Kitchen Culture

Dolls' house stove, tin, English 1930-1960

shown in "Food Glorious Food" at Museums Sheffield and traveling to the V&A's Museum of Childhood

The kitchen is defined as a place where cooking is carried out. To this end it is usually characterized by the presence of a heat source. While this purpose has not changed since the earliest domestic settlements, the cultural construction of the kitchen continues to adapt according to prevailing attitudes and tastes. The modern Western kitchen, with its focus on efficiency and hygiene, began to take shape during the industrial revolution of the mid 19th century. During this time the use of machinery and theories of productivity came to determine the appearance, function, and concept of the modern kitchen.

Two current exhibitions and an ongoing exhibit online examine this evolving social artifact, tracing the impact of theoretical and technological innovations on the modern Western kitchen since the industrial revolution of the mid 19th century:

"Food Glorious Food"- a UK exhibit described as "a delicious helping of memories from field to fork" is now showing at Museums Sheffield until November 28th, 2010 (you may also be interested in visiting the museum's collection of culinary related Sheffield metalwork). A collaboration between the University of Sheffield, Museums Sheffield and the Victoria & Albert Museum, the exhibit will be traveling to the V&A's Museum of Childhood, where it will be on view from January 29th to May 8th, 2011. Unfortunately, neither museum provides a digital archive of the pieces in the exhibition.

"Counter Space"- a comprehensive, well-edited exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This thoughtful exhibit, deftly curated by Juliet Kinchin and associate curator Aidan O'Connor of the Architecture and Design department, is on view until March 14th, 2011. Divided into sections- "the new kitchen," "the frankfurt kitchen," "visions of plenty," and "kitchen sink dramas"- the show follows developments in kitchen culture and aesthetics from the years after World War I to the present day. Highlights such as a complete, physical example of "The Frankfurt Kitchen," designed by Frankfurt's first female architect, Margarete (Grete) Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000) in the late 1920's, are accompanied by lesser-known (but equally exciting) visual material such as posters and utensils, that illustrate the ideals of modern living, embodied in Germany's post-WWI urban apartment complexes. The exhibit is complemented by an excellent website that allows viewers to experience the show's themes and many of the pieces on display, along with relevant videos and additional information.

"In the Victorian Kitchen"- the California Academy of Sciences online exhibit of Victorian kitchen and table tools drawn from the academy's Rietz Collection of Food Technology. The exhibit features sections on British cooking technology, changes in English silversmithing, blue and white Staffordshire, and Victorian dessert moulds.

Because food is a cultural product in as much as it provides sustenance, the kitchen is a complex space upon which the ideals and aspirations of a society are impressed. Exhibits such as these help contextualize this space within broader social movements, but also reveal the significance of the kitchen on an individual level, in viewers themselves.


Also of note: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "Let Them Eat LACMA," a year long investigation of the intersections between food, art, and living.

Celebrating Food and the World's Fair

The images in this post are from a set of commemorative postcards issued to promote the 1939 World's Fair, held in Flushing Meadow Park in New York City.

From street festivals and village fêtes to county carnivals, fairs have historically functioned as sites of both commercial and cultural exchange. Going to a fair represents a break from the quotidian-- a chance to experience something new and unexpected. Food, in the form of old favorites and new discoveries, is invariably part of the entertainment. Perhaps no fair has existed on a grander scale than the World's Fair. Beginning with London's Crystal Palace Exposition in 1851, in which 28 countries exhibited in pavilions, the World's Fair has been a stage for the performance of national identity through art and industry. This year's World Expo in Shanghai, which opened on May 1st, is no exception, with nearly 200 countries participating and a projected audience of 70-100 million.

Postcard from the 1939 World's Fair in New York, depicting the "Plaza of Governments."

The history of the World's Fair is very well documented and there is a large amount of archival material on the subject, including pamphlets, menus, and design plans. It is particularly interesting to consider the role of food and cuisine as a demonstration of national identity at these events. For instance, at Expo 67, held in Montreal to commemorate Canada's centennial anniversary, indigenous Canadian food was employed to illustrate and define Canada's cultural identity. The pavilion's restaurant, La Toundra, was decorated with line drawings of indigenous life and featured dishes of meat and fish particular to Canadian land and waters. An enlightening study on the subject can be found in "The Cuisine of the Tundra: Towards a Canadian Food Culture at Expo 67," by Rhona Richman Kenneally in Food, Culture & Society, vol.2 (3), 2008: 287-314.

