Promising to convert Brooklyn's Prospect Park into "an amusement park of food and drink," the first-ever GoogaMooga festival takes place this weekend. While 20 bands including Hall & Oates, The Roots and electropop duo Holy Ghost!! are performing, the music will be playing second fiddle to the degustation.
Approximately 75 food vendors, 35 brewers, and 30 winemakers will take over the meadow, a 25-acre space at the center of the 585-acre park. Hip city restaurants like Mile End Delicatessen, Momofoku Milk Bar, M.Wells, The Spotted Pig, Blue Ribbon and Roberta's are being showcased.
Headlining the event are celebrity chefs, including TV star Anthony Bourdain, Craft chef/owner and Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio, Terrace's Jean-Georges and BaoHaus's Eddie Huang. A host of panels include "The Joy of Rhubarb," "MMMM…Beer and Bacon," "The Art of Appetizing," and "Beef Butchering." Lectures also include sustainable food options and tips on opening a restaurant.
"The spotlight is really on the food, the chefs, the wine," Jonathan Mayers, a founder of Superfly Presents, the festival organizer, told The New York Times. "Music will complement it, but those are the stars of the show."
Superfly Presents also runs Bonnaroo, a four-day rock music festival held each June outside Nashville that has also been playing up chefs and culinary fare over the last few years. Noting that other rock festivals such as Outside Lands, Lollapalooza and Coachella are likewise increasingly emphasizing gourmet options, the Times pondered why live music shows have moved away from "cold pizza, warm beer and stale pretzels" over the years.
One reason stated was that food was just an afterthought at many rock festivals in the past. The other was that Millennials, having grown up on the Food Network and already supporting the food truck craze, have advanced on their Baby Boomer parents to become even bigger ‘foodies.' Also feeding the conversation around food and restaurants is the ability to tweet, blog, write online restaurant reviews on Yelp.com, and even take pictures of mouthwatering meals to show on Facebook.
The connection to music was seen as a natural fit since people are discovering and experimenting with food just like they discover new music. Graham Elliot, a Chicago chef who is culinary director for Lollapalooza, told the Times, "The thing is, food is now as interesting and expressive as music."