New exhibition at RAMM - Food: Beyond the plate

Do you really know where the food on your plate comes from? What is the history of food production in Britain? How does it compare with other parts of the world?

These are just some of the questions that RAMM’s curators asked as they explored the objects and stories found in the museum’s collection related to hunting, fishing, crops, livestock, trade and the role food and feasting plays in people’s social lives. The results feature in a new exhibition titled ‘FOOD: Beyond the plate’ opening from 22nd March. 

Charles WJ Tucker, The Farthing Breakfast, 1971 © Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery

Visitors will be able to explore an intriguing array of objects related to food from all around the world dating from prehistory to the modern day. Among them ancient stone tools for butchering meat, fishhooks, food baskets, pottery vessels, a stove for making clotted cream, tea and coffee cups, botanical drawings, a camel bell, all manner of dining utensils, an Exeter milk cart and the livery worn by a Georgian under butler. The exhibition will uncover the history of food cultivation, from the dawn of agriculture 12,000 years ago in the middle east to the age of the supermarket. 

It will explore the importance of food in culture, ceremonies and religion, as well as investigating the way food scarcity highlights the inequalities in our societies. Visitors will be prompted to think about where their food comes from and about the future of food production as the climate crisis and a dramatic decline in biodiversity makes us consider the future of farming. As we look for ways to feed humanity in the future, this exhibition asks what we can learn from other times and cultures. 

Mahrous Abdou, Fields and Village on the Nile, 2008 © Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery. Purchased with support from Art Fund, MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Ramses Wissa Wassef Exhibition Trust, the Friends of RAMM, & Dr Jenny Balfour-Paul

A programme of events will run alongside the exhibition, including one of the museum’s popular RAMM Lates evenings themed around food, children’s craft activities, and a cheese making workshop. In addition, the museum’s next fine art hang ‘A feast for the eyes’, displaying works from Exeter’s fine art collection inspired by food, will run from 5 April 2025 to 22 March 2026.