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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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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The peppermint candy, commonly associated with Christmas, makes for a mint-flecked ice cream that is both sweet and soothing. Around the holidays, after countless lavish meals and heavy desserts, a palette cleansing mint dessert perfectly fits the bill.

Joseph Decker, Hard Candy
oil on canvas, 22.8 x 35.5 cm, Private collection

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The artist Julie Green has been working for more than a decade on her series titled The Last Supper comprised of painted china illustrating the final meal requests of death row inmates in the United States. The menus, gleaned from newspaper clippings and websites humanize a sect of society typically disregarded by the general public. Green paints the menus of The Last Supper series with mineral paint on appropriated dishes she collects from shops and stores. The plates range from delicate white porcelain to heavy cream crockery and the foods from each menu inform the choice of dish, “For dinner food, a heavy plain plate would be appropriate. If the meal is lasagna and shrimp, that might call for a fine porcelain plate.” Gazing from one plate to another, a culinary portrait of the United States begins to emerge. The most beloved menus from each region are singled out to be the last earthly delight of a condemned inmate. From tamales and enchiladas in Texas to boiled crawfish in Louisiana, the regional menus give a sense of the ethnic background of each prisoner.

Julie Green, Mississippi 23 July 1947, 2011
Cobalt mineral paint on kiln-fired ceramic plates, 22.8 x 22.8 x 2.5cm
Fried chicken and watermelon served to a 15-year old and a 16-year old boy.

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