The Archives: Feeding the Masses

It turns out that the Chazen's archives are packed with detailed documentation of—yes, the art, but also the food that was served at the museum. Meet Me at the Chazen host Gianofer Fields digs into a 1996 reception menu and gets the Chazen staff involved. Listen at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts. Questions? Post them on Instagram at @meetme.chazen!

Meet Me at the Chazen is a podcast about the the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the largest collecting museum in the Big Ten. As we report what’s happening here, we'll also explore what it means to be an art museum at a public university and how art museums can help enrich and strengthen the communities they serve. Meet Me at the Chazen theme and incidental music is “Swinging at the Pluto Lounge,” composed and performed by Marvin Tate and friends, and is used with permission of the artists.

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Transcript

[computer-generated transcript]

 Gianofer Fields  00:01
 Meet Me at the Chazen. I'm your host, Gianofer Fields. For this episode, we reached into one of the many boxes in the Chazen archive and pulled out a catering menu for the exhibition Russian Jewish Artists in the Century of Change: 1890 to 1990. The event took place Saturday, March 23, 1996 from six to 8 p.m. For this episode, I asked my colleagues to recreate or revisit some of the items on the menu. But before we get cooking, I asked our current events coordinator, Jamie Prey to explain how she feeds the masses in the presence of priceless works of art.

Jamie Prey  00:48
 Because we are part of the University of Wisconsin, there's some policy about how we have to order catering, actually. So we are required to order our catering through Union Catering, which many people are very familiar with, Wisconsin union chairs and the terrace, and they also offer catering all around campus. So we have to reach out to them for ordering catering first, and then if they're not available, we have to reach out to University Housing to do catering next. So lots of policy that people probably don't realize that we have to go through with ordering our food.
 
 Gianofer Fields  01:23
 So wait a minute, Jamie. So then if there was a display, or we can even talk about James Wehn's works on paper, if he wanted to order or have an event surrounded with food that was represented in those works, unless, if it wasn't on the menu for the UW Catering or Housing you can't have it?
 
 Jamie Prey  01:44
 If they say, no, we can't do it or we're unavailable, then you're allowed to go to an outside caterer.
 
 Gianofer Fields  01:50
 But you have to go through them first.
 
 Jamie Prey  01:52
 Have to go through them first.
 
 Gianofer Fields  01:53
 And I'm guessing, because see the way my mind works, I would ask them for ridiculous stuff that I knew they couldn't make just so I could do what I wanted to do.
 
 Jamie Prey  02:00
 Well, there's a paper trail for everything.
 
 Gianofer Fields  02:02
 So you're saying I'd get busted, you might get busted.
 
 Jamie Prey  02:06
 Yes, if it's, you know, reasonable we have occasionally, you know, we had a really nice dinner here in November, and we wanted to make sure that it was very high end and elegant, and so they knew they could not provide the level of service that we wanted for this dinner. And then they were happy to say no.
 
 Gianofer Fields  02:24
 So I'm holding in my hand here a catering menu for an exhibition opening Russian Jewish Artists in the Century of Change: 1890 to 1990. And this event was on Saturday, March 23 in 1996 and I'm looking on this menu, which includes a spinach yogurt dip. And this is not everything, an eggplant caviar, baby red potatoes, Wisconsin cheeseburger. I think that's pretty universal. We can always get that. But then I see like creamy apple herring and Russian stuffed eggs with black olive tapenade garnish. I don't see that on the catering menu that you've provided.

Jamie Prey  03:06
 No, we don't have those options. We have occasionally asked them, Union Catering to do a custom menu for us, and they have been able to do that. But for the most part, it's a little more traditional the menu items that you're going to see from Union Catering than those.
 
 Gianofer Fields  03:22
 So then, if you had to create an event for, if you had to create a menu for this event, what do you think you'd pick off your current menu?
 
 Jamie Prey  03:34
 For this event?
 
 Gianofer Fields  03:35
 Yeah, for the Russian Jewish Artists in the Century of Change: 1890 to 1990? Let's go in the elevator and go upstairs.

Jamie Prey  03:46
 Good, you're giving me a second to think.
 
 Gianofer Fields  03:50
 We're gonna go upstairs.
 
 Jamie Prey  03:54
 Because I'm probably gonna order the same thing as I always order. Oh yeah.
 
 Gianofer Fields  04:06
 Okay, so now we're a little bit upstairs, so dude can do his thing down there. So then what would you so then if you had to create a menu for this event, what would you select? From our current menu?
 
 Jamie Prey  04:21
 From our current menu, I mean, typically, I like to offer a veggie and a cheese platter, because those are crowd pleasers and typically suitable for people who have any allergens or dietary restrictions, and then a couple of, like, more exciting items, such as a bruschetta platter, ooh, not great for those with the gluten free allergies. And then I usually do something from the stuffed selection. So the vegetable pot sticker is very popular. So is the maple-glazed, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts. Yeah, and then I always like to have a dessert item, so cookies or cupcakes or little cake bites as well. Chocolate-covered strawberries are a big hit. And then maybe one more item, like the filled tart shells and assortment of those. And that's about half the menu that they have here for us to select from. Now, if there was a reason that we wanted something special, let's say that there's an item featured in the exhibition, or the artist is coming from an exhibition, and it's really important to them that we have a certain item, we'll ask for something custom. But typically we don't ask for something custom, just to ask for it.
 
 Gianofer Fields  05:42
 So then, do you have to be concerned with, or I shouldn't say, do you have to be concerned with, is part of decision making, protecting the art, because I think chocolate covered strawberries, I don't want people roaming the galleries with chocolate on their hands.
 
 Jamie Prey  05:58
 There's only very few things that we don't allow in the museum, candy is really the big thing.
 
 Gianofer Fields  06:05
 Wait a minute, Jamie, I love candy. I know that kind of broke my heart a little bit. So why can't you have candy?
 
