Food

Food

Food is essential to our sense of place and our sense of self, but today—as fast food nation meets the slow food movement and eating locally collides with on-demand arugula—our food habits are shifting. Food examines and imagines these changes, with projects by writers and artists that explore the cultural and emotional resonance of food, from the “everyday Dada” of mashed potatoes and Jell-O to the rocket science of food eaten by astronauts in space.

“Alphabet City is a unique entity, acclaimed for its cross-disciplinary approach to contemporary issues.”
—Canadian Art

Introduction to ‘Food’

By John Knechtel

This photograph was taken by my father, Kent Knechtel, in 1946 from the top of the Canada Starch Company corn silo at its plant in Cardinal, Ontario. Cardinal, which sits on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River downstream from Kingston, is close enough to New York State that one can walk right across the Canada-US border midriver when the ice is thick. My father’s camera looks down on two “canallers” (the Humberdoc and the Farrandoc, built in 1937 and 1929), ships designed to fit snugly through the tightest lock in the St. Lawrence canal system (No. 17 at Cornwall), which was completed in 1901 after two centuries of development.

Read the Introduction