Taste of Art
Taste of Art weaves culture and history together by pairing cuisine and recipes from the local SouthSide Bethlehem community with works of art from LUAG’s permanent collection. Through interactive lectures, DIY- at-home tastings, storytelling, and discussion, individuals of all ages and backgrounds will experience the intersection of art, cultural heritage, and cuisine, and as a result, will strengthen their cultural understanding, well-being, and connection to their community. Interactive lectures and cooking demos are offered in partnership with Maite Gomez-Rejon of ArtBites: Cooking Art History.
Escape the winter cold as we travel across the globe to the tropics of Malaysia for our first kick-off program in partnership with Jenny's Kuali Restaurant in South Bethlehem. We will explore the exotic flavors and spices that reflect the diverse and complex cuisine from this region, as well as the tropical environment and ecosystem that inhabits and surrounds the peninsula. The featured recipe from Jenny's Kuali's cookbook will be Tumeric Pancakes, paired with a Jungle Bird cocktail which was first created in Malaysia.
Malaysia is part of the Coral Triangle, home to more than 75% of the world's coral species. Despite being ecologically and economically important to the region, coral reefs are under increasing threats from human pressures such as overfishing, pollution, tourism, and coastal development. They also face natural threats from climate change and global warming. Last fall Lehigh University Art Galleries hosted the Crochet Coral Reef exhibition by Margaret and Christine Wertheim and the Institute for Figuring. The exhibition and international project respond to the environmental crisis of global warming and the escalating problem of oceanic plastic trash by highlighting not only the damage humans do to the earth’s ecology but also our power for positive action. As a creative response to the exhibition community members created a Lehigh Satelite Reef which is now part of the LUAG collection.
A limited number of FREE kits will be available for pick-up at LUAG’s Main Galleries in Zoellner Arts Center or our restaurant partner locations. Participants in the program will be entered into a contest to win a gift basket featuring Jenny's Vegan Cookbook, famous garlic, and chili sauces, and a gift certificate for dine-in or take-out.
Download the recipe card for this program below.
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Maite Gomez-Rejón is the founder of ArtBites. She has dedicated her career to exploring the nexus of art and culinary history through lectures, cooking classes, and tastings presented in museums across the country and through videos on her YouTube channel – ArtBites: Cooking Art History. Maite has a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Grande Diplome from the French Culinary Institute in New York City. She has been a guest on the Today Show, featured in Food & Wine magazine, and interviewed on KCRW's Good Food and NPR's Splendid Table. She is also a contributor to Life & Thyme, Eaten Magazine, Gastro Obscura, and other publications. Her essay, “Mexico's Early Cookbooks,” appears in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History.
