Press

ALBANY, N.Y. – In celebration of the 202nd anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, the New York State Museum will present a series of three cooking demonstrations in February that highlight the evolution of domestic food.

“Cooking the Tree of Life – Food as Delicious Evolution” will be presented on three successive Wednesdays, beginning February 2, at 7 p.m. in the Clark auditorium. Each demonstration in the free program will pair a local chef with a biologist sous chef, and the two will prepare the meal together, providing both the culinary and scientific perspective on the main ingredients.

The February demonstrations are:

• February 2, Swine and Dine -- Pigs and their porcine relatives are used as food sources in many cultures, and 7,000 years of artificial selection have resulted in the domesticated pig that is farmed today. Dr. Jason Cryan, an evolutionary biologist at the State Museum, will discuss the evolutionary origins, current distribution and biology of pigs, while Chef Tony Destratis of the Lake George Club prepares and presents inspired dishes.
• February 9, Potato: The Perfect Human Food -- For the first few million years, the potato tuber was just a nifty adaptation to help plants store a bit of energy underground. Then humans discovered how nutritious it was, started experimenting with its evolution, and created the perfect human food. Dr. Roland Kays, the State Museum’s curator of mammals, will provide the evolutionary back-story to the tuber that changed the world, as the Food Network’s Chef David Britton cooks up examples of the cuisine it has inspired.
• February 16, Loving the Bubbly: Bread, Wine and Beer -- The variety of breads and fermented beverages developed by cultures around the world are made possible by one species of yeast that has evolved into hundreds of specialized strains. This microscopic fungus has been intertwined with human evolution over the last 10,000 years, helping certain cultures to flourish.

Museum scientist Dr. Jeremy Kirchman and Chef Stephen Topper of the Copperfield Inn in North Creek, will discuss the natural history of yeast as they prepare dishes together.

More information on the “Cooking the Tree of Life” program is available at http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/programs/treeoflife/.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. The Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/.

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