 Jamie Prey  06:10
 Suckers are like suckers, and those type of things are, you know, the chewables, the hard candies. Those are the things that our curators are worried about going into the exhibition, because they're easy to sneak in pockets, they get you sticky, whereas, if we're out here in the lobby where food and beverages are permitted, we have visitor services assistants who are making sure all that big food item can't go into the gallery.
 
 Gianofer Fields  06:35
 Because I've been to art galleries many, many, many times, and it, I call it the White Fare, because it's white wine, you know, it's bread ...
 
 Gianofer Fields  06:44
 That used to be the policy here.
 
 Gianofer Fields  06:45
 Really. Okay, so what was the policy?
 
 Jamie Prey  06:47
 No red wine, beer and white wine only. And that changed before I started here five years ago, but not, not that much longer than I've been here.
 
 Gianofer Fields  06:56
 So then, what were some of the other policies, besides candy and no red wine?
 
 Jamie Prey  07:01
 Those are the only ones they recall. I mean, have you seen pictures? We used to have carpeted walls, over in the Elvehjem.
 
 Gianofer Fields  07:10
 I've also seen photos where there were drinks on pedestals.
 
 Jamie Prey  07:15
 And plants. We used to have plants in the museum.
 
 Gianofer Fields  07:20
 It was a what? There's a photo, and I don't think, but no red wine, no red wine. There's a photo of a couple of professors putting somebody in the sarcophagus. These parties were wild.
 
 Jamie Prey  07:34
 Dang. We're here at the wrong time.
 
 Gianofer Fields  07:36
 I know! But yeah, you could see napkins on top of pedestals. You could see drinks next up next to sculptures. In the 70s, there was a wild, it was just the Wild West in here.
 
 Jamie Prey  07:50
 Yeah, well, we don't allow candles in the museum, but we are now allowed to have Sterno to keep our food warm. So Sternos are those burners that you light under the hot dishes and keep the food that way for a while, and we weren't allowed to have those either. But now in the lobby, we can have Sternos, so we can have hot food. So that's exciting. That's our own party.
 
 Gianofer Fields  08:11
 So then, Jamie, are you relegated to having things in the lobby? Can you move to other parts of the museum and offer fare, offer food, drinks?
 
 Jamie Prey  08:21
 We can be in the Chazen lobby or in Paige Court, and that's it. For food. People can bring food and drink into the auditorium. Now, if they buy it from the Chazen Café, but we don't serve food in the Auditorium, so maybe if somebody you know grabbed a coffee or a beer from the café, then they could bring it into the auditorium for a movie or a screening. I told you this would be boring.
 
 Gianofer Fields  08:44
 No, it's not boring at all, because I come from a food background, me too, and I've often wondered, like, what could I do with an outline? Like, I always think that I can be my most creative when I have an outline, when I have a set of rules that gives me an idea of what I could do, because, of course, I'm going to try to stretch them, sure. So what's been the event where you were just like, I cannot believe they let me serve this here? Or it was, I'm so glad we were able to do this, even though it took more work than I had managed to imagine that it would, because it's also cutlery, it's also it's all these things that go I mean, how do you prepare a crowd? What kind of cutlery co you offer? What kind? What do you do with creamy apple herring? What do you do with Russian stuffed eggs? What do you do with, you know, dry tartlets? Or the Tea Cake with an apricot spicy butter that's sticky.
 
 Jamie Prey  09:40
 It's sticky. Well, we don't let people touch the artwork.
 
 Gianofer Fields  09:43
 You don't let people touch the artwork. Letting, and people doing it anyway, are two different things.
 
 Jamie Prey  09:49
 Yeah, I guess that's a risk you have to take.
 
 Gianofer Fields  09:52
 I'm thinking about the Amanda McCavour exhibit [Suspended Landscapes] in Paige Court, where she had these long, flowing tapestries that were just so ethereal. Yeah. I mean, could you imagine somebody just walking through there with sticky fingers?

Jamie Prey  10:03
 Yes, I can. And she actually made one that was special, that was said, Please touch this one. I don't know if you saw that, but she had one over to the side, so I didn't see that when it got taken down. But I have to imagine, had some marks.
 
 Gianofer Fields  10:17
 I'm sure it did. Yeah, little bit of spicy tapenade, or something spicy.
 
 Jamie Prey  10:22
 Well, you asked me what, I'm so shocked we were able to get away with, but I will say the one thing that I found very funny, which was what I was not able to get away with. We had an event a few months ago where somebody asked if they could bring in a fire-blowing station and a sugar blowing station. And I said, no, I don't think that'll be permitted. But let me check with our team and see what we can make happen. They ended up saying yes to the fire blowing, glass making station, but no to the sugar blowing station. So that's how serious they are about the candy not being in the museum.
 
 Gianofer Fields  10:58
 I could blow up some glass and set, you know, things to 1,000 degrees but, God forbid I have a sucker in my pocket.
 
 Jamie Prey  11:05
 We got, it's the pests, and that was the biggest fear with the sucker. So not, not so much worrying about people touching the artwork, but they're being sugar blown sugar all over the floor of the lobby, and little critters saying, that sounds great, and coming in and then them potentially destroying the artwork, the bugs, the mice, things like that.
 
 Gianofer Fields  11:26
 But you could have fabric on the wall and plants in the ‘70s, not anymore, and the ‘70s, so is there a trend? Do you see that there's a trend to galleries and parties and how they're having events? Do you see that just as we've gone from the creamy apple herring to having stuffed mushroom caps or having bruschetta, do you see that there's a trend when it comes to celebrating and having events in museum and what's allowed and what's not allowed?
 
 Jamie Prey  11:55
 The biggest trend I notice, honestly, is the consideration for allergens and dietary restrictions. And so I do think people are being more thoughtful about having meat free options and gluten free options, and that's the biggest trend I'm seeing to make sure that all the guests can enjoy as  much of the food as possible.
 
