适量 "SHILIANG" THE APPROPRIATE AMOUNT

Colour the Canvas | Jingshu Helen Yao

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Back in 2020, I submitted a Chinese rice cake recipe to Cooking the Past, an online cookbook collected by a group of food historians. During the correspondence with my editor, I was asked to provide specific measurements for the amount of flour and glutinous rice that was used.

I had no idea.

Rice Cake by Helen, Courtesy of the author.

When I made the rice cake, I just raised the bag of flour over the mixing bowl and shook it. I watched the white powder pile up like snow covering a hill, a mountain in winter. I then poured water and watched it stream down the sides of the mountain of flour, like waves washing over a sandcastle. I stirred them up with chopsticks and when they refused to form a dough, I added more water, and then more flour, until the dough was neither too dry nor too wet. 

That was an honest description of me making a dough but not something I could share directly. Not without stating how many cups of flour I used, even though I don’t have a measuring cup in my kitchen; not without saying how many grams of sugar I added, even though I think it depends, none at all or a whole lot of it – both measurements make sense.

On one hand, I understand why precise amounts are needed. If someone wants to recreate the dish, four cups are much easier to follow than the “appropriate amount.” But that wasn’t how the food was made at home, not how the recipe was taught to me. Both my mother and grandmother often used 适量 (Shiliang) or “The Appropriate Amount” to describe the amount needed for each ingredient. Even if they were asked to quantify it, they would say “as much as you think is needed” or “give it a try and you will know.” To me, recipes were never written; they were told over a steaming pot, over the sizzling sound of oil, over the aromatic smell of species. That was how I learned to cook, not through words and numbers, but through watching, listening, and smelling.

Eventually, I made a guess for my recipe submission and wrote two cups of flour and half a cup of glutinous rice. But I have no idea if someone followed these instructions strictly, whether or not they could make the rice cake that I’m familiar with. Subconsciously, I felt a little ashamed for not being able to provide a more accurate answer, for not having a drawer of kitchen supplies that have numbers and measuring units encrypted. But I didn’t give the feeling much thought and forgot about it soon after.

Amazon Best Sellers Kitchen Measuring Tools, Screenshots from Amazon.ca.

When I watched Mama Put’s story in Ozoz Sokoh’s documentary, Rice and Beans, I heard the following narration: “She has neither pastry cutter or cupcake plunger but she knows how deep to stick her knife…she will not win any awards for sophistication, her own people won’t let her... and because she does it anyway, without language. Do we not call her unskilled labour?” The memory of writing that rice cake recipe came back to me. Like many videos of street food vendors that went viral online, people may look in awe at the skills, eyes wide open. But these videos would not be categorized the same as the ones that feature a clean kitchen, shiny tools, young and attractive chiefs, and measurements. Not yet.

I was really excited to connect with Ozoz Sokoh through MSL4000: Exhibition Project, where she was a guest speaker at one of our lectures. I brought up how the documentary had moved me and inspired me to think deeper about my own culinary traditions. I shared my dilemma with her about measurements in recipe writing. Ozoz replied, “I think people have to understand the difference between conceptual recipes… by sight, taste, and deep understanding; versus precision cooking by following a recipe and measuring… they co-exist and one is not necessarily better than the other.” She then introduced me to the Persian word “Andaaza/ loose estimation”, discussed by Shayma Saadat (one of Ozoz’s friends and a food writer and blogger) in an article about her mother’s Ginger Chicken. It sounded a lot like how my mother would use 适量, which made me wonder how many cultures had, or used similar terms this way – to represent knowledge that is passed down from generation to generation without defining, specifying, or measuring.

In my first draft of this article, I titled it “The Opposite of Sophistication.” But what Ozoz said reminded me of is that cooking without precise measurement is not necessarily unsophisticated, but simply a different kind of sophistication related to a different culture, a different way of teaching. Therefore I renamed it with a term that I am familiar with and have been for a long time but had not yet fully explored: 适量 The Appropriate Amount.

FORGOTTEN FRUITS: DISAPPEARING, LOST AND NEGLECTED PRODUCE

 A Muse Bouche | Natalie Scola 

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Spring has sprung and with the warmer weather, many people are getting their gardens ready for the summer growing season. With the pandemic, more people are turning to gardening as a pastime. An increased interest in locally grown and sourced produce is also increasing public interest in hobby gardening. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, and apples are common plants that are found in grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and in backyard gardens. But there are many edible plants that have disappeared or are no longer in common use. Vegetables and fruits disappear as tastes change, new varieties are introduced; and because of effect of commercialized farming. Many of these forgotten plants are seeing a revival as more people take up gardening and become interested in foods of the past.

