Culinary Ephemera: The Cookie Cutter Wheel

At the Museum of Modern Art's Counter Space show, mentioned in the last post, a small utensil from the 1950's caught my attention. Known as a cookie cutter wheel, it is composed of several cookie cutter shapes fitted onto the spokes of a wheel, with a plastic handle. This simple contraption would allow the home baker to quickly and effortlessly stamp out a chain of perfectly cut cookies by rolling the wheel over the cookie dough as with a rolling pin. Although this piece is not included on the Counter Space website, I found an image of a similar vintage model here. While kitchen gadgetry is not unique to the 20th century, the low-tech, and indeed superfluous cookie cutter wheel typifies a period when domestic efficiency was marketed through an increasing array of modern appliances.

One method of promoting such kitchen tools was to align the product with a food manufacturer. A patent for a cookie cutter wheel was filed on October 6th, 1925 and issued in September of 1929 to inventor Cleveland P. Carney with the Calumet Baking Powder Company (est. 1889) acting as assignee. By matching up comestible products such as baking powder with associated gadgets, manufacturers could generate and reinforce consumer interest in both commodities, thereby saturating the kitchen with a range of commercial goods.

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.

Recipe: Hijiki Doughnuts and Hijiki Hotcakes

Hijiki (Sargassum fusiforme) is a type of seaweed that grows along the coastlines of China, Korea, and Japan. Available in grocery stores in dried form, hijiki is commonly used in Japanese home cooking. Its crinkly, tea-like leaves are soaked in water for about an hour, swelling to tadpole sized pieces. Hijiki is very high in iron, calcium, and magnesium. Although it contains minute levels of inorganic arsenic toxin, Japanese health authorities do not consider hijiki to be health threatening as it is consumed in such small amounts. Furthermore, the toxicity level decreases significantly when hijiki is soaked, rinsed, and cooked.

For more about cooking with hijiki see this post from Just Hungry. For more on seaweed, see my post on agar-agar.

Hijiki seaweed, with a late 19th century English copper tea canister in the Aesthetic style, depicting cranes.

Hijiki has a mild seaweed fragrance, chewy texture, and a nutty flavor that is delicious in soups and mixed into rice. Yet the first time I tasted hijiki was in doughnuts that my mother had made in a Japanese cooking class: ping pong-sized balls of sweet and crispy, fried dough that concealed a soft interior filled with hijiki. Although I haven't been able to locate my mother's recipe from the cooking class, I have adapted my favorite recipe for baked doughnuts from 101 cookbooks to include hijiki.

Recipe
Baked Hijiki Doughnuts
Yields about 2 dozen 2" balls

Ingredients

2 Tbs hijiki
2/3 cup warm milk
1/2 packet active dry yeast (about 1 generous teaspoon)
1 Tbs cooking oil, such as canola
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter
confectioners' sugar

1. Cover hijiki with water and soak for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Drain in a colander, rinse, and place hikiji in a towel to wring dry, as you would with spinach. Set aside.

2. Place half (1/3 cup) of the warm milk in a large bowl and sprinkle yeast over top. Stir until dissolved. Let it sit for 5-7 minutes, or until you can see the yeast start to activate and produce little bubbles. Place remaining milk in a mixing bowl and stir in oil and sugar. Add this to yeast mixture. Whisk in egg, flour, and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined and then knead with your hands (either in bowl or turn onto a floured countertop) about 5 times, or until the dough becomes homogenous, elastic, and soft. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle more flour on as you knead. If too dry, sprinkle more milk on as you knead.

3. Place dough in a large, greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and place in a warm spot to rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

4. Punch down dough and knead hijiki into dough until evenly distributed. Place 1 1/2" balls of dough on parchment lined baking sheets. Cover with a damp towel and let rise another 45 minutes.

5. Bake doughnuts in an oven preheated at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt butter in a saucepan. After 8 minutes, check on doughnuts. When the bottoms are golden brown they are ready. Remove from the oven, brush liberally with melted butter, dust with confectioners' sugar, and serve.




Another way to use hijiki is in dorayaki-style hotcakes. Dorayaki are Japanese filled pancakes, consisting of two castella cakes encasing a filling of either red bean, peanut, chocolate, or cream cheese.
The recipe below features hijiki and cream cheese inside a pancake made buoyant with whipped egg whites. I'd like to experiment with flavor combinations, substituting whole wheat pastry flour for all-purpose, and adding pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, or carrot to the batter.

Shown in an onigiri (rice ball) carrier, that works well for transporting hotcakes too.

Recipe
Hijiki Hotcakes
Yields about 4 hotcakes. To make a large batch, simply multiply the proportions below. Freeze any extra hotcakes and thaw in the microwave to serve.

Ingredients

1 Tbs hijiki
2 oz. cream cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbs sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk or soymilk
2 Tbs butter, melted and cooled, plus more for the pan

1. 1. Cover hijiki with water and soak for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Drain in a colander, rinse, and place hikiji in a towel to wring dry, as you would with spinach. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks with milk and butter. Add to flour mixture. In another bowl, beat egg whites at high speed until peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter in 2 additions.

3. Heat a pan over medium high heat with butter. Add a spoonful of batter and as the edges start to firm, gingerly place a teaspoon of cream cheese and a pinch of hijiki (about 7 pieces) on the center of the cake. Top with a little more batter. When bottom is golden (1-2 minutes), flip over and cook 1-2 minutes more. Repeat with remaining batter.