 Gianofer Fields  12:16
 Okay, I think that's it. Is there anything else that you want to tell me?
 
 Jamie Prey  12:18
 No.
 
 Gianofer Fields  12:20
  "It was terrible." (laughs)

Jamie Prey  12:21
 It was terrible!

Gianofer Fields  12:22
 No it wasn't! Because from here we're gonna have, James is gonna make a treat, okay? And he's gonna put it in our little kitchen, and then I think he's gonna do it on a Monday...
 
 Jamie Prey  12:34
 They used to be fun, and now they're like, well, we don't wanna make sure, we wanna make sure that everyone can eat the food. But that is how it is now. And you see this menu I have to choose from.
 
 Gianofer Fields  12:41
 But it's a fun... I mean, come on, it made me hungry.
 
 Jamie Prey  12:44
 Yeah, it's fine, but it's just, you know, when you do five or 10 events a year, it gets a little it can get repetitive.
 
 Gianofer Fields  12:50
 Nacho bar. How can a nacho bar be repetitive? That's true. Come on, now there are meatballs...
 
 Jamie Prey  12:56
 I would do a nacho bar, every time, for me. With my house.
 
 Gianofer Fields  13:02
 I think that we should have, just opened it, look at this, fried chicken, chicken tenders. I like the ones that scrumptious. It's scrumptious on the scrumptious menu. 50. Ooh, is it? Let's talk about prices, because that's one thing I didn't think about you just we were looking at the scrumptious menu, and it has grilled lemon butter, shrimp of cocktail sauce, crab, rangoon, orange soy sauce, parmesan crusted goat cheese, goat cheese-stuffed peppadew, vegetable samosas. Oh, my God, that sounds so good. But you said for 50 people that was expensive?
 
 Jamie Prey  13:42
 Well, and you only get to pick two. So when you order the scrumptious, here's all the options under scrumptious. You don't get it all. You get to pick two from that list.
 
 Gianofer Fields  13:53
 And then how many people does that serve 50?
 
 Jamie Prey  13:55
 So you're looking at about $8 per person.
 
 Gianofer Fields  13:58
 To me, that doesn't seem bad. Is that bad?
 
 Jamie Prey  14:01
 Well, you're getting two bites per person, so it's not a meal, it's a handheld appetizer. That's maybe a two-biter, a three-biter. So it's not insignificant, considering all of our events are free, and this is a hosted meal.
 
 Gianofer Fields  14:18
 See, I think part of my mindset is that I think about all the work that goes in to do that. I think about the servers. I think about everybody that goes into it. So, eight bucks for two bites to be surrounded by art, and it's free. You got to pay for something. You know, our guests don't, their guests don't pay for something. Guests don't pay for anything. But what you're giving them, though, it's priceless. I mean, the idea that you could come to a museum, come to a free event that never happened at a free museum. At a free museum, get a bite to eat, wander around, probably meet some cool people. See, definitely see some cool art. I mean, meet an artist. See, there are all these things that we don't think about that. Go into this. So I would say your job is not boring, and I would say that what you're giving people is you're making memories. You're making memories for people. You’re… people are coming here on their first dates.
 
 Jamie Prey  15:13
 To be clear, I don't think my job is boring. I just think sometimes the menu gets boring.
 
 Gianofer Fields  15:18
 I'm glad you clarified that, Jamie, because I was, I was you were kind of making me it's like, don't talk that way about ....
 
 Jamie Prey  15:24
 I know, it's just I would like some more variety sometimes in the menu, that's all, but our we'll find the variety with the artwork and with the mingling and the music, we can find variety elsewhere.
 
 Gianofer Fields  15:38
 One of the items on the menu is creamy apple herring. I'm not familiar with the dish, but our communications specialist Tom Wilkowske is, or at least he thinks he is. Maybe his Dad is. We'll find out.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  15:58
 There's something that we're doing at the museum where we have a podcast, and the subject came up of the topic of herring. So in one of our history documents about the museum, they were serving food, they were serving a menu and it had herring on it, the person who's the reporter for the story said, ‘Boy, you sure made a face when I said herring.’ I made a face. I made a I made like a yuck face when, when she said herring, and she said, ‘Tell me about that story.’ And I said, ‘Well, I remember, I remember my dad always liked herring at the holidays.’ I think it was, was it Christmas? Dad, when you always got the herring out?
 
 Marilyn Wilkowske  16:41
 Christmas, dad, yeah, yeah. What?
 
 Tom Wilkowske  16:47
 I'm curious, when, when did you, where did that tradition come from? Of having herring, that pickled herring?
 
 Roger Wilkowske  16:58
 I don't remember herring, I remember having oysters for Sunday supper. But Christmas, we had herring?
 
 Tom Wilkowske  17:06
 Well one year, well, I just remember it. It was at, I think it was Christmas, or maybe another holiday, you got out some pickled herring, and you said, 'you should try this. This is really good.' And I, I just like, oh, it smelled horrible. And I couldn't ... do you remember this at all?
 
 Marge Wilkowske 17:23
 [?....] had it, Aunt Elsie had it, my grandparents, had it. They made it.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  17:30
 They made their own, huh?
 
 Marge Wilkowske  17:31
 They made their own. Uncle Paul on the farm, yeah, in the wintertime, we made it, well, that's not hard to do.
 
 Roger Wilkowske  17:43
 What kind of fish was it?
 
 Marge Wilkowske  17:45
 Herring.
 
 Roger Wilkowske  17:45
 Suckers? You don't buy herring, buy herring to pickle? Anyway ...
 
 Tom Wilkowske  17:52
 They probably pickled, probably pickled suckers, because that was what you had, or carp, or whatever?
 
 Marge Wilkowske  17:58
 Yeah.
 
 Roger Wilkowske  17:58
 My mother used to do that. Grandma, my mother, did it in big crocks, big four gallon crocks.
 
