Presented in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and the National Museum of American History Food and Wine Group

Join us for this year’s annual New Perspectives on Invention and Innovation symposium. In an array of activities that explores the inventions and innovations that affect “Food for Tomorrow,” the symposium brings together inventors, historians, farmers, scientists--and you--in conversations and demonstrations about the many ways that invention is part of our daily menu.

How do invention and innovation shape the ways we grow, prepare, and enjoy food? Discover the history and future of food and related technologies, from sustainable agriculture to molecular gastronomy. Along the way, eat, drink, and learn! The weekend features a film preview, a “three-course” symposium program, treasure hunts for food-related objects on exhibit in the museum, wine tasting, and food-science family activities at the Spark!Lab. Compete in the “Kitchen Gadget Showdown” and taste-test gourmet sea salts!

Download the Food for Tomorrow symposium program »

For Starters: Movie Preview & Homegrown Mixology
Truck Farm! Movie Sneak Peek and Discussion
Friday, November 5 - 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Filmmakers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, the Peabody Award-winning co-creators of King Corn, Big River, and The Greening of Southie, discuss their newest film and show pre-release clips. Truck Farm! is the true story of urban farms taking root in America’s biggest city, from a self-sustaining Staten Island barge to a 6,000-square-foot market garden atop a Brooklyn roof. These and similar gardens are breathing new life into old cities.

After the movie, master mixologists concoct garden-fresh libations accompanied by local bites.

LOCATION: National Museum of American History Carmichael Auditorium, Constitution Ave. NW between 12th & 14th Streets. Metro: Federal Triangle or Smithsonian

Ticket includes admission to movie preview and reception. Get tickets »

First Course: In the Field
Producing Food for Tomorrow
Saturday, November 6 - 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

9 a.m. Bird-Friendly Coffee and Breakfast Bites

9:30 to 10 a.m. Keynote Address: An Introduction to the Future of Food
Whether you’re eating preservative-enhanced cookies or organically-grown carrot sticks, food is a source of pleasure and anxiety, a lucrative market for big business, and an indicator of social and political environments. What might be on the table in the year 2050 and beyond?

Warren Belasco is a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a founder of the academic food studies movement.

10 a.m. to 12 noon In the Field: Producing Food for Tomorrow
Change, innovation, invention, and sustainability in the production of food for the future, including sources of food from local farmers and aquaculturalists, global agricultural systems, and space labs; the roles of science, technology, and ethics; genomics and GMOs; future revolutions and revelations; environmental effects, natural and manmade disasters; the place of culture in food production.

Steven Craig is senior research scientist at Virginia Cobia Farms. Moderator Carolyn de la Pena is a professor of American studies at the University of California at Davis and an expert on food culture and technology. Jane Silverthorne is manager of the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Project. Brian Halweil, a leader in the local food movement, is an author, editor, and senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute, where he co-directs the Nourishing the Planet project. His work has focused on organic farming, biotechnology, and hunger.

LOCATION: National Museum of American History Carmichael Auditorium, Constitution Ave. NW between 12th & 14th Streets. Metro: Federal Triangle or Smithsonian

Free program, but tickets are required. Get tickets »

Food Truck Muster & TwitterFest
Saturday, November 6 - 12 noon to 1:30 p.m.

An appetizing array of local food trucks arrives--announced through Twitter!--at the Constitution Avenue entrance of the National Museum of American History, with a wide range of flavorful fare available for purchase. "Tweet" your favorites!

Second Course: In the Kitchen
Preparing Food for Tomorrow
Saturday, November 6 - 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

What were the cutting-edge technologies of the past? How will we make our food in the future? Will a cook need to be a chemist? Will meals be made by immersion circulators (“sous vide”) or induction heat, microwaves, wood fires, or biomass briquettes? Will we be eating slow food, fast food, or no food? Experts discuss past and emerging technologies, methods, foodstuffs, and fuels.

Molly O’Neill is a noted food writer, cookbook author, and reporter whose new book, One Big Table, will be released in November. Cesar Vega is a food applications scientist for Mars Botanical, a division of Mars Inc., and is working on incorporating cocoa flavanols into foods as well as explaining the molecular interactions of these compounds with food proteins. Bess Williamson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delaware who focuses on disabilities studies and implications for kitchen design. Moderator Rayna Green is a Smithsonian curator with expertise in Native American history and culture and the history of American food and wine.

LOCATION: National Museum of American History Carmichael Auditorium, Constitution Ave. NW between 12th & 14th Streets. Metro: Federal Triangle or Smithsonian

Free program. No tickets required.