Model of fairgrounds, previewed to the public at the Empire State Building.

Indeed, one can begin to trace the experience of the World's Fair through the period literature on the subject. The Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was the subject of a charity cookery book compiled by Carrie V. Shuman titled, Favorite Dishes. A Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book. Over Three Hundred Autograph Recipes, and Twenty-three Portraits, Contributed By The Board Of Lady Managers Of The World's Columbian Exposition, published to raise admission funds for women who could not afford to attend the fair. Produced by the Columbian Exposition's Board of Lady Managers, a group of influential society women from 7 different states, the cookbook reflects the interests behind the fair's Woman's Building, which featured exhibits on women's achievements and a library of women's writing. At a time when women's rights was a commonly contested issue, the building's presence represents an attempt to situate the role of women within discourses on the nation. The cookbook, with its collection of regional favorites, attempts to bring together the experiences and allegiances of women across the United States through food. In an introductory piece Shuman decribes the collection as "the exponents of the Art of Cookery, at this stage of its best development in this country, and as cheerful assistants of women who need the encouragement and blessings of their more fortunate sisters." As a side note, the book's first chapter, "Tea," includes recommendations for serving "Five O'clock Tea" with a "teaball," as it is a convenient tool for the busy hostess and allows for an economical use of tea leaves.


Postcard from the 1939 World's Fair in New York, depicting a night view of the fair's signature monument, the Trylon and Perisphere.

The World's Fair attempts to portray, not just the character of individual nations and corporations, but a view of the world through dominant political and economic paradigms. The Fair was, and continues to be, a projection of the future as reflected through capitalist ventures. The 1939 World's Fair was themed "The World of Tomorrow" and featured a futuristic display of modern technology, culminating in the Trylon and Perisphere buildings (above), a monument to human ingenuity through industrial and scientific development, as the Second World War approached. While the preparation of food was reconsidered in exhibits featuring electric kitchen tools, the appearance of food itself could symbolize the future. For instance, the Sealtest Dairy pavilion pamphlet featured recipes for orbs of fried macaroni and cheese, an American classic reinvented as a futuristic spheroid.

Postcard from the 1939 World's Fair in New York, depicting the fair's Planetarium, a technological achievement in which "intricate machinery moves the heavens at will."

One can experience a culture through its cuisine. By consuming the exotic delicacies at the World's Fair, audiences came into contact with a romantic, fantasy image of foreign cultures and societies. Yet food can also stand as an embodiment of what seems 'foreign' about another culture. But cultural convergence can be unsettling, particularly if there are socio-political inequalities involved. This idea is illustrated in a 1936 Japanese novel by Yumeno Kyusaku, titled Ningen soseji, or Human Sausages. In this story, after a series of fantastical events a Japanese carpenter is plunged into the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, where he comes into contact with an American gangster trafficking in Asian women in a secret hideaway on the fairgrounds. Most frighteningly, the man discovers the gangster's personal sausage machine (a Western food product), into which humans have been fed. (See Tomoko Aoyama, Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009, for more analysis on this subject.) In this fantastic tale, technology is represented by a machine of annihilation, allowing the foreign West to consume the East through an act of anthropophagy.

Postcard from the 1939 World's Fair in New York, depicting the marine amphitheater.


A fortuitous occurrence at the St. Louis World's Fair led to the invention of iced tea at the East Asian Pavilion (Hohenegger, Beatrice, Liquid Jade: the Story of Tea from East to West, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2006). As the St. Louis summer heat turned visitors away from the pavilion's tea samples, the exhibitor, Richard Blechynden, added ice to the tea, creating a new and popular beverage. I think this story sums up the notion of the World's Fair quite well, as a global marketplace generating consumerism and conspicuous consumption through the ideologies put forth by the self-declared tastemakers of the day.

Links to World's Fair archives and ephemera:

ExpoMuseum- features a timeline with information on every World's Fair, podcasts, and useful links.
Shanghai Expo 2010- official site
Treasures of the New York Public Library: The New York World's Fair, 1939-40- video with information from the library's archives.

New York World's Fair, 1964/1965- exhaustive set of information on the pavilions at the 1964 fair.

Postcard from the 1939 World's Fair in New York, depicting the marine amphitheater at night.

Kiku Exhibition & Recipe

The New York Botanical Garden's third annual exhibition, Kiku: Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum, is on view until November 15, 2009. See my post on last year's exhibit here. Although the NYBG does plan to hold future kiku exhibitions, the exhibit will not return next year.