 Marge Wilkowske  18:07
 They had it at the stores too.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  18:11
 Pickled carp, Dad, is that right?
 
 Roger Wilkowske  18:14
 Well it had to be suckers. We normally didn't do carp. Carp we smoked.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  18:18
 Oh, right.
 
 Roger Wilkowske  18:19
 Smoked carp.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  18:21
 Yeah, interesting. So that wasn't associated with a holiday or anything. That was just kind of like what you do in the fall or winter. Is that right?
 
 Roger Wilkowske  18:31
 Yeah.
 
 Marge Wilkowske  18:32
 A treat, yeah.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  18:34
 Nice. There was a there was a historic event at the museum where, I think we had the we had some dignitaries from Scandinavia, and herring was on the menu. So anyway, I remembered it was herring, maybe it wasn't herring some kind of fish, though. Anyway,
 
 Roger Wilkowske  18:53
 So one time mom tried lutefisk, that's the only time, and that was around Christmas. Yeah, the one and only time we had it, the house just stunk for days ...
 
 Tom Wilkowske  19:16
 No more lutefisk.
 
 Marge Wilkowske  19:17
 We bought it. It was ready made.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  19:19
 Why do you think she wanted to try lutefisk?
 
 Marge Wilkowske  19:22
 Because we heard about it. And tried it.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  19:27
 Oh you, Mom, okay. You said, Mom, Dad, I thought you meant your mom, but you..
 
 Roger Wilkowske  19:32
 I mean Marge, Mom,
 
 Tom Wilkowske  19:33
 Yes, this Mom here. Gotcha, okay.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  19:37
 So you read all about it, you read all the hype about lutefisk around the holidays and ..
 
 Roger Wilkowske  19:42
 We had some Scandinavian friends, so I suppose that's what they were doing whatever.
 
 Marge Wilkowske  19:47
 They would have a regular dinner and invite the public to come. And they sell tickets if you cared to have it, and if you didn't, they had an alternate, a sandwich of some kind.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  20:01
 ... and hopefully they turn the ventilation fans on high.
 
 Roger Wilkowske  20:06
 Yeah!
 
 Gianofer Fields  20:12
 Just below creamy apple herring and the relish platter with assorted picked vegetables is cheese and or potato pierogi with horseradish cream sauce. Our project manager, Raichelle Johnson, loves to cook, so she decided to try her hand and recreate the pierogis.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  20:32
 So I'm gonna try making pierogis based on the information that we found in the archive about what was being served at one of the exhibitions. So I'm going to use my potato ricer, dumpling press, and a cookie cutter. Here's the star of our show today, a potato. I'm going to go ahead and set that to boil, and we'll go from there.
 
 Gianofer Fields  20:57
 Run me through your experience with pierogi, because you've never made them before, correct? Yeah, yeah, so, but were there elements within making the pierogies that you had experienced?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  21:08
 Yeah, making mashed potatoes.
 
 Gianofer Fields  21:12
 But you said you don't buy potatoes.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  21:14
 I don't buy potatoes often, because potatoes go bad and it's a hassle, but mostly because when I buy, I only buy, like, one potato at a time, and then I still forget that I own said potato. So I do actually enjoy potatoes and potato dishes a lot, but the the money is an issue when I forget that there's a potato down there, and then I remember, and it's like covered in eyes and has started growing, literally, that has happened to me several times. So now I just buy a potato when I want a potato.
 
 Gianofer Fields  21:53
 I used to do the same thing. And the way that I broke myself with that habit, it was that I would plant that potato and let it grow as a vine in my house, and I had so many potato vines, I was like, Okay, this is ridiculous. Like, you need to, like, just buy what you're going to use for that meal, and that's it, yeah.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  22:11
 And I'm at the risk of sounding like a total health nerd. I'm doing a really low-carb, high-protein diet, so having a bunch of potatoes in the house is not really helpful anyway.
 
 Gianofer Fields  22:23
 This is true. This is true. So now run me through the making of these pierogies. What? What? Talk to me about your process, how you approached it.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  22:33
 Okay, um, well, first off, I very rarely ever follow a recipe. Um, I so what I started with was poking around on the internet to see what people are doing and how they make them. I found some pretty interesting stuff and some records of like the oldest pierogi recipe currently known. It's in a a book. I actually have the book. I don't know where it is right now, though, but it's a very, very ancient book that has been translated into English, of course. But I started there, and I worked my way to Pinterest, where I poked around to see what other people were doing, what people were calling like grandma's, grandma's Polish pierogi recipe, or the best pierogi recipe, and, you know, stuff like that. And I determined from there what I needed. The only thing I actually had to buy was, in fact, the potato. I had everything else in the house already, and then I made pierogies.
 
 Gianofer Fields  23:38
 So what do you remember the date of this book, like, how far did this book go back?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  23:42
 Give me a second I can grab it. It's right here on the shelf. Okay, let's see. Let's see. So it is called, in English, is called A Collection of Dishes, I don't actually know what the, how to say the original title, but it's A Collection of Dishes, And I have the Volume One for version from Okay, so this was originally published in 1682.

Gianofer Fields  24:27
 What? Where did you find this book?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  24:31
 Um, archivist, slash librarian. Um, actually, I found it, and then I went to the UW library system and had it, uh, brought to UW Madison from another university. Um, yeah, so it's from the 17th century. It's a really, it's a beautiful book. It has so many pictures, and it's got a rich history in it. Uh. Along with the recipes and several like, sort of how to’s. I think it's really interesting, because when you think of like, the way recipes are written. Now it's like a half a cup of this, a third a cup of that. This is like, I'll read you this one. It's a meat dish with pistachios. ‘Take cleansed pigeon, chicken or veal, cut it into pieces, put in a in a pipkin.’ I'm not sure what that is. Enough fine butter, crushed pistachios, broth, pepper, Mason, salt, cover, and we're ready. Serve froth, hot...
 
