TOWERS AND CHAOS AND CONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION AND CAKE AND SEAFOOD AND SOCIALS AND FUN, VAGUE GLAM
It is fun to do things, and then undo them. This is the why, as I child, I would put glue on my hands, dry them over the heater, and then peel the glue off. What is the consequence of one’s own imprint? It’s a weird feeling, and sometimes I think that it is made of audacity.
Last year, Alicia Kennedy wrote an amazing piece about messy cakes, detailing the joy that many bakers were finding in creating unconventional, deconstructed cakes. She explained how through the aesthetic kookiness and allusions to the grotesque, “these cakes also provide a way of expressing rage at – and taking respite from – the uncertainty and disappointments of the modern world.” (This was also discussed brilliantly, as literally always, on the FOH pod).
For reference, a deconstructed cake might look like this:
^^This cake is by Alli Gelles, who does @cakes4sport
Traditionally, cakes are built with a dome base and a tower top. They are sturdy, if done right, and have a physical equilibrium. The deconstruction of the formalist structure of a cake – of tiers, squares, piping—seems to have been thematic of 2021. Taking the time to build a cake, but then rendering it unrecognizable, is a statement that resonates with defiance. We might imagine that cakes represent the stability of a celebration—weddings, birthdays, parties. Putting something together to imply familiarity, and then gracefully destroying it feels meaningful. After everyone made sooo much sourdough and sooo many cookies in 2020-21, it seems reasonable that we would take a certain pleasure in either constructing mess or destroying what looks the way we’re reminded the past used to.
The ruining of cake has popped up all kinds of places. I won’t go into detail, but there’s a kink trend of ‘cake sitting’, where, you know… people sit on cakes. Wherever you go, there you are!
And the movement from creation to destruction is mesmerizing! This is ^^ a still of a set by Jennifer Livingston, which paired with Kennedy’s piece. (You have to go to the website to see it, because I don’t know how to link a reel sorry!) Here, sexy body parts destroy cakes, and then the reel is played in reverse. Livingston lets us relish in wondering what happened. One recalls films in which alternate realities are imagined at hyperspeed – buildings blown up are put back together, the universe composes itself after we’ve observed great chaos, what is undone is done once more.
So what
Is happening now?? What comes after surrealism and deconstruction? In visual art, after surrealism came Post-Minimalism. i. e. the adoption of formalist minimalism shapes, stretched and exaggerated to prove a point. The evolution of deconstruction is reconstruction. As I thought of shape, I was reminded by truly my favorite food book (gifted to me by my BFF Hannah), called Les Dîners de Gala. The Dalís would hold Surrealist dinner parties, and this book visualizes and plays with that fantastical memory. It was published in 1973, and is very saturated and groovy. It’s more an art book than anything else, but it’s a perfect example of strangeness in the form of elaborate construction.
What I see here is chaos not in what is taken apart, but in what is towering.
So my thoughts have—built up, as it were. My thinking has spread to the general obelisk. I have noticed this is a moment in which we seem to be building towers.
TOWERS
Themselves are sublime in their impossibility. One thinks of course of Pisa. So close to falling, and yet somehow not quite. I know the science exists on the physical mechanics, but I like the oblivion of appreciating these structures’ mystical levity. Obelisks, originally constructed by the Egyptians, were said to represent sun dials (or sun rays) to mark time through Ra’s passage in the sky. In that sense, not only can they be seen as phallic landmarks, but also as giant thumbtacks marking where we are, and commemorating the notion that time will pass.
With towers, first we are amazed at the feat of what we can create, how enterprising it is to build up. Next, there’s that Jenga gasp feeling of pleasure in observing that for a moment, something can stand. It seems apt that the Netflix show Cheer (who’s watching??) has just come out for its second season – what is that show but the wonder that humans make towers, even on strong and crumbling bodies. There’s a moment of stillness, even as everything moves.
Back to cake!
I’ve posited for some time that the next evolution after the messy cakes would be a Marie Antoinette vibe—highly structured, campy traditional. Post-minimalism, after all! Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is one of my very faves—the eating montage with “I Want Candy”… literally is what it feels like when I eat candy.
The more I paid attention to the styling of Kirsten Dunst’s hair, the more I remembered what Dolly Parton said: “the higher the hair, the closer to god”.
When I think of the opposite of a deconstructed cake, I think of a hyper-constructed cake that looks like Marie’s hair and seems to also be reaching for the heavens: the croquembouche.
Here is a dessert so constructed that demolishing it seems challenging and vaguely immoral. This pastry is an extraordinary thing to be able to make at home, and it seems that people really have been doing it. It’s perfect for cozy, Christmas winter Instagram – a flex far beyond baking bread, mimicking the silhouette of the tower of a tree. It’s the type of thing that seems impossible to make – the type of thing I probably would not even attempt. I also seems like a dish that is quite challenging to actually eat…
The croquembouche is said to have been created by Atonin Carême in the early 19th century. Later that century, the Eiffel Tower would come to town :o Often a wedding cake, it consists of a million little choux (creampuffs), stickily held together by spun sugar, high to the sky. Impossible! Actually, it’s a real pastry feat. That so many elements can hold each other tightly, stickily, means that each puff is a very well-seasoned patisserie. Its direct translation is ‘crunch in the mouth’.
