CSchley Blog 7, Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian

Collection Principles. The French Chef Julia Child’s kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in 2001. The online exhibit features information about Ms. Child’s kitchen in both text and flash format that appear to serve as a teaser for the actual Smithsonian exhibit, “Bon Appétit: Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian” which opened in Washington, D.C. in 2002. The text format lists selected objects from the kitchen under “View Selected Objects”, while “Explore the Kitchen” includes a list of facts about the kitchen and “Sample Stories” list 18 stories relating to the French Chef. In the text version, through the link at the bottom of the page for FAQs there is a description of when and how the kitchen was obtained by the Smithsonian, with additional links for a number of related topics such as how museum staff inventoried the kitchen, conducted the interview, packed and shipped the kitchen to Washington, processed the collection, and developed the actual exhibition. The text version of the online exhibit provides images of selected photographs of the actual exhibit kitchen with brief descriptions under the “Visiting the Museum” link at the bottom of the home page/text version.

The flash version requires a download of Adobe Flash Player and opens with an audio of Ms. Child’s in her well known staccato saying that “We are very proud indeed” to have donated her kitchen to the Smithsonian and welcoming you to share her kitchen in the exhibit . The flash version enables you to view selected kitchen exhibits in thumbnail images with accompanying descriptive text for such things as a fruit bowl, her Cordon blue diploma, blowtorch and the like. The “Explore the Kitchen” is a flash player that presents a 360 degree panoramic image view of the actual exhibit (which is apparently enclosed in Plexiglas at the Smithsonian) that you click at particular buttons to learn more. The 18 sample stories from the French Chef are grouped into five categories –Life, Love and Food; The French Chef; Cooking Lessons; Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom; and Julia’s Kitchen Stuff.

Object Characteristics. Because the site’s information is available on flash player or in text version there are different characteristics for the objects. Only in the text version could I open the links to the FAQs, Events, Share Your Thoughts, What’s Cooking, Visiting the Museum, Resources, and Credits items listed at the bottom of the Home page. Perhaps that was because my home computer could not handle the further add-in. The text version’s link to Visiting the Museum does provide jpeg images in varying pixels for a photo tour of the actual exhibition. In the flash player version, the selected objects are small thumbnail images that do not expand into very large images but do have “learn more” buttons that describe the image. The flash version’s 360 degree panoramic view in Explore the Kitchen enables you to click on various buttons in the kitchen to zoom into a fixed image with a brief comment about what you are seeing.

Metadata. Most of the descriptive metadata for the images is brief and either commentary or merely a description of what the object is. Other descriptive metadata as to origin and ownership of the photographic images, the various story and object images and the editors, curators, designers and website development is provided under the “Credits” link at the bottom of the homepage. There is a very good list of further resources under the “Resources” link on the homepage that list Books by Julia Child, About Julia Child and her kitchen, Public Television Series with Julia Child, references for American Food History, Web links, and a Children’s Bibliography (that includes cookbooks, non-fiction, fiction, and a related Website).

Intended Audience. This site is for potential visitors for the Smithsonian’s Julia Child Bon Appétit exhibit in Washington, D.C. for which this online exhibit is really a teaser for that actual exhibit. People who like to cook and who also want to know more about a cookbook’s author will only find this site disappointing because of the limited amount of information about Julia Child, the French Chef. A parent or teacher of children’s cooking might find good resources in the Children’s Bibliography section of the Resources link; but otherwise, this online site has very little for the scholar or student of the culinary arts, except perhaps the references for American Food History in the References link.