Images as/and recipes
INTRODUCTION
By Alexandra Macdonald, Guest Editor, with Melissa Reynolds
Sometimes seeing is better than telling. With a renewed interest in DIY, recipes are everywhere. Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok are full of recipes and many, if not all, of them use captivating visuals to educate and inspire viewers. New York Times Cooking (@nytcooking), for example, has 4.1 million followers and a quick scroll though their page is a veritable feast of visual storytelling where gooey cheese, crisp apples, and bubbling pots of soups from around the globe introduce viewers to both step-by-step instructions and personal and cultural stories.
While visual-centric social media platforms are a modern phenomenon, as the posts in this issue illustrate, for hundreds of years and across a number of cultures, images have been used to craft stories around recipes. Whether the medium is digital, print, or manuscript, turning the physical act of making into a visual narrative requires interpretation, and images rarely serve a single goal; they are packed with assumptions, omissions, and expectations. The images that accompany recipes, or images that themselves function as instructions, can tell us as much about the development of a national or immigrant identity, the politics of mass-produced goods, racial and gender biases, or health practices as they do about the intricacies of any given recipe.
Because images have been so widely used in the storytelling that often accompanies recipes, the posts in this issue cover a broad range of regions, time periods, and cultures. However, several themes emerged that unite the issue’s essays.
First, we see images being used alongside recipes in advertising. And there is perhaps an equally robust tradition of advertisers using those images to do far more than communicate information about the recipe at hand. In her examination of propaganda posters from second-world war era Ceylon, Lara Wijesuriya shows how the visual recipes used to teach women how to cook wheat instead of more traditional rice-based dishes not only communicate information about the recipes themselves but provide insights into colonial notions of gendered labor and ‘home science.’ Jennifer McGillan’s study of mid-twentieth century promotional materials produced by Heinz Ketchup reminds us that imagery that was intended to educate can also feed into and reinforce stereotypical representations of ‘foreign’ people and cultures. Working in a similar vein, Simone Gillespie’s examination of advertisements run by the Duke Power Company in the twentieth century show how the company used their mascot Reddy Kilowatt and his “Recipe for a Healthy…Happy Wife” to craft a narrative in which women were told the key to happiness was to be hospitable servants to their family’s needs. Playing with the idea of both “time-honored” definitions of advertising and recipes, Xaq Frohlich’s examination of the FDA’s introduction of the Mellorine Standard in 1973 explores what happens when a ‘recipe’ is used to regulate mass-produced foods.
Images have also been used to communicate information across cultures. In her study of early American cookbooks, Jennifer Wells reminds us of the complicated relationship between ‘American’ and ‘British’ or ‘European’ cookery, suggesting that early American women used cookbooks to develop their understanding and performance of a national identity by both ridiculing and emulating British practices. Writing on the transfer of knowledge across the English Channel, Lauren Owens explores how French cooks adapted plum pudding, a quintessentially English dish, to suit their distinct geographic and culinary contexts. Haritha Govind’s examination of the video game Venba reminds us of the power of immersive visual storytelling. Introducing players to South Indian cooking through the well-loved pages of Venba’s mother’s cookbook, the game’s imagery and pacing encourages players to uncover the layers of cultural and culinary meaning hidden in the smudged recipe book.
Materials and memories are at the heart of a number of recipes, and visual storytelling has also been used to convey information about the materiality of recipes and the memories they can elicit. In her study of imagery from a sixteenth century Chinese book on the art of living, Cheng He shows how illustrations could function not only as visual descriptions but as aesthetic expressions of complex ideas. In portraying a series of inkstones, the author not only communicated important information about the materiality of stones used to grind ink, but he sought to communicate the importance of nourishing one’s soul as well as one’s body. Exploring the sticky problem of sap, Tedi Pascaella reminds us of the importance of materials and offers an introduction into the complex history of the healing properties of mastic sap in a global context. Sonakshi Srivastava’s photo-essay plays with both the structure of a recipe and the role of images to explore the relationship between food, crafting, and the senses to show how the art of making ghuiyan ke patte ki pakodi (fritters made from yam leaves) conjures images of her mother’s hands moving through the crafts of daily life.
