food and culture and authenticity or don't come near my guacamole with that creme fraiche

quite random food photo that doesn't really have anything to do with the post. other than being food.

just when you thought we'd abandoned our MIT food & culture course, we're back with another installment. this is the beauty of the availability of these online materials - you can do it in whatever time frame suits your mood/schedule. we've made it to section 7, "good food is culturally authentic" and i thought i'd share a few thoughts on that before i actually delve into the readings.

but first, i have to back up for a second. recently someone shared some links to some interesting articles in a comment on a rather old post here on mpc on how racism was becoming more and more overt in denmark. one of them was a rather scholarly piece on racism in denmark, which makes the distinction between old-fashioned skin color racism and cultural racism - which is more solidly based in religion and the nation-state than in skin color. and i can't help but think of this cultural racism in connection with food (tho' the article does not). it strikes me that we have a much easier time taking on another culture in food terms than we do in religious terms or other everyday lifestyle terms. we are open to eating all kinds of foods - chinese, italian, lebanese, turkish - in ways that we aren't all that open to accepting chinese, italian, lebanese or turkish culture. send us your food, but stay away from us, will you?

i actually often think about authenticity when i'm cooking. if i'm making an "ethnic" danish meal - like frikadeller (meatballs) or flæskesteg (a pork roast with the cracklins on top), can it ever be authentic? or if i make an "ethnic" american dish like turkey with stuffing in denmark, with the ingredients i have at hand, is it authentic? and why can't danish mexican restaurants make guacamole that doesn't include creme fraiche? it's just wrong! we have many notions of what constitutes authentic, but where do they come from?

i recently defended my position on no-creme-fraiche-in-the-guacamole by saying that real guacamole, which i learned to make when i lived in arizona, where there is a high percentage of people of mexican descent, does not contain dairy products. i had been properly tutored in the making of the real thing in a place with credibility and was thereby an authority and it was therefore perfectly ok for me to be disdainful of some kind of green milky chip dip masquerading as guacamole. denmark is simply too far from mexico to produce proper guacamole. but what if guacamole in denmark contains creme fraiche? my cultural snobbery does not allow for variations on what is authentic, at least where guacamole is concerned. i would actually argue that they shouldn't be allowed to call it guacamole, but that they would have to call it something else, as their version adulterates the very notion of guacamole.

you can see these are strongly held feelings. triggered by food. we are firmly entrenched in our notions of food culture. food is near and dear to us and it has a right and wrong. and while we are willing to try new things, we still have firm categories of authentic and inauthentic in place and they can be quite immovable and ingrained.

photo from facebook
i wouldn't normally use someone else's photo, but this was too awesome to pass up.

there is a similar strong culture around the danish open-faced sandwich (smørrebrød). danes will put a veritable feast of delicious things to put on bread before foreigners and invite them to partake, telling you that there are no rules. but should you decide to eat sausage or pate before fish or put the shrimp on rye bread instead of light bread, you will quickly be made aware you have made a cultural faux pas. and heaven forbid that you should put a slice of cheese with your ham. that simply isn't done. so despite their statement at the beginning that you can do what you like, in actuality, if you want to be authentic and true to the norms of the culture, you cannot. you must eat the delicious shrimp and egg and herring and sausages and cheese in the right order or risk committing crimes against danishness itself.

i'm not sure i'm any closer to knowing what's authentic. i have learned how to make both frikadeller and flæskesteg and i can even get the cracklins crispy every time (husband recently remarked that i was thoroughly integrated now because of that) and i know in which order you should eat the smørrebrød. but whether they are truly authentic or whether they have quite a lot of me and my baggage (if you will) in them, i'm not sure. maybe i'll go read those articles now and come back with an answer.

desuetude in photography

this photo of an abandoned farmhouse in SD is by me

bloggy friend celkalee sent me a link to some stunning (if a bit over-processed) photography of abandoned places by dutch photographer niki fejen. some of the the photos were featured yesterday on huffington post. i initially thought the photographer was a woman and it's weird how i had a different feeling about the photos before i found out fejen was a man. fejen calls the style urbex (urban exploring) and he likes to wander places you're not supposed to go (i like him already).  he makes me want to visit chernobyl even more than i did before. (note: i have chosen not to post any of his photos here (it seemed impolite) - please visit his website to see them.)

