “water tastings” to a weekend workshop for kids called “Paint With Your Food.” Just what every parent needs!
On Tuesday and Wednesday night, visitors to the kick-off performance, Orphic Memory Sausage, were asked to bring objects associated with a memory they wanted to transform into sausage – artists Mimi Oka and Doug Fitch then proceeded to pulverize all the mementos, mixing all of it into a pulp that was stuffed into pig intestines and hung to dry.
Though the sausage fest is over, tomorrow night offers something like a deranged cross between Gallagher and the Swedish Chef: Musique a'la Mode, a concert in which all the instruments are derived from kitchen products like pots, pans, bowls, cutlery, food, and liquids. And on Monday afternoon Corby Kummer, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly leads a panel discussion on the topic of “Experimental Cuisine” with chef Will Goldfarb (Desert Studio, Picnick), chef Heather Carlucci (owner, Lassi) and others.
Umami culminates next Thursday and Friday with Cookies, “a performance based around words derived from the linguistic milieu of food and cooking and beginning with the letters that make up the term PERFORMANCE.” Sounds like the sort of thing that would be greatly enhanced by hitting up the wine tasting that precedes it.
Most events take place at Roulette, located at 20 Greene St., between Grand and Canal. All details here.
Tagged
art
cookies
experimental cuisine
festival
food
new york city
performance
soho
umami
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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