Still Life with Quinces, 1888 by Vincent van Gogh. Quinces are still grown today but do not have the same popularity as they enjoyed historically. Source.

Skirret (Sium sisarum)

Skirret is a perennial plant grown as a root vegetable. It is part of the Umbelliferae family which also includes more familiar plants such as carrots, dill, parsley, and coriander. Skirret grows a cluster of white roots about 15-20 cm (5-7 in) long; these roots can be boiled, baked, stewed, roasted, fried, or even used raw. It is a starchy vegetable, with a floury texture similar to a potato. Skirret may have developed in China, but it was used in Europe as far back as the Roman empire, where it was prized for its natural sweetness. Skirret shows up across history on different tables and historical cookbooks provide a staggering array of recipes for preparation, including skirret pie, skirret with bacon, and fried skirret. Skirret was eventually uprooted (no pun intended) by two introduced crops. Sugar cane was much more appealing as a sweetener than the skirret root – the same displacement happened with the sugar beet, which was a main source of sugar for centuries. The other crop was the potato, which had a much higher yield and became the main starchy staple as it was easier to mass produce. Skirret now is almost impossible to find at stores or markets, but specialty growers do carry seeds. It is apparently quite easy to grow if you do find it!

This image shows the cluster of roots on a skirret plant. Source.

 Skirret is often compared to parsnips as both are starchy root vegetables. Parsnips were used in a similar manner to skirret but retained their popularity – but only in some places. Parsnips remained popular on English tables, eventually bringing the parsnip to America where it retained its popularity. However in Italy, the parsnip became unused and forgotten.

Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius)

Another starchy root vegetable, salsify, has retained some popularity into the present day. Salsify belongs to the Asteraceae family along with daisies and dandelions and is cultivated for its root and greens. It also is known by a variety of interesting names, including oyster plant, Jerusalem star, and goatsbeard. It is native to the Mediterranean region but has been introduced to Britain, Northern Europe, and North America, where it often grows wild as a weed. The young root tastes somewhat like asparagus, while the mature root has a taste similar to oysters, hence the name oyster plant. Salsify comes in two varieties, white and black. Black salsify (Scorzonera hispanica) has retained popularity, particularly in the Mediterranean region where it is commonly called scorzonera or Spanish salsify. Historically, it was thought that salsify was an anecdote for snake bites and the bubonic plague. Seeds for scorzonera can be found online at heirloom seed retailers.

Scorzonera, or black salsify, has a black skin with a white interior. Source. 

 Medlar (Mespilus germanica)

Medlar is the fruit of the medlar tree. The plant is indigenous to southeastern Europe and southwest Asia, and has been cultivated for thousands of years. The medlar fruit is unique in that it is one of the few fruits that are available in winter, making it an important source of food for year-round gardening. It is also one of the few fruits that need to bletted to eat. Bletting is a process of softening that certain fruits go through in order to become edible. Bletting is necessary to increase natural sugars and decrease acids and tannins that make fruits astringent and unpalatable. Bletting can be achieved through prolonged storage or with frost, which helps break down the fruit. Other fruits that must be bletted before eating include persimmons and quince. When medlars are unripe they are reddish-brown and hard, but after bletting, they take on a wrinkled, brown appearance which may lead some to think they have spoiled. The shape of the fruit, with a wide blossom end, may have led to a rather rude name: “open-arse” or in French “cul de chien”.

Medlar fruit on the tree before they have been bletted. Source. 

Despite these colourful names, the medlar was an important fruit throughout history. It was first mentioned by the Greeks as far back as 700 BCE, after which it was introduced to the Romans. Charlemagne included the medlar on a list of plants in his gardens. By medieval times, it was a planted in monasteries, royal gardens and village greens. Medlar trees and fruit are mentioned in The Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote, several of Shakespeare’s works, and are seen in contemporary illustrations. Medlar fruit was eaten raw as a dessert or made into a jelly. It’s most interesting use was as medlar cheese which is not a cheese at all but a type of paste made from fruit and sugar that is then cooked in a mould. Despite their long-lasting historic popularity, medlars became virtually unknown by the mid-20th century. 

Three Medlars with a Butterfly,  Adriaen Coorte, 1705. Source.

As produce production became increasingly commercialized, the medlar was not commercially viable. The bletting process reduces the period of debility – it must be eaten as soon as it is ripe or it will truly go rotten. This reduces shelf life and makes transporting and other logistics complicated. Despite the medlar fading from common use, trees can still be found in public spaces and the tree is seeing a resurgence in popularity.