Kengai (cascade) style chrysanthemum, grown from a single stem.


This year, in addition to specimens from the exquisite Imperial style varieties displayed in 2008, the garden is showing examples of several other herbaceous chrysanthemums, many of which are pictured below.

















The Imperial style kiku are a visual paradox. From their upright form one senses a noble carriage conveying austerity, elegance, and refinement, yet the crowning profusion of petals suggests a controlled flashiness, at once self-effacing and florid.

The Ogiku, or "Single Stem" style features a tri-color pattern of kiku. The combination of lavender, yellow, and white are associated with equine regalia of the Japanese court.

The more common chrysanthemum varieties are less flashy but radiate a similar feeling of subtle beauty. As I mentioned in last year's post, chrysanthemums are a common theme in Japanese literature. Kikugurama, (Boxcar of Chrysanthemums, 1967) a short story by illustrious novelist, Enchi Fumiko, alludes to the modest charm of the white chrysanthemum. In this story, a woman traveling home one early autumn evening finds herself on a local train carrying both passengers and freight. The long journey is protracted with frequent stops to pick up the night's cargo-- freshly picked chrysanthemums destined for the Tokyo flower market. At one stop the narrator observes a middle-aged woman accompanying her mentally handicapped husband as he sends off his beloved white chrysanthemums. Some time after the train leaves the station the narrator recognizes the couple as the Ishiges, whose strange marriage she had heard of before the Second World War. Apparently Mr Ishige had been born to a wealthy family. Worrying that his son's handicap would prevent his marriage, his father finds a willing young woman, Rie, to marry his son. The marriage elicited doubt and speculation from those who heard of the union. It was suspected that Rie had received financial incentives, but her quiet dedication and the love she showed for her husband over the years, despite humiliating events and a proposal from another man, proved her truly selfless nature. The narrator confides that she too had looked down on Rie. Seeing the Ishiges together after twenty years, the narrator realizes her mistake. Walking home from the train she recalls fondly:

I had been riding on a freight train full of chrysanthemums. In those dark, soot-covered cars hundreds and thousands of beautiful flowers were sleeping, in different shades of white, yellow, red, and purple, and in different shapes. Their fragrance was sealed in the cars. Tomorrow they would be in the Tokyo flower market and sold to florists who would display them in front of their shops.

At that moment she thinks of Rie and says, "She's a white chrysanthemum, that's what she is." Like the chrysanthemum, Rie was an enigma-- beautiful yet decorous and humble. The narrator concludes, "I felt a sense of joy in thinking of Rie's melancholy, middle-aged face as being somehow like the short, dense petals of a modest white chrysanthemum."

(This story can be found in Yukiko Tanaka and Elizabeth Hanson, trans. This Kind of Woman. New York: Perigee Books, 1982.)




Recipe
Kiku Turnip Pickles
A reader recommended this tasty side dish in which turnip pieces are cut to resemble the petals of a chrysanthemum flower and then pickled with sweetened vinegar. I soaked the kiku in juice from concord grapes to achieve a pinkish hue. Red shiso leaves, soaked in water, would probably work too.

Ingredients

1 turnip, peeled and sliced 3/4" crosswise
4 Tbs vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 Tbs salt
sugar

1. Take a turnip slice and score cross-hatch, or grid marks across the surface, about 2/3 into the slice. Repeat with remaining slices. Cut each slices into pieces that are approximately 1 to 1-1/2" square.

2. Cover the turnip pieces with just enough water to cover, mix in salt and soak for 15-20 minutes. You can add the coloring of your choice at this point or substitute plain water for colored water.

3. In a medium sized, non-reactive bowl or container, combine vinegar with an equal amount of water. Stir in sugar to dissolve.

4. After removing turnip pieces, pat dry with a towel, gently but firmly enough to remove excess water.

5. Soak turnip pieces in vinegar mixture for 1 hour. When ready, pat each piece dry and carefully separate the "petals" so they resemble a bloom. Keep refrigerated up to 2 weeks.


A Bonsai Gingko Tree

See highlights from the 2008 exhibition, Kiku: Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum

Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum at NYBG

For a short time through November 16th, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is displaying Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum. It is the second year that the Garden has exhibited this extraordinary collection, a culmination of several years training with Japanese kiku masters in the style of kiku shown at the Shinjuku Gyoen Garden in Tokyo. The process of training each plant into its desired formation requires as much as a year of shaping through pinching and staking. Four kiku styles are on display, each one more beautiful and fantastic than the next.

