With countless restaurants and food markets, New Yorkers may have a more effortlessly sophisticated palate than ever, but do they really have a nuanced understanding of the global forces that shape the politics and economics of food?  “The world of food is rife with paradox,” says Frederick Kaufman. Kaufman, a noted journalist and professor, will join a lively Museum panel about the global, technological, and financial future of food on Tuesday, March 5, at 6:30 pm.

From carrots to cassava, root vegetables are enjoying a culinary renaissance; this Thursday, December 13, at 6:30 pm, noted New York chef and Food Network star Alex Guarnaschelli will be at the Museum for a special Adventures in the Global Kitchen program devoted to how to cook and eat root vegetables, why they’re a lynchpin of biodiversity, and much more. She will be joined by Eleanor Sterling, co-curator of the Museum's new exhibition Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture.

In the Museum's new special exhibition Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture, an early edition of the American classic Joy of Cooking, first published in 1931 by Irma S. Rombauer, is featured in a wall of cookbooks, from ancient to modern. We recently spoke to John Becker, a great-grandson of Rombauer, who with others in his family still works to edit and develop the "all-purpose" cookbook.

On Thursday, December 6, the eminent sociobiologist E. O. Wilson will join former U.S. Poet Laureate and MacArthur Fellow Robert Hass (far left) at the Museum for a discussion about the interplay between art and science—and how close observation of nature, whether in poetry or science, can inspire the conservationist in all of us. 

Learn about Sean Solomon and his work as a principal investigator for the MESSENGER spacecraft, which successfully entered Mercury’s orbit in March 2011, at a Hayden Planetarium event tonight at 7:30 pm. What are the latest findings about the small, mysterious planet closest to the Sun?