PHILADELPHIA, October 22, 2013

The second annual Cuisine From the Collections, an exciting twist on the ordinary cocktail party, will be held Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. The event, a fundraiser for the museum’s research and collections, will feature foods—from the everyday to the exotic—inspired by the Academy’s collection of more than 18 million plant and animal specimens.

Cuisine From the Collections will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets start at $150. For more information and to register, visit ansp.org or call 215-405-1542.

The Academy is a world-class natural history museum dedicated to advancing research, education, and public engagement in biodiversity and environmental science. Most of the birds, fish, insects, mollusks, reptiles, fossils, and other animals in the specimen collections are not on public view. They are available for researchers and for behind-the-scenes group tours. Cuisine From the Collections offers an opportunity to not only see some of the specimens but also to experience them in a unique way.

“It’s a great way to explore the collections through eating,” said Heather Hahn Sullivan, the Academy’s senior manager of sponsorship and events.

Guests will wander through the museum and partake in fare not found in the average restaurant. Among the menu items are wild boar cassoulet, Cajun alligator sliders, ostrich picante-style, dino kale salad—a nod to the Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit currently on view—and Capogiro Gelato with Chocolate Covered Crickets for dessert. An Academy scientist will be posted at each “tasting station” to explain the science behind the food. One station in the “test your taste buds” series will ask guests to see how high they can climb on the Scoville Scale, which measures the hotness of peppers.

Unique hors d’oeuvres will be prepared by star chefs Steve Eckerd, formerly of Le Bec Fin, Al Paris of Heirloom, and Peter Whitley, executive pastry chef of the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, and 12th Street Catering, the Academy’s culinary partner. Cuisine From the Collections is hosted by the Academy and co-chairs Dr. Elizabeth Bales and Michael Dell’Angelo of Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill and Leanne and Rob McMenamin of Wayne.

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