"And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon": Mythical Foodscapes in Children's Literature Part I: Utensia

Although there have been few scholarly publications devoted to representations of food in literature, the subject has begun to receive greater attention in recent years. Children's literature offers a particularly interesting focus, for in stories of make-believe, food may be conjured in infinite variety. In many examples of such works, food bridges the fantastic and the quotidian- a banal ritual in an extraordinary manifestation. Food frequently provides the medium through which a character enters an elusive world, often occupied by talking animals, mythical beasts, and ambulatory objects. These foodscapes of the imagination become the entrance to marvelous adventures.

In Alice and Wonderland, for instance, after falling down a rabbit hole, Alice encounters a bottle marked 'Drink Me' and a cake marked 'Eat Me' which, after ingesting, cause her body to in turn shrink and then grow rapidly, hinting at the absurdites to follow. As in other tales and fables such as that of Hansel and Gretel, food is the conduit through which characters undergo a physical and/or mental transformation that translates their ordinary corporeality into the fantasy world.

In The Emerald City of Oz (1910), the sixth book in L. Frank Baum's chronicle of the Land of Oz, Chapter 16, "How Dorothy Visited Utensia," brings the main character, Dorothy, to the Kingdom of Utensia while traveling through the landscapes of Oz. Captured by a brigade of spoons, Dorothy, her dog Toto, and the yellow hen Billina, are taken to a land with a population made up entirely of kitchen utensils, ruled by King Kleaver. As the king and his subjects try to determine what to do with the prisoners, Dorothy is introduced to the various utensils around her. There is, for instance, the High Priest Colander, titled so because "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom" and the pepperbox, Mr. Piquant, who brashly condemns Dorothy to be killed three times, to which King Kleaver tempers with "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all."

As the utensils disagree about Dorothy's predicament, each reveals a mirthful license. The corkscrew tries to weigh in, stating "I'm a lawyer...I am accustomed to appear at the bar" and the flatiron attempts to "smooth this thing over." Curiously, Utensia is characterized by an absence of food, perhaps explaining the boredom felt by the captain of the spoons brigade, charging that in capturing Dorothy he intended "To create some excitement...It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." After Dorothy, Toto, and Billina are released and permitted to leave, they go into the forest to pick blackberries, for Dorothy is hungry and according to King Kleaver, "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of."

Despite, or because of its lack of food, Utensia is very much about the food that is not there. Although the utensils can move and talk, they are unable to prepare food, suggesting that it is their inability to cook that most strikingly separates them from the human world. Indeed, without their comestible partners the cookware and utensils are without purpose and somewhat forlorn. The flatiron reminds everyone, "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." Hence, it is the idea of food and its preparation that engages the reader. The image of food itself is left to the reader's imagination.

Coming soon...more foodscapes in Oz and beyond.
Part II: Bunbury
Part III: Raggedy Ann and the Magic Wishing Pebble
Part IV: Raggedy Ann in Cookie Land

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.