but as usual, the photos have me thinking. i find them, with their HDR style, to be over-processed and despite the subject matter, too slick. tho' at the same time, they are rich and lush and i linger at each one, taking in all of the details of the desuetude. but the processing gives me pause as to their authenticity. i have to wonder if some of them aren't staged.

errol morris devoted an entire chapter of his book believing is seeing (which i highly recommend, it's a must-read if you like to ponder photography) to a photo of mickey mouse amidst rubble that may or may not have been staged by photographer ben curtis in lebanon on 2006. morris does an exhaustive analysis of whether the photo was staged, even interviewing curtis, who says it was not. he also sensitively explores the feelings such photos bring forth in us and the meanings we instinctively ascribe to them and how they can be used to manipulate public opinion. it's a discussion of authenticity and staging that's worth reading. but i digress a bit from fejen's photos. and i recognize that if they are at times staged, it means less than if photos of war are staged.

as i looked through the gallery on fejen's website, some of the photos just rang with a false note for me. was that moss on the bed in photo no. 11 really that green or has he dialed it up in photoshop? photo no. 36 - i have to wonder if that bowler hat was really there on the back of the chair, or did niki pick it up and place it there for the shot? the wheelchair in no. 44 and no. 45 would seem to indicate proof of staging. the open doors, affording a peek in to a jesus statue down the hall in no. 46 seems a bit too perfect. the way the chairs are carefully lined up in no. 122. and the doll with the gas mask on in the chernobyl set, did she really have that on and was she really sitting on that chair? but does any of this matter? anytime you raise your camera and take a shot, you're making choices about what's included and what's not and you are, in a sense, manipulating the scene. it's part of the medium. i think when it bothers me is when it causes the photo to ring false.

i also find it a bit annoying that for the most part, the photos are not labeled as to where they are taken, tho' i recognize that abandoned hospital near berlin that so many have photographed. i wonder why he has chosen to do that? i look at them and the first thing i wonder is where it's at. is he afraid we'll all jump on a plane and go take our own pictures? or does he think it lends meaning for us to imagine for ourselves where they are? me, i just find it rather irritating.

i am, however, a sucker for a dead piano (no. 28, 33, 36, 146, the organ in no. 58) - there is such aching beauty in those. and i still remember the first one i saw and photographed, in an old castle along the banks of the volga river. unfortunately, it's buried somewhere in a box somewhere in this house and i cannot locate it at the moment, so i can't show it to you. 

"heavier than a dead preacher"

enough of the oak floor is now in to bring in the centerpiece of our kitchen.

that would be this "købmandsdisk"

we bought it from the long-haired gentleman at the other end.

i wrote about him previously. 

it took quite an effort getting it in (hence the title of this posting).

and here it is standing in its place in the kitchen.

the bit where the wire is sticking up out of the floor on the left

is where the smeg stove is going to stand.

hopefully within the next few days.

the view from the other side.

21 drawers.

we had an oak countertop put on top.

and i will paint it creamy white over the next week.

we were so happy to stumble across this beauty, which once stood in a shop somewhere (we unfortunately do not know where). we had looked in all of the kitchen stores and were not pleased with what you could get for your money there..prefab cupboards that cost a fortune and aren't even solid wood. 

so we decided to make this the centerpiece of the room. there'll be plenty of room for lots of people to roll out and make cookies at once. or chop veggies for fajitas. and lots of storage in all of those drawers. 

i'm certain this will be worth all of the effort! i intend to survive it!

class envy

my sister is taking a creative writing class at a community college near where she lives. i am sorely envious of this class. i want to take a creative writing class too! i want to get together on a weekly basis with fellow-writers and discuss our writing! i guess, if i'm honest, that's a bit of what we're doing here in the blogosophere, isn't it? however, it would be nice to do it in person. to be inspired by others. to get their feedback. the human, social, interpersonal interaction. that would be pleasant.

or would it?

the first week, my sister submitted some of her blog entries from the blog we write together. she submitted this one on vitamins and this one on making pizza together with her children, this one on the bread culture of the US vs. Denmark and a couple of others.

she got feedback from her classmates like:

--"too personal."

