Collaborating with other institutions, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB) has been able to great strides in a short time. Rather than try to duplicate the work that other institutions are admirably performing, SoFAB has formed partnerships with existing institutions in those traditional areas of museum work: exhibitions, collections, archives and research. We are proud to be able to say that these special partnerships enhance and advance the work of our partners as well as the work of SoFAB.
Exhibit Partners – SoFAB is fortunate to have exhibit partners in the New Orleans area and beyond. Some of our partners have provided nontraditional exhibit space, such as the New Orleans Centre and the Riverwalk Marketplace, both of which are shopping malls where our exhibits have been unexpected and seen by many non-museum goers. We are also proud to have exhibited in the U.S Mint, which is part of the Louisiana State Museum. We have also enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership with the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. We look forward to many more exhibit partners in New Orleans and around the world.
Collections Partner – With its Master of Arts in Museum Studies program, Southern University in New Orleans (SUNO) serves as the collections partner of SoFAB. This means that SUNO houses, catalogs and prepares condition reports of all of the artifacts that have been collected by SoFAB. This collaboration makes it possible for students of museology to have hands-on experience working with artifacts, which enhances their education, and provides a home to the museum’s growing collection.
Archival Partner – The Earl K. Long Library at the University of New Orleans (UNO) houses the Southern Food and Beverage Collection. This collection consists of business records of the food industry in the south, chef’s notes, other ephemera, and in particular, the Menu Project collection. The Menu Project is the systematic collection of menus from around the South, accessed by data base, which will come to be best resource for researchers who wish to study food and restaurant trends and habits, design and economics. This collection also enhances the Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management at UNO.
Research Partner – Tulane University, through the Riversphere Project and the Deep South Humanities Center, form the research partnership with SoFAB. Our current research project is the cataloging of the food sources available in the Mississippi River Basin before Europeans arrived.
Oral History Partner – We have collaborated with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, Mississippi, on the Hurricane Katrina Renaisance Project. Whenever possible where the work of the SFA and SoFAB can intersect, we work with them to support our common goals.
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