Inside the British Museum... of Food!

Reporting rather belatedly on a great little museum - it’s open till “early 2016” - if you have have a chance, go and check it out!

I’d stumbled upon an article about the forthcoming opening of a new British Museum of Food, and had waited with bated breath for the big day. So after ambling through wonderful Borough Market (more about that in another post very soon) and looking at all the fabulous stalls selling great food, I popped along to the museum, located in a former banana warehouse. It’s been set up by Bompas and Parr. They describe the museum as the world’s first cultural institution entirely devoted to the history, evolution, science, sociology and art of food.

I didn’t really know quite what to expect, but I opened my mind, paid my £5 and stepped straight into Be the Bolus: the Peristalsis Experience. I sat myself down in one of the massage chairs, put on the headphones provided and got ready to enjoy the ride. It was soon clear why the museum’s motto is “From field to table, mouth…and beyond” - Bompas and Parr take you on a digital journey into the body, filmed using a surgical pill-cam (this was new to me) to show you what happens as our food makes its along the alimentary canal form the mouth into the stomach and intestines. Sounds a bit gross, but it’s actually fascinating. It reminded me of one of my daughter’s lift the flap books about the body that she read endlessly when she was little. And the massage chair was extraordinary - vigorous but strangely pleasant!

I resisted the temptation to stay put and go round again, instead making my way into Choco-Phonica. This is a collection of four pods, a bit like voting booths. But so much more exciting - in each pod was a little bowl of chocolate pieces. Guests are invited to taste the chocolate, while listening to a different soundtrack in each pod, some with music, some with voices and other apparently random sounds. There is some actual voting to be done, with forms asking you to assess the sweetness/bitterness and the creaminess of each of the chocolates and to pick an overall favourite. I gave my vote for one of the creamier ones, although they were all rather lovely.

And to my confusion and then delight, as I exited the fourth pod, I was asked if I was “one of the bloggers”. I explained that I am a food blogger, but confessed that I hadn’t come officially in that capacity. They didn’t seem to mind, gave me a very large cocktail (English Country Garden) and invited me to join a tour of the museum, hosted by Sam Bompas, who explained a little about how the museum came into being and what it aims to do, namely persuading people to consider what they eat, spread knowledge about nutrition and health and to appreciate food’s role in culture.

The cocktail may have slowed me down a little, but I did stroll upstairs to have a look at the British Menu archive, a display of just a small selection of the menus collected by Bompas and Parr. There are new ones and old, going back to Victorian times, and giving a fascinating insight into how dining has evolved over the years.

Finally, I ventured into The Butterfly Effect - a fully functioning butterfly house devoted to the celebration of the unsung heroes of pollination. It’s a hothouse filled with tropical plants and the most beautiful butterflies. The point being that, without pollination, we’ll have no crops. It’s a bit unnerving when they land on you, but this astonishing little room does make you appreciate the important role they play for us humans. It’s not all about the bees, it turns out.

There’s also lots of great artwork around the place, food as art being the inevitable theme of this Atelier of Flavour.

It’s a wonderful place and it’s only there temporarily (although Bompas and Parr are working on that) - if you like food, you’ll LOVE this museum.

It’s at 1 Cathedral Street, London, SE1 9DE. You can get tickets online in advance or you can just rock up there. I can’t promise you’ll be handed a large cocktail, but it’s definitely worth a visit.