Amuse-bouche
Susannah Worth, Digesting Recipes: The Art of Culinary Notation
Zero, 114pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781782798606
reviewed by Nina Franklin
'The significance of cookbooks within western culture should not be underestimated. Their value as cultural documents and as works of literature has been well stated.' Food, the ultimate cultural glue, is a rightful obsession of the modern - and indeed, any - age. What we eat says so much about us, and what we talk about when we talk about food is a true litmus test of society. What is on your plate divulges your class, your status, your racial background, your political ideals and your culture, no matter how schtum you try to keep. A cookbook is more than the sum of its recipes; it is a time capsule of its period, a cryogenically preserved vision of the ideology of both its author and audience.
Usually in the imperative mood – a 'script for one actor’ – a recipe is an instruction manual, but this is not to say that it is always didactic. There is always room for adaptation. In fact, a recipe is so much a creation of theft, homage, variation and improvisation that it can never really belong to anyone. It is this evolutionary space that Susannah Worth tackles in Digesting Recipes.
The book is structured as a nine-course meal, each chapter one delicious, pithy course. She starts with a quick historical overview. A recipe can be an escape from the drudgery of real life and a way to imagine plenty in a time of poverty. In post-war Britain, still in the grips of rationing, recipes appealed to the imagination rather than the purses and pockets of the masses. As time went on, cooking became the new middle-class hobby, an aspiration rather than anything achievable. Barthes decried the food features of Elle as ‘ornamental,’ 'an openly dream-like cookery … whose consumption can perfectly well be accomplished by simply looking.' Worth gives us a taste of the dream-like, delirious 'recipes' of well-know modernist, Gertrude Stein.
In proposing that Stein's work is not only literature, but also a recipe, we begin to see the link between the literary and the culinary. Having brought us up to date, Worth goes on to explore the inversions of the recipe format, which are profligate in modern art. Recipes are ultimately about an end goal, they are the algorithm for a perfect finished product. However, when stripped back, the recipe itself becomes a journey, as per Fluxus artist Alison Knowles' minimalist recipes for her own art:
A backlash against proscriptive cooking, carried over into 'real' cookbooks, some as terse as Peg Bracken’s classic I Hate to Cook Book (1960):
When we expect instruction but receive little, the recipe form has not failed us. It simply invites us to explore more ourselves. Worth's argument is that a recipe is not simply a 'script for one actor' but an exchange between two parties. Inclusion of Bobby Baker's 'give-and-take' interactive art, whereby the artist's performance is to make the audience lunch, gives the idea of a recipe a sense of reciprocity. Mary Kelly's Post-partum Document (1973-79) reduces the recipe form even further, presenting her son's soiled nappies as the end product, the food consumed as the recipe.
Towards the end of Digesting Recipes, Worth begins to tackle the Moloch that is Big Food, examining the presence of additives, E-numbers and cheap labour, but she never loses sight of her focus on modern art. Worth's focus on feminism, and its modern inversions in the 'post-feminist landscape of cupcake housewives' serves her well, with a bountiful supply of source material, without feeling contrived or irrelevant.
Darting from Yoko Ono to Nigella Lawson, Gertrude Stein to Miss Beeton, Worth reforms and reframes the recipe and it's place in modern culture. Digesting Recipes is, mostly, a composite of other people's work. This is scarcely a criticism, as it is neatly curated, zipping around from performance to food additives. The book is less critical analysis, more as if Worth herself is guiding us around an exhibition, pointing out artists and elaborating on their merits. It would have been nice to hear more of Worth's personal input, as her voice – when heard – is elegant and sharp, with a strong vision. When finishing upon each 'theme' or 'course' the chapter can end very abruptly, which lends a slight feeling of disconnect. Worth races through decades, genres and art forms with little time for summation, leaving the reader sometimes panting to keep up. It is also a minor shame that the book is so short, with the main body of the work only clocking in at 74 pages, but it is not a miserly portion. Rather, it is a small sliver of something rich and wonderfully formed, a little peek into Worth's world; a delicate amuse-bouche of cultural analysis.
The book is structured as a nine-course meal, each chapter one delicious, pithy course. She starts with a quick historical overview. A recipe can be an escape from the drudgery of real life and a way to imagine plenty in a time of poverty. In post-war Britain, still in the grips of rationing, recipes appealed to the imagination rather than the purses and pockets of the masses. As time went on, cooking became the new middle-class hobby, an aspiration rather than anything achievable. Barthes decried the food features of Elle as ‘ornamental,’ 'an openly dream-like cookery … whose consumption can perfectly well be accomplished by simply looking.' Worth gives us a taste of the dream-like, delirious 'recipes' of well-know modernist, Gertrude Stein.
SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE.
Please pale hot, please cover rose, please acre in the red stranger, please butter all the beef-steak with regular feel faces.
SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE.
It was please it was please carriage cup in an ice-cream, in an ice-cream it was too bended bended with scissors and all this time. A whole is inside a part, part does go away, a hole is red leaf. No choice was where there was and a second a second.
In proposing that Stein's work is not only literature, but also a recipe, we begin to see the link between the literary and the culinary. Having brought us up to date, Worth goes on to explore the inversions of the recipe format, which are profligate in modern art. Recipes are ultimately about an end goal, they are the algorithm for a perfect finished product. However, when stripped back, the recipe itself becomes a journey, as per Fluxus artist Alison Knowles' minimalist recipes for her own art:
(#2 Proposition,
Make a salad.
1962.)
A backlash against proscriptive cooking, carried over into 'real' cookbooks, some as terse as Peg Bracken’s classic I Hate to Cook Book (1960):
(Chutney Cream.
Mix:
1 cup sour cream
1/2cup chopped chutney
Juice of ½ lemon or lime
There.)
When we expect instruction but receive little, the recipe form has not failed us. It simply invites us to explore more ourselves. Worth's argument is that a recipe is not simply a 'script for one actor' but an exchange between two parties. Inclusion of Bobby Baker's 'give-and-take' interactive art, whereby the artist's performance is to make the audience lunch, gives the idea of a recipe a sense of reciprocity. Mary Kelly's Post-partum Document (1973-79) reduces the recipe form even further, presenting her son's soiled nappies as the end product, the food consumed as the recipe.
Towards the end of Digesting Recipes, Worth begins to tackle the Moloch that is Big Food, examining the presence of additives, E-numbers and cheap labour, but she never loses sight of her focus on modern art. Worth's focus on feminism, and its modern inversions in the 'post-feminist landscape of cupcake housewives' serves her well, with a bountiful supply of source material, without feeling contrived or irrelevant.
Darting from Yoko Ono to Nigella Lawson, Gertrude Stein to Miss Beeton, Worth reforms and reframes the recipe and it's place in modern culture. Digesting Recipes is, mostly, a composite of other people's work. This is scarcely a criticism, as it is neatly curated, zipping around from performance to food additives. The book is less critical analysis, more as if Worth herself is guiding us around an exhibition, pointing out artists and elaborating on their merits. It would have been nice to hear more of Worth's personal input, as her voice – when heard – is elegant and sharp, with a strong vision. When finishing upon each 'theme' or 'course' the chapter can end very abruptly, which lends a slight feeling of disconnect. Worth races through decades, genres and art forms with little time for summation, leaving the reader sometimes panting to keep up. It is also a minor shame that the book is so short, with the main body of the work only clocking in at 74 pages, but it is not a miserly portion. Rather, it is a small sliver of something rich and wonderfully formed, a little peek into Worth's world; a delicate amuse-bouche of cultural analysis.