Tuesday Treasures

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November 2019 - Toronto ON

The Gardiner Museum is a museum dedicated to ceramic art in Toronto. It was founded by George and Helen Gardiner in 1984 to house their collection of ceramic art. It is located on Queen's Park just south of Bloor Street, opposite the Royal Ontario Museum.

Click on Gardiner or ROM in the tags below to see more of these museums.

There is a new exhibit at the Gardiner.

Food and dining were transformed in Europe during the age of Enlightenment by profound changes that still resonate today. What many of us eat, the way food is cooked, and how we dine continues to be influenced by radical changes that occurred in France from 1650 until the French Revolution in 1789.

Food Culture in the Age of Enlightenment is organized by the Gardiner Museum and curated by Meredith Chilton, C.M., Curator Emerita. Works of art and objects from major North American museums and private collections, as well as key pieces of contemporary ceramics and knitted art, will come together in a delectable feast for the senses designed by Opera Atelier’s Resident Set Designer, Gerard Gauci.

One of the great surprises in the exhibition Savour: Food Culture in the Age of Enlightened are these knitted objects by Madame Tricot. A work of art on their own, these trompe l'oeil pieces give visitors the opportunity to see how 18th century serving vessels may have been used.

On January 16, 1660, a French spy returning from a mission in Italy caused quite the sensation at Versailles when he presented Louis XIV with a basket of fresh peas in the dead of winter. Soon after, Louis XIV acquired the services of horticulturalist Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, who successfully expanded the growing season of many fruits and vegetables in the king's garden by carefully selecting seeds, using gloss cloches to protect tender young plants, and implementing enclosures and raised beds—methods familiar to many modern farmers and gardeners today!
 

Baking and cake decorating with instructions.

There were several statements made regarding slavery.

I watch a lot of TV cooking contests and was impressed with the new "cool innovative" ice creams they came up with. But obviously these "new" flavours have been around a long time!

Pineapples were all the rage in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Rare and expensive to grow, they quickly became a status symbol, with confectioners renting them out by the evening to the fashionable elite. For those who couldn’t afford the real deal, cooks often used pineapple-shaped moulds for jellied or iced desserts as a way to bring the essence of the coveted fruit to the dining table.
Would you try Parmesan-flavoured ice cream shaped like a pineapple?

In 18th century Europe, confectionary chefs delighted in making Instagram-worthy fruit and vegetable-shaped ice cream creations using a variety of moulds and unusual flavours. At a banquet in 1780, the Queen of Naples bit into a slice of cold turkey that turned out to be lemon ice!

Famed Italian adventurer and notorious womanizer, Giacomo Casanova, counted on two specific foods that heightened his sexual pleasure and those of his partners: oysters and egg whites. Neither were sexually stimulating on their own—rather, it was the way that Casanova ate them with his lovers that transformed them into aphrodisiacs.

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Diner a Deux is a contemporary piece basd on the late 1700s with a modern twist.

Check out these funky take on these 1700 tapestry chairs. Yes, a sundae!

Fries, anyone?

And a final reminder, to mind your P's and Q's!