 Gianofer Fields  25:40
 Good, that sounds good. I don't mind the pigeon.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  25:45
 I mean, it said chicken or veal. So, as you know, take your meat whichever where you want. So it's got sturgeon dishes. So the really good, like, sort of historical record of um cooking during the 17th century. So it's a Polish cookery book, and it at this time. I think it's still technically the oldest. Um, no,
 
 Gianofer Fields  26:10
 Can you find the pierogi recipe in there for me and read it?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  26:13
 Ah, yeah. Let me try. I actually don't remember where it is.
 
 Gianofer Fields  26:19
 So is there a table of content? And is there a table of content? Exactly?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  26:24
 So it is separated into chapters. Hold on a second. But like, I think, because this was a cookbook, the traditional like separation into chapters, like we normally do, like with the table of contents in them again and tell you where it is. It's not actually there, so I'll have to. And one would have thought, you know, maybe to mark the page in the book, but I didn't, let's see. Nope. Okay, pantry, necessities, garden instructions. Yeah, it's got really nice instructions on like, how to garnish certain stuff. Okay, here we go. Chapter One is, nope, those are meat dishes. Oh, 100 ways to cook meat dishes. It's not ..
 
 Gianofer Fields  27:19
 I wonder if just a version of that book that's available to purchase. I doubt it.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  27:23
 I'm sure, because this is translated into English, and the question would be to make sure you get the right book.
 
 Gianofer Fields  27:33
 What's the title in English again?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  27:34
 A Collection of Dishes, I can send you the book cover.

Gianofer Fields  27:41
 I'm just curious because I'm interested in just having this book for myself, honestly,
 
 Raichelle Johnson  27:45
 So am I? Uh, so, yeah, all right, fish dishes, let's see Spanish milk. And see all of these numbers are like Roman numerals, and some of these are still high. I've never seen it before my entire life. When I was working. I forgot where, but I used to have a table of Roman numerals just on the thing so I didn't have to, like, stop and Google something every time, because after a while, it's like a series of exes and I'm just confused. And ...
 
 Gianofer Fields  28:14
 ... then you do, which one? I subtract it? Which one? Yeah, it's, it's, it's fascinating. It's one of the ways I keep my old brain young. So as you're looking talk to me about the experience of making them.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  28:30
 Well, it took me about three hours, and most of that was just waiting for a potato to boil, because I didn't think about how thick the potato was before I put it in the pot. Um, forever for the potato. Boy, actually, like, by the time I was like, forget this. I'm done. Not waiting for this potato anymore. I basically just took the potato out of the water and, like, took what I could so, like, the core of the potato itself was still quite raw, but yeah, so I did that. I put it in my potato ricer, which, oh my gosh, I best purchase of whatever month I purchased that in, and it gave me this nice, silky potato just Oh, growing up, I always hated mashed potatoes with chunks of potato left in it, because it wasn't mashed well. So a potato ricer has always been like on my agenda. I made a nice, silky mashed potato. I put some milk, some cheese and some ghee in it, which is not necessarily a traditional Polish ingredient, but the butter was in the freezer, and I forgot to take it out, and I didn't feel like getting it. So, yeah, it is salt and pepper, of course, the taste mix all that together and then I set it aside. Well, actually, I guess I'm telling this backwards. Why? The. Potato with boil it, I made the dough, which was the most time intensive. And like I said, I don't actually ever follow a recipe.

So I gathered the ingredients that I gathered from what other people were doing, and then I just did what I wanted, um, which was flour, sour cream, water and an egg, some salt, of course, and I just mixed it together until it was a dough. I can't give you any exact measurements at all, because I didn't measure anything, um, and then I let it sit while the potato was boiled. After the potato finished, and I made my mashed potatoes. I rolled it out and used, I got out a dumpling press, because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get it to cool as well. On its own, the dumpling press, you can just add some pressure to that, but the dough is super, super sticky, so I had to keep flouring the dumpling press. And eventually I quit using the dumpling press and just did it with my hands, because the dough is so sticky. And then after making several of those, I left four out, because by this time, it was like 11 o'clock at night and I was sleeping, um, I left four out to cook, and I threw the rest in the freezer. They're still in the freezer. Um, I'll eat them eventually. And I just rinsed out the pot that I boiled a potato in and put a thin layer of oil at the bottom, instead of using butter, like a lot of the recipes said, because, again, butter frozen and I put them in there. But one thing I did learn is that before you fry them off, make sure they are dry. Yeah,
 
 Gianofer Fields  31:43
 don't want to put anything with water in it, in oil, my dear.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  31:47
 I know that much, but I didn't leave them to the side to dry, but they weren't dried well enough, and so they were they, I had them in a tall pot, though, so it's flattened, but it wasn't that much. Wasn’t much oil in there. And then, of course, with anything, don't move it until it's on, until it unsticks itself from the pan. I didn't know how well or how, I guess not how well, but I didn't know like how it was gonna cook. So I kept poking at one of them to determine if it was gonna need to stay there until it was ready to move. So I did learn that overall, they were super delicious.
 
 Gianofer Fields  32:29
 Was that the surprising part of it, because I have so many questions, like about time planning, about ingredients, about consistency of dough and what was needed, and what happens when you try to boil a whole potato instead of chopping it up. So was, was at the end of this, was the surprise that they were delicious? Well, no, I hadn't had them. Or was it was a surprise that? What was the surprise? Or was there a surprise?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  32:56
 Oh, no. I mean, it's a potato, you know, like, I like potatoes. I love mashed potatoes. So I wasn't really surprised at how delicious or not delicious it was, but I did think that if I hadn't cooked it in butter, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much, because the vegetable oil gave it a little bit of a crunch to the outside, which was nice to me, um, and I think more than anything, just, I don't know if there were any surprises, honestly, my biggest surprise wasn't even related to that. It was just the fact that it had got so hot in here from boiling that potato for so long that my entire floor was wet, like the condensation was out of control.
 
