Feasting on Art

As an art historian, I find the artist’s conceptual process to be incredibly intriguing, it lends readability and a deeper understanding to the artwork. In interviews, I am often asked to describe my methods of adapting an artwork into a recipe and truth be told, my approach varies greatly from post to post. There is a general formula I tend to follow and as this blog nears the two-year mark, I decided to share my creative process for the recipe below. In the beginning of each month, I sit down with a calendar and begin combing through my image archives. I try to post a new entry once every five days and so I map out the month, reserving two Mondays to cook and photograph all of the dishes. I queue up artworks that pique my interest and begin listing out the ingredients depicted in each one. As an example, Still Life of Asparagus, pictured below by Nicolas-Henry Jeaurat de Bertry features butter, onion, garlic and white asparagus. After listing the ingredients, I start arranging and rearranging the signature item which ended up being the white asparagus in the recipe below. I tend to start with the recipe title and from the title, work out the ingredient proportions and method of cooking. With the soufflé edged with asparagus, I had a clear picture of how the finish dish should look but was unsure if the recipe would actually work the way I intended. Lucky for me, the soufflé emerged better than I had imagined and the asparagus, when plucked from the soufflé, acted as a vehicle to transport the spongy egg, an aspect I had not anticipated.

Nicolas-Henry Jeaurat de Bertry, Still Life of Asparagus, 18th century
oil on canvas on panel, 25.5 x 36 cm, Private collection

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On the surface, the small bar in Newtown, Sydney, filled with antlers and aptly named Moose appears to have little in common with Cafe Felix, an Ann Arbor mainstay known for French-style tapas. The commonality the restaurants share appears in the form of a carefully roasted mushroom, upended to form a small cup and filled with a medley of cheeses. As a college student, I would stretch my food budget in order to indulge in the stuffed mushrooms bathed in a sage-cream sauce at Cafe Felix. The small dish had such an impact on my memory, I tried to recreate it to serve at the first dinner party I held in my first flat. As is always the case, I managed to serve my reconstructed masterpiece to a guest that despises mushrooms. I tucked the recipe away until recently, when an impromptu visit to Moose in Newtown revived my interest. Apart from tasting delicious, this cheese post also serves as a timely reminder that there are only 19 more days until the close of the 2nd annual recipe contest.

Pavlos Dionyssopoulos, Still Life with Mushrooms, 1997
wood, paper and plexiglass, 46.2 x 40 x 40 cm, Private collection

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Recently I have been thinking a lot about meatballs. From Molly Wizenberg’s search for the perfect meatball for Bon Appétit to The Traveler’s Lunchbox’s adaption of Lynn Rosetto Kasper’s beguiling recipe featuring spinach, cinnamon, almonds and candied citron, I have been reading about delicious little orbs of meat in all of my favourite venues. Although the recipes certainly peaked my interest, I struggled to find a meal composed entirely of ground mince appetising, especially sans a generous portion of noodles. However, upon discovering an issue of Australian Good Food magazine nestled among the classifieds, I spotted a recipe for cabbage-wrapped meatballs and soon found myself in the kitchen rolling, wrapping and saucing. My grandmother affectionately calls this dish pigs in the blanket, a recipe she has made for as long as she can remember. The version my grandmother referred to has roots in Slovak cookery and is also known by the name gołąbk.

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Still Life with Vegetables, 1976
oil on board, 24 x 34 cm, Private collection

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Classified as a filled pasta, ravioli dates back to the 14th century from the writings of Francesco di Marco (1). The word ravioli is similar to the Italian verb ‘to wrap’, riavvolgere, although it is not a derivative. Traditionally, pasta dough is rolled out as thinly as possible and then wrapped around a filling. Italian-Americans pioneered the canned style, often beef in a tomato or tomato-cheese sauce. Growing up as a Midwesterner, the dish was synonymous with the purveyors of the canned variety – Chef Boyardee, an Ohio company dating back to 1924. This recipe offers large ravioli, with three to four equating to a generous dinner. The olive oil, lemon and fresh basil keep the dish light, otherwise the filling pasta becomes a stodgy meal – much like it’s canned counterpart.

István Csók, Amalfi, 1937
oil on canvas, 64 x 74.5 cm, Hungarian National Gallery

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The fluffy egg cake known as a soufflé can be made both sweet and savoury depending on the flavourings incorporated. In French, the word soufflé is the past participle of the verb souffler that translates to ‘to blow up’ – exactly what a soufflé does when it bakes. The method of creation is related to that of a meringue and the dish dates back to the 18th century. Often considered to be a fussy recipe, the soufflé is actually quite resilient and as long as whipped egg whites still retain some air they will not collapse. It is only when the soufflé cools that the dish will slump and so a quick oven to table service is essential. An old kitchen fable states a loud noise will cause a soufflé to fall but according to Howard Hillman in Kitchen Science ‘Though many a cook has blamed the collapse of a souffle on the spouse who slammed the kitchen door, the force of the shock waves from that deed is too weak to pop more than a few air bubbles, if any at all.’

Jean-Siméon Chardin, Still Life, c.1732
oil on panel, 17.1 x 20.96 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts

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