If we really are what we eat, then it makes sense to learn a little about some of our favourite foods. That’s what these brilliantly specific (and often wonderfully weird) museums are all about, with exhibitions on food history and culture and even entire institutions dedicated to a single ingredient. From galleries tracing the origins of Southern food to museums celebrating potatoes, bananas and Spam, here’s where to brush up on culinary culture. It's worth checking the latest travel advice and individual websites before planning a visit.
Cork and its surroundings are known for food and agriculture so this delicious-sounding museum makes perfect sense here. The Butter Museum is, as the name suggests, all about the churned dairy product that’s both a favourite ingredient for chefs and one of Ireland’s most important food exports.
Located on the site of the Cork Butter Exchange, once the world’s largest butter market, the museum’s exhibits look at the origins of the dairy industry in Ireland and how butter has shaped the country and this city in particular, with information on international trade and the rise of the Kerrygold brand. There’s even a keg containing butter more than a thousand years old.
Orders come with a generous slice of cheese-topped history at Pizza Brain's Museum of Pizza Culture in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighbourhood. It's a restaurant which doubles as a huge exhibit filled with pie-themed memorabilia, from a margherita clock to dough-spinning dolls (pictured).
Posters and signs plaster the walls as part of the vast display, certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest collection of pizza-related items. It was curated from co-founder Brian Dwyer’s personal array of memorabilia, including comic books, toys, games, clothing and an arcade game featuring famous pizza-guzzling cartoon stars the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Museums don’t get much smaller, or more niche, than this basement set-up in the historic spa city of Bath. It lies beneath Sally Lunn’s Historic Eating House, an old-fashioned tearoom where the famous Bath bun is believed to have been created by the eponymous baker. This is also one of the oldest houses in the city.
The micro-museum is in the original kitchen and bakery, dating from 1622, and has an 11th-century oven. There’s also a shop where people can buy one (or more) of the buns, made to the original secret recipe with a texture and taste somewhere between a brioche and a light, fluffy bun. Of course, you can also try them with a variety of sweet or savoury toppings in the tearoom.
Whether slightly wobbly canned pork is to your taste or not, we defy you not to be charmed by the delightfully quirky SPAM Museum, a temple to the wartime favourite that was invented in Minnesota (hence the museum’s presence here) back in 1937. SPAM, which formed a large part of soldiers' diets during the Second World War thanks to its long shelf-life and transportability, has a pretty fascinating history – and has been the subject of some, erm, interesting recipes.
Inside the museum, visitors can browse virtual marketplaces, learn about the canned meat’s significance in various places and cultures and find out what their height is in stacked SPAM cans. There’s fascinating memorabilia and examples of packaging throughout the years too, plus a shop for anyone craving SPAM for supper.
There are actually two Choco-Story museums in Belgium dedicated to the sweet stuff in all its glorious forms – one in Bruges and the other in Brussels. The latter showcases the history of chocolate, from its origins in Olmec and Mayan culture to its place in Belgium, including information on how praline was invented here in the early 20th century.
It’s not a case of look but don’t taste – there are chocolate-making demos and samples to try throughout the museum, which is located within walking distance of the city’s elegant Grand Place. In addition to the two Belgium museums, the Choco-Story family includes locations in Czechia, France, Lebanon and Mexico.
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Museum Brot und Kunst – or the Museum of Bread and Art – delves into what is probably our oldest and most important food: bread. One section of the building is dedicated to the history of bread, with tools, recipes and fascinating facts, while another houses fine and contemporary artworks, all following the same grain.
There are even bread-related pieces by Rembrandt and Picasso, while the third floor has modern art installations like the one pictured. Sadly, given that these exhibits are likely to work up an appetite, there’s nothing to actually eat – not even so much as a crust. People can curb their carb cravings at one of Ulm’s bakeries instead, with local specialities including ulmer zuckerbrot (sugar bread).
The first-ever Waffle House, which opened in 1955, has been transformed into a shrine to the origins of the popular US-wide chain. The interior, a recreation of the original restaurant, is designed in the style of a 1950s diner, with counter seating and retro menu boards.
People can’t just pop in for a pecan waffle, though. It only opens occasionally or can usually be booked for private events. It’s worth going if the opportunity arises, if only to peek at decades’ worth of memorabilia or to learn that, if you stacked up all of the sausage patties the Waffle House serves in any given day, they’d form a teetering tower twice the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
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California’s Coachella Valley does quirky with more aplomb than most, from its open-air sculpture galleries to ramshackle dive bars. Yet no attraction here is quite so brilliantly bonkers as the International Banana Museum – a tiny spot that bursts with memorabilia and tributes to the bendy yellow fruit.
