Biggins & The Historic New Orleans Collection

photo x The Historic New Orleans Collection

June 12, 2014

It's been a busy spring. I've just returned from New Orleans. I was a speaker at The Historic New Orleans Collection's biannual foodways symposium which, this year, was all about coffee.

I was commissioned to present on coffee biggins, material culture, memory and the professionalization of the home coffee service. The image collage includes a few of the five dozen biggins I read for narratives of place, material, identity, labor, family, and gender.

Organized by Jessica B. Harris, the deep and super caffeinated dive into America's mornings included presentations by Mark Pendergrast, Patrick Dunne, John T. Edge and Lolis Eric Elie.