Thanksgiving: The Animals´Banquet. / Miralda / 1981

Thanksgiving: The Animals´Banquet was a project carried out by Miralda that arose as a reflection around the United States national holiday: Thanksgiving Day.

This was a project carried out in collaboration with Karin Bacon, director of the Bronx Zoo’s activities program, reflecting on the culinary and cultural implications of the United States national holiday: Thanksgiving Day.

The project consisted of making a menu for the zoo animals. For this, 12 personalities from the world of gastronomy were invited to prepare a special dish for each of the 12 chosen animals, prepared according to the diet that corresponded to each animal.

In the Lions Pavilion, the public was shown the dishes made by the different chefs: Joseph H. Baum (mandrill), Jane Butel (condor), Craig Claiborne (flamingo), Milton Galser (hummingbird), Madhur Jaffrey (bear), Barbara Kafka (bat), George Lang (gorilla), Perla Meyers (turtle), Colette Rossant (Flemish), Mimi Sheraton (Turaco) and Norman Weinstein (camel). At the same time, there was a large table, on which a series of edible sculptures reproducing mythological animals (a unicorn, a centaur, a mermaid, a dinosaur …) was arranged.

In another space of the zoo, redesigned as a restaurant, the Daily Menu, a video installation with the usual diet of the 12 animals, was shown. At the entrance of the enclosure, there was a table with the sculptural image of a turkey made with seeds and a monitor that projected images of American families celebrating Thanksgiving, which had been brought by the visitors themselves. He completed the installation Eating à la Carte, a comparative study of the different eating behaviors of animals that was broadcast on television.

A procession culminated the action with the offering of the prepared dishes to the different animals.

Date: 27-29 novembre 1981

Place: Bronx Zoo, New York

Colaborations: Karen Bacon

Video