Museum Boerhaave — Foodtopia 2015 · Leiden

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What does the future of food smell like?

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For the Foodtopia exhibition at Museum Boerhaave, six scents were developed to bring the story of food innovation in the Netherlands directly to the nose. The exhibition traced a century of change — from margarine to lab-grown meat — exploring how food science, society and emotion have been entangled since 1900.

Scent was the perfect medium for a subject this visceral. Few things trigger stronger opinions, memories and emotions than food. By making the exhibition smellable, visitors could engage with the subject on a level that went beyond reading and looking.

The range was deliberately wide. From the familiar pleasure of fresh strawberries to the deeply unfamiliar smell of fried grasshoppers — a nod to insect protein as one of the most discussed food innovations of our time — each scent placed visitors face to face with their own reactions. Comfort, curiosity, surprise, resistance. All valid. All part of the conversation Foodtopia was designed to start.

Scent and the science of food

Museum Boerhaave is the Netherlands' national museum of the history of science and medicine. In this context, scent was not decoration — it was evidence. A way of making food science tangible and immediate for every visitor, regardless of their background.