Feasting on Art

As a creature of habit, I have had cucumber sandwiches on the menu for the last week and have been exceedingly satisfied. A couple of days ago I decided to improve upon the quick pickle in the original post and this recipe for a mustard seed & garlic variety was the result. The pickles still come together very quickly, leaving plenty of time for other matters which in my case consisted of lusting after a new couch on The Furniture Market. With their pungent aroma, the mustard seeds impart an earthy flavour with the sharpness of the raw garlic providing a hit of umami.

Erwin Wurm, Selbstporträt als Essiggurkerl, (Self-Portrait as a pickle), 2008
acrylic, acrylic paint, painted wooden platforms, 36 piece installation, © VBK, Wien, 2010

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“A cooked tomato is like a cooked oyster: ruined.”
Andre Simon, The Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy

As a writer with a penchant for fresh oysters and summer tomatoes, this quote fits squarely into my culinary logic. Personally, a weeknight meal consists of little more than a ripe tomato, sliced, salted and layered on buttered dark bread. Inspired by a painting by a Scottish Colourist, I became preoccupied with preserving the range of tomato colours as well as the summer taste as the season began to wane here in Australia. By braising the tomatoes over low heat for a limited amount of time, this recipe for sweet tomato relish seeks to preserve the fruit while maintaining the flush of summer ripeness.

Francis Cadell, Still Life (Tomatoes), c.1920
oil on board, 37 x 45 cm, Private collection

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Beautiful butterflies, stunning flowers, and fruiting trees attract and deflect attention with their often intricate colouration. Targeted for particular audiences, a single color can carry conflicting messages. In nature, orange signals vitamin rich potency and likewise poisonous lethal doses, though it also functions simply as a scare tactic. In works by artist Carsten Höller, orange mushroom caps recall (in gross scales) the natural poisons they indicate. In his 2009 work, Doppelpilzvitrine (24 Doppelpilze) (and in his recent large-scale sculptural installation, Doppelpilzuhr), Höller replicates spliced mushroom pairings in such scientific detail it is difficult to draw the line between artistic endeavor and experimental inquiry. The orange of these mushrooms, the fly amanita, which are the common denominator of his mushroom works, acts as a sign-posting of their Gift. (Gift is German for poison.) Their presentation in pristine glass cases cites research and archival collections, while their grafted halves belay their sequential categorization. From one side of the vitrine an assortment of fungi in varying shapes and sizes are visible, while from the other side the bright orange and white speckled specimens of the rare fly amanita dominate the view.

Carsten Höller, Doppelpilzvitrine (24 Doppelpilze), 2009
145 x 25 x 175 cm, Photo (of side-view): Carsten Eisfeld, Courtesy: Esther Schipper

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From fried oysters to cendol, I consumed a number of delectables while travelling in Malaysia in late October. Our restaurants ranged from street food in Penang to a private beach BBQ on Redang Island. Malaysian food is an exciting blend of Indian, Chinese and Malay cuisines with regional curries and fried noodle courses. I tried a number of new dishes including sea cucumber and overly indulged a few old favorites, especially roti canai. One of the stand-out meals was in Penang at a small Indian restaurant consisting of a few varieties of murtabak (pictured below on the left) along with a table full of curries. Paired with the murtabak was a small bowl of thinly sliced, pickled red onion that brightened the dish and gave it a punch of flavour. This dish can be found in hawker markets around the city, mingling with an assortment of goods from beautiful batik prints to every tropical fruit imaginable.

Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, façade stone carving (detail right), c.1906
Cannon Street, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

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This guest post is by my mother, Julie Fizell.

I thought it would be so fun to walk in Megan’s shoes for a while, and she agreed to a guest post.  Her father Ed and I quickly decided to make blackberry jelly.  We had made strawberry jam several times together and managed to stay married, so we thought we were up for the challenge.  The difference between jelly and jam is that jelly does not contain seeds.  No big deal, right?

We picked our blackberries along a secret dirt road in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  I’d tell you where the secret road is but I wasn’t paying attention as we bounced along.  We wore jeans and heavy shirts despite the hot weather – protection from the vicious thorns attached to blackberry brambles.  The blackberries in Raphaelle Peale’s still life look misleadingly innocent draped over the silver platter, so unlike their counterparts in the wild.  We were scratched, poked, and tripped by thorny stalks that attacked us as we waded through the thicket.  But we were successful!  After nearly an hour, Ed and I picked about three cups of luscious berries.   One cup I devoured immediately; the last two made it into our bucket.

Raphaelle Peale, Blackberries, c.1813
oil on wood panel, 18.4 x 26 cm, de Young Fine Art Museum

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