Third Course: At the Table
Eating Meals Tomorrow
Saturday, November 6 - 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

In the future, what and when will we eat, and will it be good for us? How will food taste? What have we learned from the space program about preparing, producing, and eating food in space and on Earth? Discussion includes both past and potential challenges and successes related to baby food, family meals, school lunches, nutrition, and space food.

Amy Bentley is an associate professor and a founding member in food studies in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. Janet Poppendieck is a professor of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York. Vickie Kloeris is subsystem manager for the International Space Station and Shuttle Food Systems for NASA. Dietitian Ashley Koff, founder of AshleyKoffApproved, moderates.

LOCATION: National Museum of American History Carmichael Auditorium, Constitution Ave. NW between 12th & 14th Streets. Metro: Federal Triangle or Smithsonian

Free program. No tickets required.

Wine Tasting: Innovative East Coast Winemakers
Saturday, November 6 - 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Join a conversation with Dave McIntyre, Washington Post wine writer, and some of the mid-Atlantic’s innovative winemakers and vineyard developers about how they are creating healthy vineyards and making award-winning wines in Long Island, Virginia, and Maryland. What are their critical strategies for choosing grape varietals that can thrive in the region’s challenging environment, especially its high humidity? To what extent are organic methods used, and how does creating a diverse ecosystem in a vineyard help make better wine? What are some of the new techniques being used by winemakers to produce wines that reflect the character of particular places? The event will include a tasting of two wines from each of the following: Barbara Shinn of Shinn Vineyard (Long Island), Sarah O’Herron of Black Ankle (Maryland), Mike McGarry of Sugarloaf Mountain (Maryland), Jeff White of Glen Manor Vineyard (Virginia), and Rachel Martin of The Boxwood Winery (Virginia). Enjoy delicious food matched to the wines and continued conversation with the winemakers for a memorable evening!

LOCATION: National Museum of American History Stars and Stripes Cafe, Constitution Ave. NW between 12th & 14th Streets. Metro: Federal Triangle or Smithsonian

Ticket includes lecture and wine tasting. Get tickets »

Public Programming
Saturday, November 6

Visitors participate in hands-on activities related to food and food technology. Visitors can compete in the “Kitchen Gadget Showdown” to find out if a high-tech gadget works better or faster than its low-tech predecessor, taste test different salts, and share their innovative kitchen techniques. Kids and families can have fun with food science demos in Spark!Lab, and everyone will enjoy seeing food-related objects like from the NMAH collections.

11:00 - 11:30 Demos in Spark!Lab

11:00 - 2:00 Objects out of storage. 1 West

Noon - 12:30 Demos in Spark!Lab

Noon - 1:00 Salt tasting (cart). 1 West

1:00 - 1:30 Demos in Spark!Lab

1:30 - 2:30 Kitchen gadget showdown (cart). 1 West

2:00 - 2:30 Demos in Spark!Lab

3:00 - 3:30 Demos in Spark!Lab

3:00 - 4:00 Salt tasting (cart). 1 West

3:30 - 4:30 Kitchen gadget showdown (cart). 1 West

Ongoing activities:

Visitor feedback stations outside Spark!Lab and Carmichael Auditorium

• How do you solve food/kitchen problems?
• What’s the best snack you’ve invented?
• How are you innovative in the kitchen?

Scavenger hunt

Spark!Lab self-directed activities (10:00-4:00)

• Hydroponic gardening. Visitors can start their own small hydroponic garden--just like NASA--using seeds, polyfil, plastic cup, and water. We will talk about hydroponic farming as an innovative and efficient means of producing food.
• Bubble making using kitchen supplies. It will be a bit messy, but lots of fun.
• Crazy Crystals. With the crystals from various salts, we will show how inventors have created novel ways to preserve and cook food...and explain why prepared foods contain so much salt.

Information for visitors with disabilities »

Related exhibitions in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area:

Inventive Eats: Incredible Food Innovations highlights how our breakfast cereals, sandwiches, dinner entrees and more have been transformed by significant events, discoveries, and inventions. It features the important role National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees have played in the array of appetizing innovations that have made the food we eat safer, healthier, and more economical.

National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Campus, Madison Bldg., 600 Dulany St., Alexandria, Va.; 571-272-0095. Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.

When Beans Were Bullets, an exhibition of posters from World Wars I and II, examines the evolution of poster styles, propaganda messages, and advertising history during the two time periods. Viewers will recognize familiar wartime messages about food conservation, rationing, and home canning. But today's audience might be surprised by government messaging during World War I that encouraged home front populations to eat locally, healthfully, and conscientiously in order to put the nation's interest first and contribute to distant war efforts.

U.S. Department of Agriculture South Building cafeteria, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. Hours: Monday through Friday (except Federal holidays), 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., October 6 – November 10, 2010.