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Items include jewellery, clothing, sculptures, vintage glassware and a record player. There are more than 25,000 pieces in what the museum claims is the largest collection in the world dedicated to a single fruit. Don’t leave without trying the house-made banana ice cream. Note that the museum is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Fries or frites are pretty much everywhere in Belgium. Even if they’re out of sight, you need only follow your nose to find the nearest stall serving up the fresh, crisp snack in a square or on a street corner. They’re so ubiquitous here that it makes perfect sense that Bruges should be the location for the world’s first ever museum dedicated to fried potatoes: the Frietmuseum.
Exhibits trace the history of the potato and explore how it came to Belgium, as well as looking at the origins of fries – which the museum claims originated in the country. Visitors also have the chance to sample some of the famous fries. It’s all housed in the 14th-century Saaihalle, one of Bruges’ oldest buildings.
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Food is as integral to New Orleans culture as jazz so it makes perfect sense that this delicious celebration of Southern cuisine is located here. Droolworthy exhibits at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum or SoFAB include a BBQ trail and a Culinary Library of fascinating cookbooks dedicated to Louisiana classics like gumbo. The exhibition on Mississippi barbecue, pictured, is even arranged around the original floor of that state’s classic spot Shed BBQ, kept by its owners after the restaurant was destroyed by fire (it’s since been rebuilt).
SoFAB houses several ‘museums within a museum’ too, including one dedicated to cocktail history (pictured), a Gumbo Garden and La Galerie de l’Absinthe, all about the once-banned spirit known as the ‘green fairy’. If all of this sparks an appetite for some proper Southern food, there are also regular cooking demonstrations and workshops.
If you’re keen as mustard on, erm, mustard, then the National Mustard Museum is the place for you. This temple to the piquant condiment is home to around 6,000 examples, including brands from all 50 states and worldwide. Think of all the hot dogs and burgers you'd need to get through that. The museum’s story is just as strange and spicy: founder Barry Levenson was the state’s assistant attorney general when he started collecting jars of mustard in 1986.
By 1992, Levenson had quit his job and opened the museum to the public. The collection of condiment memorabilia includes antique tins, ornate pots and ad posters. After browsing the exhibits, visitors can head to the tasting bar to try (and possibly buy) varieties from subtly sweet to eye-wateringly spicy.
Yep, the world has more than one museum dedicated to mustard. The Kölner Senfmuseum or Mustard Museum is centred around a mustard mill dating from 1810 with free guided tours around the still-working factory and displays of packaging and memorabilia through the centuries.
Visitors can learn about how the mustard was (and is) made and also taste some of the delicious cold-ground mustards produced here. The museum also looks at mustard moments throughout history, including Julius Caesar transporting seeds to Europe and beliefs that it has certain health benefits. There's a sister museum and mill in Cochem too.
It’ll be hard to peel yourself away from this spud-tastic museum, which is in part a homage to Idaho’s famously delicious potatoes (the state claims to grow the best in the world). Occupying an old rail depot, it’s also a really fun place to visit, with potato facts and history mashed up with memorabilia including a Mr. Potato Head collection.
The museum also offers one of the world’s greatest photo opportunities: the chance to get a snap with the giant baked spud that marks the entrance. It even comes complete with a dollop of sour cream and a hunk of cheese. On-site Potato Station Cafe serves jacket spuds (ordered ahead of time) and sandwiches made with potato bread as well as cupcakes and ice cream – both made with potatoes – for dessert.
A museum dedicated to noodles would be pretty niche so a museum dedicated to instant noodles has to be applauded for its narrow focus. The CupNoodles Museum in Yokohama, Japan is surprisingly slick and stylish and (perhaps less surprisingly) colourful and quirky too. This photo shows part of the Instant Noodles History Cube, where visitors are surrounded by packaging showing how the food became such a global hit.
There are entire galleries on the origins of chicken ramen and a factory with hands-on classes recreating one of 5,460 flavour combinations. Much of the building is dedicated to Momofuku Ando, who invented instant noodles in 1958, with a replica of his work shed and a gilded statue (pictured).
It isn’t just food packaging on display at the nostalgia-fuelled Museum of Brands but it definitely dominates. Long-forgotten chocolate bar wrappers, OXO cube tins dating from the First World War and cereal boxes give a fascinating glimpse into the UK's consumer culture, how it’s changed and, in some cases, how it’s stayed pretty much the same.
You could spend hours just peering at all the tins and packets, marvelling at the staying power of some brands and the limited shelf life of others. One-off exhibitions share the building with the permanent Time Tunnel, which takes visitors on a food-heavy journey from the Victorian times to the present day via tinned peaches and Bovril.
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