"I was so inspired by the mediums he uses," executive chef Kaytlin Brakefield says. "I wanted to write a menu based off of how the artwork inspires me in the kitchen. It's such a big responsibility to create something from someone else's art."
Brakefield's hope was to translate Ward's artistic vision, which embraces various media channels with the recurrent use of found objects to represent native Jamaica including ideas of migration and movement, urban space, and vernacular traditions, to something simple and tasty. In her translation, Brakefield constructed a menu that fuses traditional Jamaican ingredients, often considered “lost” ingredients, with references to installations within his exhibit.
"What I got from researching his work is that he uses easily found objects to create beautiful installations," she says. "For me, I translated that into the kitchen by trying to make dishes from ingredients we already had. I wanted to use everything in the kitchen, just like he repurposes things. I really took that to heart to try to create this menu basically out of nothing."
The meal starts with a
"Because he's Jamaican, I wanted to use flavors that represented his style mixed with how I like to cook," she says. "And when using an oxtail, you use the nose to tail, so you're not wasting any part of the animal. I've also heard that the origin of ravioli was created from sailors who used a sheet of pasta to wrap leftover meals and bring it with them on the boat. And for the last course, the bread is old and then soaked to create a totally different dish. And in terms of
Since launching the menu, Brakefield says it's been a success. She previewed it to Ward before debuting it at the museum and says he was really happy with how it turned out too.
This is Brakefield's third artist-inspired menu for the museum since she joined the team last December.
"It's always an adventure every time I get a new artist and a new installation," she says. "For me, it's such a cool way to think about food. It's an opportunity I've never had before."
The menu will run through the end of February at Verde inside the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Follow Clarissa Buch on Twitter.
This is Brakefield's third artist-inspired menu for the museum since she joined the team last December.
"It's always an adventure every time I get a new artist and a new installation," she says. "For me, it's such a cool way to think about food. It's an opportunity I've never had before."
The menu will run through the end of February at Verde inside the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Follow Clarissa Buch on Twitter.
