To Set a Palette
Baking is a science, cooking is an art. What a presumptuous statement until one bakes and wings it with an ingredient. That nice fluffy roll in the beautiful picture of your expertly bound, newly bought baking book, looks nothing like the flat blob that has emerged from your oven. They don’t even look to be in the same family tree. So, what have you done wrong? Oh yeah, you didn’t follow the rules to a ‘t.’
It’s interesting that artist’s are considered rulebreaker’s because a surprising amount lived incredibly regimented lives. At least that’s what I discovered in reading Felicity Souter’s wonderful cookbook Painting the Plate: 52 Recipes Inspired by Great Works of Art. There are the obvious entries like Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, but then there are unusual gems like Louise Bourgeois’ Les Fleurs, which inspires a simply tasty cherry and jambon de Bayonne bruschetta with homemade ricotta. Though arguably it’s the story of Bourgeois’—and the other featured artists--relationship with food that fascinated me. An extraordinarily prolific and varied creator, Bourgeois associated food and the kitchen with trauma. With a father who when present required entertainment with his supper, it’s no surprise Bourgeois found the act of cooking an unpleasant chore. Understanding its purpose to sustain, she cooked though did it her way: with the use of eight pressure cookers. Then there’s Daniel Spoerri whose Nouveau Réalisme inspired him to prepare specially curated meals all over the art world, where after guests had finished their repast, he’d glued down the cutlery and plates then photograph the table just as it was left, crumbs, dirty butter knives et al. His recipe in the book is cheese fondue with potatoes, radishes, pickled cornichons and chicory, an appropriate pairing to his featured work titled Seville Series No. 3, Fondue Meal. From looking at Spoerri’s work, you see how he saw food and cooking as more than being about it. What interested him was people’s interactions with one another when faced before a set menu. An adage to the concept that it’s in the sharing of a meal that food truly comes to life.
I think of Lee Krasner and Lee Miller, extraordinary cooks and entertainers who used their wares to promote their respective partner’s careers. Like Spoerri, cooking was about bringing people together, for the Lee’s. How different to Pablo Picasso, Helen Frankenthaler and Claude Monet, who had very strict approaches to the food they ate and how. They ate well, but as a means to an end. Though what struck me most about all 52 artists featured in Ms. Souter’s book was the very personal and visceral connection each had to food and the process of cooking. They were and are great artists and yet somehow, how they approached the manna of life, was so disciplined in its function and dysfunction, that it splashed onto their tableau’s. I didn’t know geniuses were this nuanced. All we hear about are their ego’s, the affairs, the overindulgence, never of the rudimentary. Bravo to Ms. Souter for trying to tackle the madness of creativity through a most basic need.
I own many cookbooks. From hither, tither and yond, if I like what they’re selling I’m making it. I’m very fussy about the cookbooks I buy; they need to have descriptive enticing pictures, undemanding instructions and ingredients that are manageable for the average joe. I don’t eat out, as over the years I’ve found myself disappointed by restaurant prepared foods too many times. I’d rather have a high bill at the grocery store than at the white linen table, because if the end product turns out shit, there’s only I to blame. From start to finish the process of cooking is a joy for me. Sourcing the ingredients is the easy bit, it’s deciding which world cuisine to riff from that’s the difficult exciting part. What can I make with the ingredients I’ve got, I ask? How much yogurt do I have to curry these potatoes? And sans pork, will the brandy and oyster sauce combination in this stir-fried pork in oyster sauce work with chicken? With a little tickle here and a pinch there, by jove I think I’ve got myself a delicious meal.
Being a sub-penniless writer, I have to find delight in non-material comforts, and cooking is where it’s at. I put on some music, sharpen my knives, smell the fresh herbs and get to work. Cooking and the discipline of writing are not mutually exclusive. Like with cooking, I need time to scheme up a story with a skeleton of direction. I know the beginning, the end and the cataclysmic moment, but everything in between I wing. Sometimes, stories need to marinate, to be put aside for a while so that they may take on a unique flavour of their own. On occasion the seasoning isn’t quite right, no matter how long it’s sat, and you need to add a little more. And that’s when the real cooking begins, because now is the time to set that turkey of tale in the oven and see if it comes out the way you intended. And if it doesn’t are you satisfied with the end product, or does it in need to be made into a salad or stew?
*Image: The Seasons, Guiseppe Acrimboldo https://giuseppe-arcimboldo.org/*