Though the croquembouche is eaten for occasions – weddings, holidays, etc—it is actually more a tower of pastry than a cake. It seems to be a standing monument with some impossible levity. I wonder, if left alone, how long it might stand for on its very own.
Fruits of the Sea
I was at Thai Diner the other day (my favorite som tam in the world!) and noticed an offering for a Seafood Tower. That’s new, I thought. Thai Diner has been one of the restaurants that’s done best during the pandemic, maintaining crowd as well as quality. They’ve made a lot of smart decisions (and don’t often alter the menu), so I started to wonder about the thinking behind the decision to build a Seafood Tower.
Seafood Towers… you guessed it… are trending in NYC! Gage and Tollner (opened in 1879, closed in 2004, revived in 2021) not only has a Tower, but also a Seafood Tower Royale! If you’re feeling glam alone, Bathazar has a Seafood Tower for one! Seafood Towers make sense to feature on menus for reasons both aesthetic and economic. The assembly doesn’t take much – a cook shucking oysters, snipping exoskeletons etc before service, and you’re good to go. Ice, layering, very easy structure, sent out fast, which then turns tables. It’s a simple clean-up, too, because who is going to get a to-go box for a shucked oyster? A restaurant can upcharge, because we live in the experience economy, and because it’s special.
^^Gage and Tollner’s Tower – fancy and pristine. Their caption… do we all just wish we lived in 1879? idk
Plus they are not cheap! Gage and Tollner’s Royale is $255. Few people would ever do a Seafood Tower in their own home. Instead, people will invest experience of eating it. Visually, it’s also perfect for Instagram – the colors of crustaceans have great contrast, ice is like diamonds, and the Tower’s silhouette doesn’t even block your face.
There’s weirdly not that much info out there re- the invention of the Seafood Tower, so the best that I could do was an article from the Times in 2001. It is claimed to have been introduced at a celebration in 1927 of the opening of a brasserie called La Coupôle (“the dome”), in which the ‘plateau de fruits de mer’ was debuted. (I do love that the direct translation is “plate of fruits of the sea” <3 ). This means that the platter came about during les Années Folles, the Roaring 20’s of Paris, Paris Between the Wars. A time when Hemingway was leaving little Bumby in his crib with a tangerine and a baby bottle of whiskey while he went out to write and be virile. Sigh.
Within the Seafood Tower, then, is a sense of commemoration of pinpoint in between moments of chaos. There’s a suggestion of tempering the strangeness of the world with the comfort of some decadence. The use of raw fish which does not last long out at room temp emphasizes and celebrates a moment’s brevity. Why does this matter? Because we are lifting crustaceans from the bottom of the ocean, up to the tippy top of the sky, above a table. Expensive, defiant.
When you think you might be wrong, but actually you’re right
I almost gaslit myself, as one is want to do, while writing this. Even though I saw these structural themes between one tower and another, they seemed a bit of a stretch to share. Like, do they really connect? I almost threw my hands up in the air and decided to unilaterally focus on And Just Like That… which will happen next week, lol.
But THEN I saw Laila Gohar’s post on her iconic food/art account @lailacooks. Gohar specializes in delicate, sculptural food-based work. Her work tends to be both calm and jarring, quiet in aesthetic splendor, and seemingly IMPOSSIBLY meticulous. Also great earth tones. A lot of people try to copy her, but ultimately it’s a futile pursuit because her work is formidably intricate. She posted her latest installation:
At the Galleries Lafayettes Champs-Elysées, nonetheless! ^^
At first I was like, oooh! This is probably cake, but looks like fish… I could spin it nicely. But then I did some research and found that literally it is FULL SHRIMP AND ROSES IN A TOWER SHAPE.
If Gohar is using both the delicacy of roses (resembling choux, if you think about it) and the crudeness of exoskeleton to create the tension of gravity within a tower, I think that we are truly resting in a moment of opulence and impossibility. I imagine it might be a real challenge to snack on those shrimp, which is a shame… but also firmly declares that we are out of an era of destruction and into a space of luxe, kind of arbitrary, deeply delicate creation.
And Just Like That… I knew had been onto something :)
Glam as hell
If taste is, as Bourdieu wrote, a social weapon – what do we make of towers being playfully constructed by whatever decadent ingredient we please? I actually don’t know yet, because it is too early to know what these structures are commemorating. Instead, I think it better to zoom out and consider silhouette. This cone shape, this obelisk, this jagged peak. The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building. I always think the word skyline is so much more beautiful than the actual thing. It seems we may be building mountain ranges, stoically glamorous, grandiose and vague sun dials — standing up and quietly towering, for as long as they’re meant to.
NEXT WEEK – SATC, CAMP, + THE FOOD OBJECT OF NYC <3