 Gianofer Fields  33:45
 The stages of boiling water.
 
 Raichelle Johnson  33:50
 Yeah. So that, to me, was like, the biggest like, what on earth, you know?
 
 Gianofer Fields  33:55
 So, will you make them again?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  33:58
 No, no. Uh, no, I will not okay, and I'll tell you why in just a second. So there's a glossary in here, and it looks like, basically, they're not giving you like a serious, serious, exact. Well, none of this has any measurements, of course, but the the definition of pierogi is just as follows, a popular Polish dish from thinly rolled dough with a variety of filling, for example, cheese, meat, vegetables or fruit, marmalade. And there are several recipes in here that like, use the the dough, for example, like this one is um, the uses the pierogi dough, but it's like, you baste it with egg yolks, and then, actually, this one sounds even better than a potato. You baste it, you fill it with, like, whatever fruit you want, you baste it with an egg yolk and dust it with sugar and throw it in the oven. That actually sounds like it might be quite delicious. Um, so. Yeah, they're apparent. You know, there are many ways to do this, but the most common way is to fill it with potato, apparently.
 
 Gianofer Fields  35:05
 So is there an actual recipe for the pierogi, or is it the glossary rather  than the actual recipe for pierogi?
 
 Raichelle Johnson  35:14
 It just gives you like a way to do the dough, and so that dough is just what you use in all of these other dishes. So it'll say like, like, the one I just read to you, it'll have pastry is like listed, but it says that this, this same pastry that was well suited for the pierogi, like that. It doesn't really have like, this is how a pierogi is made. This is what you need to do.
 
 Gianofer Fields  35:56
 James Wehn is the Van Vleck Curator of Works on Paper for the Chazen he's also an avid baker.
 
 James Wehn  36:02
 This tiger pillow is a ceramic pillow which doesn't seem like it would be very comfortable. I'd love to try it out, but Carolyn Herrera-Perez, the curator of ceramics and glass, I may not try the tiger pillow, no, right, but this was made in the late 12th century, and it is, you know, it's in the shape of a tiger who's kind of snarling a little bit, but he's also kind of curled up, like he's just, kind of like lying down, maybe just being watchful.

And on his back is this little Chinese landscape painting with a contemplation stone, like a scholar's rock, and so it incorporates a lot of imagery that has meaning in Chinese culture. And the tiger is intended to be kind of a protector of the dreamer, right? So whoever is sleeping and dreaming meanwhile, the tiger is kind of protecting from evil spirits that could potentially, like interrupt that dreamers experience and I love that about it, right?

And then Yuhang Li, the professor of Chinese art and art history, told me that these little holes that you see in the corner of his mouth, they're there because when it had to be fired, there has to be able to, like, let moisture out. So there's a practical reason that these holes are in this ceramic object. But she also told me that it was possible for the dreamer to go inside the tiger through these holes, as another way of protecting oneself. And inside of the tiger, there's a whole like other realm that you could experience. So I haven't explored all of that much further, but apparently there's Chinese literature from this period about, you know, stories about dreamers and their ceramic pillows.
 
 Gianofer Fields  38:05
 You know, James, we've had several conversations in the office. Your specialty is works on paper. And when I asked you for this interview to find somewhere you'd be comfortable to talk, you picked a ceramic Chinese tiger pillow. That's right, there's all these facets to you that I that are that are inspiring in a way that and inspiring in a way that causes me to look at my practice and look at how I do things, and look at how I see things. And through one of our many conversations that we had in the office, I don't know how it came up, but somehow we were talking about menus from the archive. So help refresh my memory on how we got to what we're about to talk about.
 
 James Wehn  38:51
 Well, you were really excited one day, and I think just in kind of casual passing, you had mentioned that in the archive you found, or in the project that's going through the Chazen archive, a menu had been found, and you were looking at it, and you had this idea that it would be great if Chazen staff members could make different items on the menu, and that we could come together and maybe taste them and see what the experience of this menu for this exhibition opening was like in 1996 and I said, Oh, well, if there's baked goods on there, I would be willing to bake something, right? Desserts are kind of my thing. I love to bake pies and breads and pastries and things like that and so and then I forgot all about it. But you didn't forget.
 
 Gianofer Fields  39:47
 I don't forget food. James. So then, do you think that part of that because you're a scholar when it comes to works on paper? Do you think that having that balance it is what. Keeps you so excited and so involved in the work you do?
 
 James Wehn  40:05
 Yeah, I think so. I think it's interesting that you say that, because I think I do like to do different kinds of things. You know, obviously I like studying works on paper. I like studying art and learning about those things. But I also really enjoy baking, and that's like a hobby or a pastime. But I kind of also bring an aspect of my scholarly self into that work or into that process, because often I'll get an idea I want to, like, maybe I'll taste something in a restaurant, and I'll think, Oh, I'd really like to make this. I think I could make something like this, and but I don't have the recipe, so then I have to start doing research, okay, so if I want to make this particular kind of pastry, like, what recipes are out there? And then I can read them, and I can assess, well, oh, I think this is probably close to what I had, but I this, you know, uses a different kind of fruit or different kind of a thing, you know, ingredient, set of ingredients. And I might then read many recipes and then decide what I'm going to try to do, right? And sometimes I will just try a recipe and say I'm just going to strictly make this and see how it turns out. But I almost never leave it alone, I start like thinking about how to change it or adapt it. So
 
 Gianofer Fields  41:26
 what was the original? What was the item that you picked off the menu, and what was the original recipe like? Did you find the original, or did you have to start adapting the minute you looked it up?
 