--"too out there."

--"too rambling,"

--"possible lawsuit on the horizon from the guy with the bad wig at the health food store."

what the #*¤&%???? seriously, people! have these people never read a single blog before? these are completely NORMAL entries. there is no question of libel or slander in them. it is the most absurd reaction i can imagine and further confirms my suspicion that the country of my birth has lost its last shred of common sense and apparently now its sense of humor has gone as well. it is seriously beyond comprehension to me.

it's clear that there are at least 7 people in iowa, the teacher included, who haven't really heard of blogs and haven't read them. even more interestingly, it makes me realize that those of us all pouring our hearts into cyberspace are actually forging a new genre. one that literary critics and even just simply readers will have to form a relationship to. it is a more personal way of writing. it is more "out there." yes, at times, we are rambling--but that's the nature of the beast, as it were. we're closer to a journal or diary style of writing. it's not journalism. and i think that people had better get used to it, because it's here to stay. because there is an authenticity blossoming here in the blogosphere that simply isn't to be found in other places.

if i were in the class with my sister, i'd bring this up and try to push my fellow readers/writers to expand their notion of creative writing, the keyword, after all, being creative. maybe i'm not so jealous of the class after all...

an encounter with the authentic

on saturday, we went out to an antique place on the edge of a tiny village nearby where we hadn't been in about 5 years. it had been so long, we weren't sure it was still there. it had always been more of a furniture repair workshop than an antique place anyway, so we drove on in, despite the lack of signs on the road. it was still there and the same man with the same attachment for each piece of furniture was still the owner. he is a very special character. tall, unkempt hair, a bit stooped in the shoulders, with bits of varnish on his rough, workman's hands. it's clear from the bits of drawers held together with clamps and small wood shavings here and there, that he is a real craftsman. we were after a chest of drawers for a strange, nearly unusable space at the top of the stairs. as he showed us the various chests he had, he lovingly stroked their wood surfaces, seeing their characters with his hands. i had a sense that he could, with a stroke of his hand, call forth the stories of what they'd seen in the homes they'd stood in. there was one that was the perfect size and height for our space and we asked him a price. it took him nearly 5 minutes to respond, during which he waxed philosophical on how well-made furniture was in the 1920s. i wasn't sure he was ever going to name a price, it was clear that it would be like selling his baby to him. he did finally name a price and we immediately agreed. but we couldn't take the chest immediately, he wanted to give the top of it one more sanding and a coat of wax. so he will deliver it to us this week.

in a world where people today often seem to only skim the surface and to never show their real selves, it felt like an enounter with a very real, authentic person. one comfortable in his obsessions and unafraid to show them and to lose himself in them, right there, in front of others. a person with a real feel for his craft and a love for the objects he works on. it was so clear that he could feel the life in the wood, although the trees had been cut down years before and fashioned into desks and tables and chests of drawers. it made buying the chest from him something special and it will be special object in our home, rather than a simple storage unit, because of his ability to show us that there are stories there within the wood. he did it all with a touch of a loving hand, rather than actually telling any stories. but thanks to that caress, we are able to hear the whispers of the stories that are there within the object. his authenticity lent an authenticity to the chest of drawers that makes it worth much more than the price we paid.

he has another old set of drawers from a shop--12 big, deep drawers and 9 small ones--that we want to buy for our kitchen, to use as an island, rather than buying some soulless thing from a kitchen shop. we came home and measured and want to make it work, no matter what. i think we both feel that such an object, full of stories and lovingly restored by the authentic furniture man will create just the atmosphere we're looking for....one where the stories of the past are there, within the object and we layer on our own stories, as we live our lives with the furniture in our midst.