Portraiture

 

 

In the past, the coolest way to name-check yourself was to subtly paint your reflection in a random object in a portrait. Glass, metal, even pearls — all were glossy enough to serve as mirrors for the artist. Van Eyck and Velázquez were both cheeky lads in this regard, peeking out at the viewer from within complex scenes. But were they inventive enough to use a black olive to accomplish this snappy trick? I think not! 

 

Fast-forward to 1971, and the heyday of food styling fashion that demanded garnishes take center stage, as if the food being portrayed required bling to make it sing. The humble olive took a star turn as a jaunty bauble, its green and red and black globular presence crowning many an otherwise plain Jane dish. Here, they do yeoman’s work of providing compositional scaffolding to create a classic triangle out of a gloopy pink arrangement, much like a tiara on a drunken prom queen. The broccoli bouquet lays at her feet, confused as to its status as chaperone. But it is the black olive, the jewel in the crown, that winks back at us with the photographer’s light reflector, fairly screaming “we’re professionals here!” like the back of the artist’s easel. Meanwhile, the subject, having sat for hours, begins to sag under the lights. “Just a few more shots!” the photographer cries, but the olives stick their tongues out in protest, and the biscuits emit a whispered sigh.

 

Crusty Salmon Shortcakes

The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

Iron Feng

Behold the glorious harmony in this student’s presentation. Above, we have the iron hearth, representing the heart of the home, rendered in miniature. Below, the giant spoon, representing the individual. Note how the utensil can also be used as a dagger, ready to strike at the black heart of anyone who trespasses upon the homely scene. In the center, framed by the black, lies the broccoli, facing east and west, in an oval bowl.

See how the stove looms forbiddingly above the dish, to remind the diner of those who toiled to bring him such riches.

Surely this student will soon be a Feng Shui master, ready to bring peace and harmony and severe foreboding to your home.

Microwave Miracles, Hyla O’Connor

Also from this book: One Potato, Two Potatoes..., All Wrapped Up, 1982, Circumcised Apples

It's A Green, Green, Green, Green World

It’s  Green, Green, Green, Green World

(The Brassica Song)


By: the hardest-working vegetable in the kitchen

This is a green world, this is a green world

But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without some cauliflower or kale

You see, greens make the vitamins to keep us on the right road

Greens make the fiber to carry heavy loads

Greens make carotenoids so we can see in the dark

Greens make the selenium, and lutein for our hearts

This is a green’s, a green's, a green's world

But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a broccoli rabe

Green thinks about little baby collards and baby brussels sprouts

Green makes us happy 'cause green strikes cancer out

And after green has made everything, everything it can

You know that green makes them taste good with a little bit of ham

This is a green world

But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a cabbage or a kohlrabi floret

We’re lost in the wilderness

We’re lost in bitterness

Encyclopedia of Cooking, Vol. 3, Better Homes and Gardens, 1970

Also from this book: Teddy Bear’s Picnic, Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie, Cooking By Encyclopedia

Jizzed Up Veggies

 Nothing says “healthy vegetables” like drowning them in “pasteurized process cheese spread” and bacon bits.

Kraft, the processed foods conglomerate who produced this cookbook for harried working Moms, has ensured that their products form the base for everything in it, no matter how inappropriate. As it happens, they needn’t have worried about whether people are getting their daily helping; Kraft Foods owns pretty much everything you see on a supermarket shelf. It would be harder to go a day without consuming a Kraft product.

While the caption uses the ridiculous phrase above, the actual recipe calls for what we all know it by: CHEEZ WHIZ. That’s a lot of Zs.

CHEEZ WHIZ came to the market in 1953, and consists of the following:

WHEY, CANOLA OIL, MILK, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, MALTODEXTRIN, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SALT, LACTIC ACID, SODIUM ALGINATE, MUSTARD FLOUR, WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE (VINEGAR, MOLASSES, CORN SYRUP, WATER, SALT, CARAMEL COLOR, GARLIC POWDER, SUGAR, SPICES, TAMARIND, NATURAL FLAVOR), SORBIC ACID AS A PRESERVATIVE, MILKFAT, CHEESE CULTURE, OLEORESIN PAPRIKA (COLOR), ANNATTO (COLOR), NATURAL FLAVOR, ENZYMES.

(Translation: the stuff left over when milk coagulates, milk, casein (the dairy stuff that gives you allergies and heart attacks), soy, salt, the stuff responsible for tooth decay, more salt, ground-up mustard, Worcester Sauce, unripe rowan berry juice, milkfat, bacteria and fungi, pepper essence extracted with gasoline byproduct, Achiote tree derivative, “natural flavor”?, enzymes.) There is no cheese.

Fully two-thirds of CHEEZ WHIZ’s calories come from fat. This recipe will provide you with half your daily allowance of sodium from the CHEEZ WHIZ alone (never mind the bacon bits, chopped nuts, crushed crackers, seasoned croutons and crushed potato chips it also calls for).

CHEEZ WHIZ is just one type of "American Cheese," which is not cheese at all, but legally defined as a "cheese analogue" (hence the deliberately fake spelling). If it's called "American Cheese" (any variety) and comes in rectangular form (or in a jar or aerosol can), regardless whether you buy it from the deli counter sliced or not, it most likely grew in a field, rather than came out of a cow. "American cheese" consists mainly of soy and occasionally casein, or milk fats. 

Get this: to encourage patriotism during wartime, the sale and consumption of anything other than "American Cheese"was banned in the US in May, 1942. But people missed their real cheese and knew a ruse when they saw it — the public morale plummeted instead, causing the ban to be rescinded only three months later. 

Kraft has always liked to advertise CHEEZ WHIZ as “cheese made easy,” but what they are doing is making cheese really complicated. Actual cheese is easy all by itself. For a start, you don’t have to add anything to it for it to be cheese. Come to think of it, you don’t need to add anything to broccoli for it to be broccoli either.

Next time you want to disguise the fact you are serving green vegetables by jazzing them up, go with Jizz instead: packed with protein, only 25 calories per average helping.

Actually, skip the veggies altogether. Everyone’s likely to have a better evening. 

Weekday Survival Guide, Kraft General Foods, Inc., 1991

Also from this book: Making A Spectacle Of Yourself