 James Wehn  41:37
 So the item that I picked off of the menu was apricot tea bread with spiced honey butter. That was the description. That's all I had, right? There was no recipe in the archive so, and I was kind of intrigued, because I often make Banana breads and like a sweet potato bread, which are actually called bread, but they're kind of more like a muffin dough or kind of a cakey bread. I think they're shaped like a loaf. Maybe that's why they're called bread. And they're often called a quick bread, because they're made not with yeast, but they're made with like baking soda or baking powder as a rising agent. I thought, Well, I do this often, so maybe making this apricot tea bread is something that would be kind of in my wheelhouse, and I could figure that out. And so then I started to search online, looking in cookbooks, where can I find an apricot tea bread recipe? And I soon learned that there were recipes for, like, a quick bread with apricots in them, but there was also specifically something called Tea bread, which involved dried fruit actually soaked in hot black tea before it is mixed into a very simple batter of flour, a rising agent like baking powder, eggs and a little bit of sugar. For example, the Welsh bara brith which is basically means speckled bread.

I learned about this and found a recipe in Paul Hollywood's British Baking. I found another recipe online for something very similar, and another and another cookbook. And I thought, you know, I'm just going to start with this bara brith recipe. I'm going to change out the golden raisins and kind of the currants for apricot and see how it goes. And so that's what, that's what I decided to do. And I did. I actually also used Paul Hollywood's recipe as a starting place, because he incorporated a little bit of fresh apple into the bread. He proposed that it would make it moister, and I was worried, not having never made it before, maybe this would be a little dry, because the recipe doesn't have any oil or butter in the batter. And that was new, because usually the quick breads that I make have either butter or some vegetable oil. And so I decided to try this, and I made the bread, and I was really excited when it came out of the oven, and I really liked how it looked, and I liked how it looked when I sliced it. Well, one other thing I decided to do, because Paul Hollywood's recipe suggested putting some ground almond flour into the mix with the flour. And I thought, what I'll also do is I will chop up some almonds and I'll sprinkle them on top with some turbinado sugar to give it sort of a little bit of a nutty, crunchy, sugary glaze on top, because there's very little sugar actually in the bread itself.

I thought, as I was making it like I was a little worried there was no cinnamon or other spices or vanilla in the bread. And I thought, well, maybe that's why there's this spiced honey butter, right? So I just trusted that we're gonna make this pretty like a. Um, not bland, because the apricots in the fruit provide some sugar and some flavor, but there's no other spice in that bread, so I was really trusting that the honey butter would add some fat, would add some spice and some sweetness to the to the overall experience of the apricot bread.

Gianofer Fields  45:20
 So then what did you discover as you were making this because it wasn't, you're very busy, you've been to conferences, you're doing all this stuff. Was this for you a task? Or was it transformative in the sense that you got to actually enjoy the process? Was this a joyful process for you? Or did you feel under the gun?
 
 James Wehn  45:39
 I felt a little under the gun, because, of course, we had a deadline to make the bread and have it in the office for people to taste on this past Monday. But I enjoy. I enjoyed the process. I enjoyed doing the research and figuring out what recipes were out there, how I might adapt them and I really liked, and honestly, I made the task a little bit harder, right? Because I could have probably just taken any recipe that was like apricot bread, tea bread, quick bread with apricots, and just made that. But I really wanted to go through this effort and write my own recipe that I felt like was something I had created myself. And I felt, I have to say, I was a little confused by the menu, because all we had was apricot tea bread. And once I started doing research, I really wasn't sure what that could mean. Did they mean literally, apricots that had been soaked in hot tea, or just like kind of a loaf with fruit in it that was a quick bread. And so I thought that was an interesting aspect of this. It really made me think about how an archive gives us some information, but it almost creates as many questions as it gives us some knowledge about something from the past. So so I don't know that we really know what the tea apricot tea bread with spiced honey butter was like in 1996 but I gave it my best to offer a possibility.
 
 Tom Wilkowske  47:19
 Tom Wilkowske, communications specialist, the only shame I experienced regarding James's apricot spiced tea bread cake was eating too many pieces, because I was sort of looking over my shoulder and watching, how, how, how is the consumption going throughout the day kind of thing? And it's like, oh, there's still a fair amount. Anyway, it was exquisite. It was like, James, if this whole curator thing doesn't work out, I think you could have definitely a calling in the world of pastry. So no, just my God, I couldn't believe it. It was so good. I can't be more. It's hard to be more. More descriptive. I'm sort of babbling almost because it was so good. But just the apricot texture, with the the richness of the of the bread itself, and the butter that the butter was, the, the icing on the cake, that's mangled metaphor. I'll shut up. Thank you.
 
 John Berner  48:28
 John Berner, preparator. Initially, I was skeptical about having to travel all the way across the East Campus Mall to go get that little treat. But it was a beautiful day out, and I was looking forward to enjoying a couple of bites on the way back. I am going to have one criticism. The pieces were so small that I didn't make it out of the Elvehjem building before I had finished eating it. So I didn't get to enjoy it with my cup of tea. But, yeah, it was just, like, such a an unctuous, like, not too, like, mushy, not too dry, like, very dense in the best kind of way. Yeah, I really, really dug it.
 
 Derek Hibbs  49:19
 Derek Hibbs, preparator. I, me and John kind of had a conversation about the the perfect, like balance of moisture and flavor and everything in the bread. So I just kind of seconding, seconding what he said. And I did take my time with it a little more, and did get to enjoy it on the walk across the East Campus Mall. And I feel like, yeah, that the butter topping is phenomenal as well. I feel like I could just eat a couple spoonfuls of that on its own. Thanks for making it. It was great.
 
 Katherine Alcauskas  49:56
 Katherine Alcauskas, chief curator, I appreciate. Created the fact that there was actually no butter or milk in the bread, because I'm not supposed to be eating dairy. So I could opt out of the butter. And I have to say it was still very good without the butter. And I do think it's the way that James made it is very ahead of its time, I guess, because I don't think they were thinking about that in 1996 or whatever.
 
