Shields Library at UC Davis has incorporated two new exhibits onto its main floor, allowing students, faculty and staff to take a break to learn about the history of Davis through postcards as well as how cultures preserve their histories through cooking. If you want to have a peek at how life was like before social media and recipe web sites, have a look. It's worth a visit.

Running through March 21, Cooking Against the Grain is located on the main floor of the library right past the entrance on the left side of the main staircase. Based on ideas of German philosopher Walter Benjamin, the exhibit showcases how cultural objects and artifacts passed down from generation to generation carry the violence or power dynamics of the culture’s marginalized voices. Benjamin reminds us to rethink how we engage with the past and these artifacts, and how important it is to “brush history against the grain” to uncover the suppressed histories they carry.

During my visit, I really appreciated how Cooking Against the Grain’s display includes cookbooks from five centuries and many regions around the world, demonstrating how culinary voices can be woven together to write the history of a culture. The stains, notes in the margins, and hidden recipes in the cookbooks show how used and beloved they were by their original owners. With over 4,000 cookbooks at the UC Davis Library, Cooking Against the Grain is an invitation to explore the vast array the library has to offer and the stories they contain.

Just a few yards past Cooking Against the Grain and to the left is Greetings from Davis: Views from Local Postcards. On display through March 21, Greetings from Davis is a testament to the pictures and short messages that people used to record important moments in daily life before the advent of smartphones. The postcards on display range from production during the 1910s to 2010s and show how the city of Davis has changed or stayed the same over many decades. As part of the display, Greetings from Davis has a free Davis-themed postcard which onlookers are welcome to take and use. The postcard is a really fun bright blue with drawings inside of each letter of Davis that showcase an aspect of UC Davis.

One can view digitized versions of these regional postcards, and others, below and at the library’s Digital Collections site

All of the historical images displayed are taken from the Regional Postcard Collection, which features postcards of local scenes, attractions, buildings, and historical events in Yolo and Solano Counties. The images capture how aspects of the city of Davis as well as campus have changed over the years and encourages viewers to see how many places they can identify. I highly recommend visiting these exhibits, go see them before they’re gone!

Read the full story on the Cooking Against the Grain here: Cooking Against the Grain – UC Davis Library and the full story on Greetings from Davis: Views from Local Postcards here: Greetings from Davis: Views from Local Postcards.