Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio Quirky Food Hour! Vegetable Orchestra, Jell-O Art, Adult Baby Food [Corrected]
May 5, 2026
Guest
Emily Wallace & Kate Medley
Guest
Samuel West
Guest
Susanna Gartmeier & Jürgen Berlakovich (Vienna Vegetable Orchestra)
Emily Wallace & Kate Medley, creators of the O Moldy Night Jell-O mold exhibit in Durham, NC, share gelatin history and outrageous molded entries. Dr. Samuel West, psychologist and Museum of Failure curator, recounts famous food and product flops. Susanna Gartmeier & Jürgen Berlakovich of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra explain building and playing instruments made from vegetables and how rot, texture, and tuning shape the sound.
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Making Music From Fresh Vegetables
- The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra plays instruments built entirely from fresh vegetables and treats the concert day as instrument-making, performance, and community meal.
- They build ~150 instruments, select specific vegetables (eg. slightly rotted pumpkins for bass) and serve freshly cooked soup after concerts to connect with audiences.
Tune Vegetable Instruments Right Before Playing
- Tune and test vegetable instruments immediately because humidity and drying change pitch over time.
- Carrot flutes and carrot cellophones can be tuned precisely but will shift as they dry, so soundcheck close to performance.
Avant Garde Meets Classical In Vegetable Music
- The orchestra combines avant-garde musique concrète and Vienna's classical tradition to repurpose everyday vegetable sounds into structured music.
- They intentionally mimic electronic/abstract sounds organically rather than digitally, creating experimental but serious performances.