Taken together, the essays in this issue argue that images played, and continue to play, a crucial role in learning not only new culinary skills but in understanding the personal and cultural worlds recipes inhabit and can create. For us, the fascinating and multifaceted picture that emerges from these essays enriches and extends current studies of recipes, and we hope that they inspire others to explore the rich and complex world of images!
in this issue
Using Images of Objects for Healthcare in Sixteenth-Century China
By Cheng He
Late-sixteenth-century China witnessed the increasing publication of illustrated books of various kinds. This includes books on health preservation, which deals with treating illness and everyday practices that are good for one’s health conditions and longevity. Sleeping, eating, drinking, walking, reading, writing, playing musical instruments, traveling, collecting, and appreciating art objects were all related to nourishing one’s life. In 1591, the book Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (Zunsheng bajian) was published. It covers the aspects mentioned above, and illustrations accompany a few sections. In addition to images that introduce gymnastic exercises, which have been discussed in academic research, there are also some images of objects.
Puttu, Rockets, and Game Controllers: South Indian Immigrant Recipes in the Video Game Venba
By Haritha Govind
You pick up your game controller and settle down in front of the screen to learn about South Indian family recipes. What you don’t realize is that you are about to be pulled into the emotionally charged world of Venba and her family in Canada, complete with the financial, cultural, and generational hardships and joys that are part of the immigrant experience. While cooking challenges have been a mainstay of video gaming, Venba presents itself almost like a composite ethnography where food means something more than simply cooking, serving, and eating. It introduces the player to a complicated network of what it means to be an immigrant and connect with your home culture through food.
Cooking with Ketchup: Images from the Promotional Kitchen
By Jennifer McGillan
57 Prize Winning Recipes is a promotional single-product cookbook published in 1957 by H.J. Heinz and Co. As a historical document, it is a snapshot of the late 1950s American culinary landscape, offering insight into the ongoing evolution and diversification of the American palate at mid-century. It also documents the tension generated by that diversification: recipes reflecting consumer familiarity and interest in dishes from culinary traditions that were previously “foreign,” such as Mexican, Chinese, and Italian, are paired with illustrations that mock those same cultures and traditions.
Mellorine, A “Time-Honored” Recipe?: FDA Food Standards as “Recipes” for Industrial Foods
By Xaq Frohlich
What exactly is the purpose of a recipe? Much has been written about the important role of recipes in passing knowledge across generations, building communities, serving as an expressive media, and functioning as scripts that discipline the untrained cook or promote a companies’ product. But what happens when the idea of “recipe” is used to regulate mass-produced foods? This question was at the heart of a dramatic shift in U.S. food regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when in 1973 it introduced a food standard of identity for “mellorine” – a frozen dessert that replaced dairy fat with vegetable fats. The 1973 Mellorine standard signaled a reversal of decades of federal food policies and ushered in a new era in the marketing of novel industrial foods.
‘Eat Wheat for Better Health’: Propaganda posters and the ‘modern woman’
By Lara Wijesuriya
If you grow up in certain areas of the world, rice is inescapable. Because it is the staple food in Sri Lanka, rice also plays a major cultural role. Although I have eaten rice every day for my entire life, it’s never been my favourite food—a fact that shocks many people. I know many people, on the other hand, who absolutely need rice in order to function and can’t stomach the idea of a substitute. In times of shortage, however, people rarely have options. During the Second World War, Ceylon (as it was then known) imported around 70% of its rice supply from Burma (now Myanmar). When Japanese forces invaded in early 1942, the British colonial government together with the Ceylonese State Council frantically searched for alternative sources of rice. Ceylon’s demands for rice were given priority over many other colonies, including Bengal, because of the importance of Ceylonese rubber and tea to the Allied war effort. Wheat was shipped from Australia as a temporary substitute; but the question was how to make it appear palatable to Ceylonese tastes?
“To a Lady of any delicacy”: A visual exploration of the sway of English dining etiquette on early American identity
By Jennifer Wells
In the summer of 1784, Abigail Adams sailed for London to join her husband as the wife of the first Ambassador of the United States to Britain. In her diary, she confessed, “With the best accommodations [the voyage] will be dreadfull, to a Lady of any delicacy.” She bemoaned the ship’s drab lodgings and noted that her silver porringer was the only cup or bowl in sight.
Adams’s frustrations reveal the fledgling nation’s distinctions in race and class and indicate the significance of mealtime rituals to elite and aspiring Americans. Her anecdote makes clear that dinner was not the place for experimental expositions or risk-taking jaunts but a choreographed performance, with every detail scrutinized. For Americans like Adams, sophistication materialized through the precise ordering of ingredients and synchronized flow of dishes.