A bamboo sculpture by ikebana master Tetsunori Kawana, commissioned for the exhibit.


As with all aspects of Japanese garden design, chrysanthemum cultivation is an art, requiring years of study and practice to master. The form, structure, and shape of each petal and each leaf is evaluated and balanced with the plant as a whole and the overall floral arrangement. The bombastic yet refined kiku blossom below is part of the Ozukuri, or "Thousand Bloom" style.



While the ordered profusion of blossoms appears to be an arrangement of many individual plants, the exquisite Ozukuri configuration is actually coaxed and developed from a single stem. Ozukuri are grown in traditional Japanese wood planters known as sekidai. To create the illusion, the plant is limited to five hardy branches. The shoots from these limbs are then trained to grow straight and blossoms are removed until only the strongest one remains on each secondary stem. The plant's nutrients are thus concentrated in one blossom, creating a quietly dramatic spectacle when all of the flowers are in bloom.


This Ozukuri, known as "Friendship" features 229 blossoms.



Another style on display is known as Kengai, or "Cascade." Again, the prolific display of each variety is achieved from a single stem. Hundreds of flowers are trained onto a wire frame which is bent into the display position once the flowers are about to bloom (about 10 months). In its final stage, Kengai recalls an exuberant image of wild flowers on a cliff's surface, thereby mimicking and perhaps surpassing the beauty of the natural world.

Using the exhibition style of the Japanese imperial flower show, the kiku are arranged in temporary bamboo structures known as uwaya. One thus views each style in it's own housing, a display aesthetic that not only protects the flowers from wind and rain, but also encourages the viewer to appreciate each plant as a living and therefore ephemeral work of art. Kiku are not simply natural wonders; their form is the result of careful human manipulation. Yet, rather than imposing an order onto nature, one persuades the plant's natural character into a vision of perfection.

Kengai housed in traditional uwaya.

The Kengai style resembles a rock face showered with wild flowers.


The Ogiku, or "Single Stem" style features a tri-color pattern of kiku. The combination of lavender, yellow, and white are associated with equine regalia of the Japanese court. The six foot high blooms are propagated from one cutting.



"Morning Clouds" in the Ogiku style.



Shino-tsukuri, or "Driving Rain," is a new addition to this year's exhibit. Thirteen pots are arranged in two rows, with 27 branches in each pot. The semicircular arrangement of each variety echoes the movement of falling rain. Edo, the variety on display, is composed of three types of petals, each kind growing in a different direction, lending the blooms a pinwheel-like appearance and the sense of a paused moment amidst their kinetic flurry.

"Glowing Clouds at Dusk" in the Shino-tsukuri style.


"Golden Bird" in the Shino-tsukuri style.


"Snow on Distant Mountains" in the Shino-tsukuri style.

The chrysanthemum was brought to Japan from China in the 8th Century CE. Over time it has become one of the flowers most evocative of Japanese culture, along with the cherry blossom. As a symbol of longevity and the season of Autumn, the chrysanthemum is commonly depicted in the arts of Japan, including painting, decorative arts, and literature.

The compelling quality of this art is satirized in a Chinese folktale that became popular in Japan. Known in the West as "The Chrysanthemum Spirit," the story was retold by the writer Osamu Dazai in 1941. In his version Sainosuke, a kiku-obsessed man, meets Saburo, a poor, younger man with an exceptional ability to grow kiku effortlessly. Although unable to control his jealousy, Sainosuke marries Saburo's beautiful sister, Kie. After years of living with envy and frustration over his inability to reach the level of Saburo's talent, Sainosuke accepts his own mediocrity. Soon after, while the threesome is on a spring outing, Saburo, at the peak of contentment after drinking sake, turns into a chrysanthemum seedling. Realizing then that his brother-in-law Saburo and his wife Kie are in fact supernatural beings, Sainosuke feels a new appreciation for them and plants the seedling in his garden. When autumn comes, a single bloom appears, tinged with a drinker's rosy complexion and the subtle fragrance of sake.

Playful stories such as this are one of the many examples where chrysanthemums appear in Japanese literature.

The richly hued kiku form a ground cover carpet. Combined with large stones the display becomes a small-scale autumnal landscape.




The mix of white and yellow kiku suggests a winter scene, with mountains towering over snow covered hills.






The kiku exhibit is complemented by the NYBG's beautiful Japanese maples, which are at the peak of their fall colors in November.

Fallen maple leaves decorate the lotus and water lily pond.


See highlights from the 2009 exhibition here.