Feasting on Art

I first tried out this corn recipe on my Thanksgiving menu this year. The spicy corn, brightened with a squirt of lime, proved to be the perfect foil to the buttery and rich dishes I tend to make. I adapted the recipe from the food blog Orangette which recommends eating with cheddar and toast, which I did and thoroughly enjoyed. For me, the dish recalled happy memories of summers in England where I would purchase corn cobs on a stick and eat them on green and white chairs hired in London parks. The corn was sweet and the butter would drip down my chin. The sweetness of the corn is enhanced by carmelising the kernels in the pan and the chili with the lime makes for not only a wonderful side dish, but a really interesting relish to top a grilled hot dog or as a salsa in a taco. The corn will keep for up to a week in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Charles Ethan Porter, Still Life with Corn, 1885
watercolour on paper, 25.5 x 43cm, Private collection

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 Andy Warhol, Poinsettias, circa 1983
synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas,  35.5 x 28cm, Private collection

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As far as cookie recipes go, this little beauty has become my new holiday staple. I first tried this recipe by Gourmet a couple of years ago but made too many substitutions. The cookies were extremely disappointing and I filed the card away in my recipe box until a bag of what was described as ‘the best pistachios you will ever eat’ arrived from my mother. The cookies are extremely festive, dotted with ruby red berries and dusty green nuts and extremely moorish, one is never enough. I used salted pistachios and so omitted the salt from the recipe. The salted nuts are perfectly offset with the sweet and chewy cranberries while the butter-rich dough melts in your mouth.

Albert Anker, Still Life: Two Glass of Red Wine, a bottle of Wine; a Corkscrew and a Plate of Biscuits on a Tray, oil on canvas, 43 x 40cm, Private collection

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Growing up in the Midwest, cookies played a major part of my December. Throughout the holiday season, we gathered at my grandparent’s home for various parties and meals, always entering their home via the garage and past the cookies. Perched on the woodpile, the cookies lived in old tins between layers of wax paper and were kept cold by the Michigan winter. This holiday staple, a recipe by my grandmother, produces a soft and chewy cookie with a dense crumb and can easily be scaled up or down.

John Frederick Peto, The Poor Man’s Store (detail left), 1885
oil on canvas and panel, 90 x 65cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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Currently on view at the Begovich Gallery at California State University, Fullerton is the exhibition ‘Acquired Taste: Food and the Art of Consumption’ curated by Alyssa Cordova & Heather Richards of Sickpack projects. The show runs until the 8th of December and features artists whose work focuses on food as subject matter or subtext. Of the show, the curators write, “Artists chosen highlight our reciprocal relationship to food: what we consume, how we consume it and how it consumes us.

Food is not merely nourishment; it is emblematic of who we are or who we desire to become. It has the ability to tie us to our cultural roots or divide us by delineating class, taste and status. It also acts as a social lubricant, comforting us in times of crisis or, when shared among friends, becomes a manifestation of our affection and regard for those we love.

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