Portrayal of Women in North Carolina Kitchen-Related Advertising
By Simone Gillespie
In an attempt to promote the modernization of homes and the switch to electric, in the first half of the twentieth century, North Carolina power companies ran advertisements that focused on the housewife and her work in the kitchen. In both the imagery and language of these advertisements, housewives are portrayed as hospitable servants to those within their households. Occasionally the advertisements leave room for activities outside of the home, but they primarily allude to how their products help to alleviate the effort and time spent completing domestic tasks. To showcase the breadth of advertisements produced by these power companies, the ads examined for this article were published in North Carolina newspapers, cookbooks, yearbooks, and city directories between 1915 to 1965.
Crafting Food, Crafting Senses
By Sonakshi Srivastava
There is something about my mother’s hands. At once so mundane, at once so magical – they infuse life to the oft-quoted, almost quotidian, Hindi idiom haathon mein jaadoo hai (there is magic in your hands). I have often marvelled at the multiplicities of hands in general, and my mother’s in particular. Her hands, naturally, embody the essence of life to me. They contain the world, and open it up too – by appealing to the innate, the familial, the sensuous, her hands are no less than a recipe that nurtures life. This visual essay rings up the vocabulary of one such particular memory – the sameness that emerged when I saw her prepare my favourite dish, ghuiyyan ke patte ke pakode (fritters made from the leaves of colocasia), and when she mended and dyed a dupatta for me, and how these images spoke to the sensuous realm, thereby making me aware of the unity of the body and the mind.
Recipe Sharing Across the Channel: French Recipe for Plum Pudding
By Lauren Owens
Plum pudding is a classic dish in English cuisine. Indeed, the boiled sweet is one of those cultural markers associated with England, and yet it features ingredients that are not native to England: currants, raisins, nutmeg, and ginger. These ingredients make tangible (and edible)the reach of the British Empire. By the eighteenth century, boiling was a cooking trend that had largely died out in continental Europe, yet printed French texts from the nineteenth century show that plum pudding had made its way to France. How did knowledge of this dish spread to Europe? I found this document while doing archival research at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France Arsenal location in Paris. This recipe for plum pudding was in a folder of random culinary recipes. I was looking for medical recipes and remedies, but this folder caught my eye with its contents: recipes for cheese, strawberry syrups, almond cake, and how to conserve vegetables. Finding this folder was a treat while working in the archive. It provided another area of recipe production that I was not actively looking for.
Imagery of Empire: Merchantry and Folk Medicine on the Mastic Island
By Tedi A. Pascarella
The island of Chios, located in the North Aegean region, is Greece’s fifth largest island, and the only place in the world that the mastic evergreen shrub, or Pistacia lentiscus, successfully produces its tears: crystalized resin that results from punctures in the bark. The island’s environmental history paints a rich tapestry that showcases Chios as mastic-centric—its tourism focusing on ecological wonders and local foodstuffs. Chios, for centuries, was a cornerstone of Ottoman, Genoese, and Chian mercantile exchange in the greater Mediterranean. The vestiges of occupation can be seen strongly even today: Christopher Columbus’s home in the medieval village of Pyrgi, minarets decorating the skyline, and images of Islamic floral motifs scattered among passersby of the bustling city center of Chios Town. From antiquity—through the Middle Ages and Renaissance (the peak of Genoese presence on the island)—and beyond, mastic (or mastiha) was a coveted commodity: gems monopolized by the sultans of the Ottoman hegemony, as well as an ingredient in folk dishes and medicines. Its properties and a pine-like taste offer today’s Instagram ‘food as medicine’ algorithm ‘back to nature’ and “antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-ulcer, anti-diabetic, cardioprotective and anti-cancer” benefits.
Tales from the Archives
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From Dificio di ricette to Bâtiment des recettes: The Afterlife of Italian Secrets in France
By Julia Martins In 1525 a book called Opera nuova intitolata dificio di ricette was published in Venice. The book promised to reveal all kinds of secrets to the reader, from cosmetic to medical recipes. This anonymous Italian best seller (which we may call in English ‘Palace of Recipes’) was a collection of 187 short…
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Colonizing Condiments: A (Very) Short History of Ketchup
ByAmanda E. Herbert Today we imagine ketchup as the ultimate modern American food (and it is true that we like to put ketchup on…well, a lot of things). But ketchup’s origins are found in Asia, and its adaptation into the thing that resembles our thick, modern-day ketchup began in early modern Britain. The word “ketchup”…
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Cooking with Ketchup: Pictures from the Promotional Kitchen
By Jennifer McGillan In 1957 H.J. Heinz and Co published 57 Prize Winning Recipes, a promotional single-product cookbook. As a historical document, it is a snapshot of the late 1950s American culinary landscape, offering insight into the ongoing evolution and diversification of the American palate in the mid-twentieth century. It also documents the tension generated…
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