The Kitchen: From Pantry to Table

  01 March  -  

Before supermarkets stocked ready-made meals and takeaway food became commonplace, most meals were prepared from scratch. Families planned carefully, grew vegetables in the garden, preserved seasonal produce, and made the most of every ingredient.

The Kitchen: From Pantry to Table explores the daily routines that shaped family life in Cambridge and throughout New Zealand during the 1950s and 1980s. Through familiar objects such as  recipe books, food mincers and a Fondue set, the exhibition reveals the ingenuity and hard work required to keep a household fed.

Many of these tasks were time-consuming and repetitive, yet they formed the rhythm of everyday life. Baking for visitors, preserving fruit for winter, preparing Sunday dinners and creating family recipes were all part of a culture where little was wasted and meals were at the heart of the home.

Featuring objects from the Museum collection, The Kitchen invites visitors to reflect on how cooking, shopping and eating have changed over the past century, and what has been gained and lost along the way.