Unplated: An Interview with Liz Williams
On leading an interdisciplinary life, from law to museums to podcasting and beyond
This conversation is part of the Unplated series, a collection of interviews with folks whose work intersects with food, but who work outside culinary spheres. My hope is that these conversations not only spark your curiosity, but help you think about how what you eat is connected to the world well beyond your plate.
Liz Williams is passionate about museums and food as a way to educate and connect, but her work goes far beyond these spaces. Here, we talk about her past well outside the world of food, and how that informs her perspective in cultural heritage and education today.
JS: I'd like to start off hearing a bit about your background. In your former life, you were a lawyer. How did you make the transition to studying food? And how does your legal background inform and expand your understanding of what and how we eat?
LW: I definitely did not know what I wanted to do when I decided to go to law school. So I transitioned to food and used my legal experience to write about food and legal issues and used the experience that I had amassed to teach restaurant law. I think that I used my law background for logical rigor. Here is me telling my story.
JS: Your family background is Sicilian, but you were born and raised in New Orleans. I can imagine your family meals must be something really special! How have both of those cultures shaped your identity, and your approach to understanding food?
LW: Of course, I could write about this forever and my new book is all about this. Nana's Creole Italian Table.
The short of it is that both cultures have a large food components. Food was everywhere and everything, but all of this was unspoken and not made explicit. There was no such thing as food on the go. Even school lunches were special. There was no escape from food being important and fascinating for me.
JS: You note that education is the thread that ties all your work together. What, to you, is the value of learning about food? And what lessons have you learned that may help others educate more effectively?
LW: Food is sustenance. It is love. It can be anything and everything. And because we all must eat, we are joined together by the entire world food chain. So anything we study can be seen through the lens of food. We should study food because it is fundamental to life and to our lives. But in addition to that, associating any subject with food makes it possible for us to identify with it. I believe that this makes many subjects more accessible than they might otherwise be, especially to some people.
But by any measure we should study and take seriously, anything that is so important to us individually and as a group.
JS: I love talking with cultural heritage professionals about how food intersects with their work, and since you wrote a book entitled Food and Museums you seem like the perfect person to ask about this! How does discussing/exhibiting/educating around food in museum spaces enrich the stories we're trying to tell? What benefits does food bring to the metaphorical table for museum professionals that other subjects don't?
LW: I didn't write Food and Museums, I only contributed a chapter to this book of essays. Nonetheless, I have opinions. As I said in the answer to the previous question, those things that we see in a museum that might not resonate with a person can be made relevant if it is examined through the food lens. If, for example, an exhibit about slavery in a history museum, makes you uncomfortable and makes you want to avoid it, talking about what enslaved people eat, how they took agency over their food - or not - might help a reluctant person see the human problems that had to be faced.
JS: Tell me about the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. What inspired you to open it? And what challenges or successes were most memorable about that process?
LW: I had come to love creating museums, new institutions. Since I loved food and was looking for a way to do something for myself, instead of carrying out the ideas of others, I decided that since there was no food museum in New Orleans, there needed to be one.
JS: You also have a podcast, Tip of the Tongue, that explores the intersection of cuisine and museums. What themes emerge across the subjects and guests you've covered on the podcast? What feels most inspiring or hopeful for the future of food and museums?
LW: My podcast has grown a bit since it was first defined. I think that there are so many crazy ideas that people in museums have about the dangers of food in museums that I just want to laugh. Today the podcast is more about ideas and food and not just museums and food. What is inspiring about the future? The fact that nonfood museums are finally realizing that whatever their goals or mission, food can add a new dimension.
JS: One thing I appreciate about your work is that you approach the understanding of food from multiple different angles (museums, education, writing, podcast, etc.) What can we learn about food, and about ourselves, by taking this interdisciplinary approach?
LW: I am not an academic, so I have not trained to dig a deep narrow hole. My law training makes me a generalist, considering all disciplines fair game to steal from. I see all ideas a playing cards. I can shuffle the deck. Redeal the hand. Add more cards. And then I can analyze ideas in new ways. We live life in an interdisciplinary way, so I think we should learn and think this way too.
Because food is central to everything.
JS: This is a huge question, so go as in depth (or not!) as you see fit: For folks outside the world of Southern food and food history, how would you explain the importance of understanding Southern food as a way to understand American food writ large?
And how does the movement of people and foodways in/through New Orleans help us flesh out that picture?
LW: This is another book, New Orleans: A Food Biography. New Orleans was founded by the French. The French thought that food was an art form - both eating and preparing it. We had no need to remain English, as the English colonies did, so we were more accepting of the ways of the Native Americans and the enslaved people. That made the food of New Orleans different. As a country once we were beyond the first generation of settlers, the connection to England faded and the people who continued to influence our food - especially enslaved people - had even more influence. It made us what we are.
You can find the Tip of the Tongue podcast at this link, and visit this link to learn about the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.