TASTE 2023 miaminewtimes.com 6 W hen University of Miami librarian Cristina Favretto asked celebrity chef Norman Van Aken to share memories — literally anything in writing — to document his career for the school’s new food-related archives, the Miami toque ini- tially came up empty-handed. Known for his daily chang- ing menus, Van Aken’s dishes were often created and aban- doned the same way seasonal ingredients and tastes often do — too frequently. There wasn’t much he held onto. But there was one thing he did have: a 1992 receipt he’d saved from years ago documenting the lengthy list of dishes Julia Child had ordered while visiting a popular Miami Beach restau- rant, a Mano, where he served as executive chef. The long- shuttered restaurant was known for its plush interior, exquisite service, and a daily-changing menu critics described as “New World” and “Miami-American.” So if you’ve ever wondered what Julia Child’s favorite a Mano dish was (she ordered the snapper), or perhaps what it was like to grab a late-night meal at Wolfie’s in Miami Beach in the 1950s, or even questioned the types of recipes South Florid- ians were following decades ago, there’s a place in Coral Gables that holds all the answers. These relics of the past are just a snippet of the information found across a vast array of rare books, artwork, manuscripts, and pho- tographs compiled by Favretto for the University of Miami’s De- partment of Special Collections. From 15th-century tomes to 21st-century cookbooks, the ar- chives are home to vast volumes of information — more than 600 collections and approximately 50,000 rare published works — that document the history of Florida, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and beyond. The best part: you don’t have to be a student to ac- cess these archives. In early 2020 — just months before the onset of the pandemic — the university repurposed a storage room into a mixed–use event space and public reading room. Today, it stands as the hub of the Special Collections department, located at the uni- versity’s Kislak Center, named for one of the university’s top rare item donors, Jay Kislak. The space offers both students and guests the opportunity to ac- cess these materials in serene si- lence, browsing everything from small-edition books from the 1450s to the hundred of boxes of archived materials that catalogue the history of the Pan Am airline. (It’s best to make an appointment so staff can pull materials, many of which are housed offsite.) Today, Favretto continues to acquire new additions and source materials near and far. Since taking the position as Head of Special Collections at UM’s library in 2008, she — along- side University archivist Nick Iwanicki — oversees hundreds of items spanning many topics. While not everything is spe- cific to Miami and its history, many archives provide valuable insight into the Magic City’s past. And, at least for Favretto, some of the center’s most color- ful items are all about food. Favretto tells New Times that it was important for her to seek ma- terials to help document the dias- pora of Miami’s edible melting pot. “I’ve always been interested in culinary history, and I’ve carried that with me,” says Favretto, who held a variety of librarian duties for institutions including the Boston Public Library, Duke, and UCLA, curating and building col- lections much like the one at UM. It’s a pursuit she began dur- ing her time at Duke University, where she worked to compile one of the country’s foremost collec- tions of prescriptive literature, works that shed light on the lost art of domesticity. Through the collection of instructional pam- phlets, magazines, and cookbooks dedicated to domestic culture, she learned to appreciate how food — the way we acquire, prepare, and share it — could reveal secrets from the past in a unique way. That love of food history came full circle when she began working at UCLA, allowing her to explore, document, and preserve historical elements of the city’s vast culinary scene. But when Favretto first began compiling materials in Miami, she wasn’t sure what she’d uncover. It began with a half dozen household guidelines — many published works from the 1930s and ‘40s that instructed guests on everything from hosting a dinner party to the responsibilities of household staff. Others acted as early “how to” guides, offering tips for the first wave of young businesswomen learning the art of balancing career and home. More recently, the collec- tion has blossomed to include spiral-bound cookbooks, color- fully illustrated magazines, and old menus that paint a picture of what it was like to eat in Miami before it was the Michelin-rated gastronomic scene it is today. Visit the Kislak reading room, and you’ll discover that our region’s food culture depicts a colorful tapestry of subtropical influences that go beyond TASTE 2023 miaminewtimes.com UM’s Special Collections library preserves Miami’s culinary past. BY NICOLE DANNA Florida archives A nearly 80-year-old menu from Fort Lauderdale's Old Heidelberg. 6 The Savor Savers >> p8