 Kristine Klasen 50:20
Kristine Klasen, Chief Operating Officer, I think along with Tom, I helped demolish it, because I went back more than once. It was so delicious. I just loved it. I The only thing I would say is I really kind of craved it, to be toasted, to have kind of that little crispy edge, which we don't do here, which is fine, but it was really delicious. And it did, it did, like, take me back. And I don't know really what it took me back to, but like, growing up in the Midwest, I think sort of banana bread and date bread is very typical, and it was really comforting. So thank you. It was really good.

Carolyn Hererra-Perez  50:57
 Carolyn Hererra-Perez, I'm the curator of glass and ceramics. My reaction to it was, well, first I entered the kitchen, and there it is. I did ... there was no butter yet. It was just just a loaf. I have a slice. I'm delighted by the sugar on top. Little crunch. Really love that the apricots, wonderful, felt very summery. And then I come back, and then there's butter, and then it became a vehicle for that butter. No complaints here. Wonderful experience. Thank you. James
 
 Lee Holmes  51:37
 Lee Holmes, collection specialist, I really appreciated how moist it was at the top. I really love that aspect of those types of breads. And I really love the butter, I really topped it on there, so it was delicious.
 
 Janine Yorimoto Boldt  51:52
 Janine Yorimoto Boldt, collection reinstallation project associate. James came in to tell me it was, it was here. And he kind of told me that there was, you know, some dried fruits in it, some raisins. And I'm typically not a big fan of those, but I was like, I got to try it anyway, because he made it. And I have to say, even though I wasn't like, a huge fan of the texture, the flavor was really good. It was really moist for having all those dried fruits in there. And can't say enough about the sugar on top and that butter I could eat with the spoon. So I really enjoyed it.
 
 Amy Gilman  52:26
 Thanks everybody. What a lovely way to round out the staff meeting today.
 
 Gianofer Fields  52:32
 What did it feel like for you to hear people talking about something that you made that's outside what you normally present? I mean, this wasn't a presentation of work on paper or a tiger pillow. This was something that you made at home from your heart on your own time.
 
 James Wehn  52:50
 Yeah, it was interesting, because I I always like to get feedback when I bake something, I'll often have my parents try, try something that I've made. For example, I've been working on my own favorite recipe of a German plum cake for a couple of summers now, in Plum season, and I'm always sharing some with my parents and like, I have an opinion about how this version turned out, and I try to get their perspective. So I was really eager to hear what people had to say, but it was interesting how different people have preferences. Some people like are not fans of like dried fruit or fruit and but they still enjoyed it. And people really it was fun to hear how much people really liked the Spiced honey butter and that aspect of it, and so I was, I felt a little shy, actually, because people were saying very nice things about it, and I didn't really want necessarily that kind of adoration or that kind of attention. In fact, on some level, I would have been interested as interested if people had said I didn't really like the texture of this or I thought it was tasty. But dot, dot, dot. … You know, I might have liked it more if it was another way, and that just is, because that would feed my own process of thinking like, Oh, that's interesting. Maybe if I, you know, tweaked the ingredients a little bit, or I did add, like, a half a teaspoon of vanilla that would, like, bring out a flavor, or maybe I should add some cinnamon to the bread itself, you know, so these sorts of experiments that then I could make based on the way that people responded to the to the bread itself.
 
 Gianofer Fields  54:47
 Or maybe James, you just have to accept the fact that it was good, yeah, because I don't, I'm one of those. I don't like fruit and I don't like cook, I love dried fruit as it is. I don't like it cooked. I don't even like apple pie, like I don't like a banana bread. I can do lemon poppy seed cake. I can do but that's about as far as I get, and I liked it. And I was out of the office on that Monday. I didn't come back until Tuesday. I took some home, forgot that it was in my backpack, and didn't have it until Wednesday, and I toasted a little bit and put the butter on it, was toasted. It's unbelievable. Really, really good.
 
 James Wehn  55:24
 I wish I had tried it toasted. Now that you say that full disclosure, when I first tasted it, after I made it, I didn't like it really. I liked it okay, but I thought it was a little bland. I felt that I kind of wished I had added some cinnamon to it to make the bread itself more flavorful. But one thing I really liked about it, though, was every time I got that apricot, I really liked dried apricots, so I liked that apricot flavor. And I started thinking, how could I bring more of that apricot flavor out in the bread. So I thought it was, like, good, but I wasn't over the moon about it, right? And so I was actually it was fun to hear people that people really liked it, and some people really liked it, right? Like they were talking about it. Just reminds me of, like, growing up in the Midwest, and those kinds of comments I thought were interesting. And I also think, you know, I made it on Saturday, and we served it on Monday. Some people got it on Tuesday. One thing I had read about bought a brief this type of Welsh quick bread, is that, because it has no fat, it has a long shelf life. It'll, you know, it'll last for a long time with the dried fruit. And also that it gets better with time. And I think that that's true. I think, like when it's this bread, when it was very fresh, it felt a little bland, but as it sat on the counter, or actually, I refrigerated it a little bit for a couple of days, the moisture from the soaking of the fruit and the tea kind of seeped into the bread batter portion, and I think the flavors kind of gel in the bread.
 
 Gianofer Fields  57:08
 So will you make it again? And if you make it again, what are you going to change?
 
 James Wehn  57:12
 I think I would make it again, and I might try this other recipe that I found in a cookbook by Mary Berry, and it is for an iced apricot tea loaf, right? What's the difference between a tea bread and a tea loaf, please. But this is where, like, the process is, like, what do they mean by these things, but, but this has a little bit more sugar and I thought I would try that. Yeah, I thought I would try that.
 
 Gianofer Fields  57:53
 Meet me at the Chazen is a production of the Chazen Museum of Art on the campus of UW–Madison, in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information about the museum, its collections and exhibitions, visit chazen.wisc.edu. Find us on Instagram @meetme.chazen. I'm your host. Gianofer Fields, thanks for listening.