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Museum of Food and Drink Brings Cereal-Making Cannon to Carroll Gardens

By Heidi Patalano | August 14, 2013 2:45pm
 MOFAD kicked off their first traveling exhibit last night in Cobble Hill.
Puff Party in Cobble Hill
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COBBLE HILL — The Museum of Food and Drink is sowing its oats in Brooklyn.

Revelers and celebrity chefs gathered for the inaugural exhibit of the virtual museum: "BOOM! The Puffing Gun and the Rise of Breakfast Cereal," on Tuesday night in Carroll Gardens.

The traveling exhibit displayed a working puffing gun — a massive 3,200-pound piece of cannon-like machinery that applies high pressure to grains of rice and shoots them out with mesmerizing force. Each grain comes out the other end as a piece of cereal.

With culinary stars like Food Network’s Ted Allen and chef and owner of wd-50 Wylie Dufresne on hand, and snacks provided by Momofuku Ma Peche, the event at the Green Building was meant to stoke enthusiam for what is now only a virtual museum.

The Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD) has sought funding for this exhibit through a Kickstarter campaign in which it is has collected 133 percent of its goal resulting in a total of $106,503 pledged.

“It felt incredible to have this idea validated,” said executive director of MOFAD Peter Kim. “This is the first time we’ve really brought it out in public to see, will people not just support [the museum] but put their money down to support the project and we’ve had an enormous response. Everybody who sees this machine is like, 'holy cow! This is cool. This is not your typical museum exhibit'.”

Kim said that the museum will be touring the Puffing Gun around the city until the cold weather hits. After that, the organization, which counts Mario Batali as an advisor and David Chang, Wylie Dusfrene and Brooks Headley among its culinary board, will continue to plan pop-up exhibits around the city.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to build a comprehensive museum without the four walls and it’s an interesting challenge,” said Kim. “We want to give people this holistic perspective of food. It’s not just about eating and nutrition, it’s about how does this connect to your culture? How does this connect to history? How does this connect to the economy and science?”

Kim hopes that in a few years, the museum may finally land a brick and mortar location.

“We’re definitely looking at Brooklyn for a potential long-term future home for the museum,” he said.

A video demonstation of the Puff Gun was made for the museum's Kickstarter campaign:

To learn more about MOFAD, visit http://www.mofad.org/