Quince (Cydonia oblonga)

Another fruit that still has some popularity today, quince can be hard to find and challenging to those unfamiliar with it. Quinces are large, knobby yellow fruits that look like a cross between an apple and a pear. They are astringent and rock hard when raw – cutting into them requires a strong arm and very large knife. But they have a wonderful aroma, somewhere between a mix of apple, citrus, and vanilla. When cooked, quince turns rosy pink and is deliciously sweet. It can be poached like pears, served alongside rich meat, and cooked into sweet jelly. Quince paste, called membrillo, is popular in Spain and makes a tasty counterpart to cheese. But while its apple and pear relatives are found in supermarkets and orchards, quinces are difficult to find commercially. Quinces originated in Iran and were part of ancient Greek and Roman cuisines. Like the medlar, they were commonly found in gardens throughout history. Many historical cookbooks list a variety of uses for quince. Quince paste called chardequince and chardewarden (warden meaning pears as the dish was made of a mixture of quince, pear, and egg) was a popular medieval dish. By the 16th and 17th centuries, quince pastes were called cotoniack and quiddany; these were prescribed by apothecaries to help with digestion. Quince pastes were often pressed into carved wooden moulds to give them a decorative appearance.

A reproduction of 17th century moulded quince paste, or cotoniack. Source.

Settlers brought quinces with them to America, where they became an important fruit crop because of their high concentration of pectin, which is used for setting jam and jelly. However, the popularity of quinces began to decline with the invention of commercial gelatin and pectin in the 1890s. Consumer tastes trended towards fruits that were easier to eat and prepare and did not require long ripening periods. The quince has remained popular throughout the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia; it is still found in Iranian, Armenian, and Lebanese cuisines. My Italian grandparents remember quinces growing in their hometowns, where it is called mela cotogna. Quince was planted in Canada as a flowering shrub, and can still be found in older neighbourhoods where beautiful pink blossoms come out every spring. Quince fruit is carried in specialty grocers and ethnic food stores, where it is season from October to December. 

In December I bought a case of quinces at an Italian wholesaler. Photo courtesy of Natalie Scola.

I used the quince to make a tasty jam! The white flesh of the fruit turns pink when cooked. Photo courtesy of Natalie Scola.

Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus)

Despite its name, the Jerusalem artichoke has no relationship to Jerusalem, nor is it related to the artichoke. It is actually a type of sunflower, native to North America. The plant is cultivated for its tuber, which was a staple food crop of many Indigenous groups prior to European contact. The plant is easily cultivated, which is seen in its wide ecological distribution across North America. The long-lasting tubers were sent back to Europe where it became a popular foodstuff and naturalized. The plant was well suited to the European climate and was eaten widely as well as being used for animal feed. There are different theories about why the plant is called “Jerusalem”. Some theorize it is a corruption of the Italian word for sunflower, girasole, probably called so because of its yellow flowers. The taste of the tuber itself somewhat resembles an artichoke, giving it the second half of its name. The Jerusalem artichoke reached the peak of its popularity in the 19th century, after which consumer taste changed. In the 1950s, a marketing campaign to revive the tuber renamed it as “sunchoke”, which has become another common name for the plant. The plant has seen a revival in the last 20 years, becoming available at grocers, farmer’s markets, and to grow at home. The tubers can be roasted, pureed in soup, or even sliced and fried like potato chips!

Raw Jerusalem Artichoke tubers. Source.

Pawpaw (Asimina triloba)

The pawpaw is a fascinating, if under recognized tree. It is the largest fruit-bearing tree native to North America, and is the only temperate climate tropical fruit. It is part of the same family as custard apples, cherimoya, and soursop, but is not related to the papaya, which is sometimes also called pawpaw. The tree is small, growing about 11 meters (35 feet) high and produces large green-yellow fruits. These fruits can grow to be 15 cm long and weigh half a kilogram. The flesh of the fruit is soft and pulpy and is said to taste similar to bananas, mangos, and pineapple. The fruit is commonly eaten raw but can also be used to make baked desserts, jams, and jellies. The pawpaw is native to a large part of the Eastern United States, from the coast to Indiana and Missouri, and south to Florida. Its northmost range extends into southern Ontario, where it is one of the rarest plants in the province – it was part of the Carolinian forest system which was decimated by settler clear-cutting. The tree primarily spreads through clonal colonies, using its root system to send up shoots and create new, genetically identical plants; this is why many pawpaws are found grouped together. Some plants do grow from seed, but this is much more uncommon. There are no native animals that eat the large fruit or equally large seeds, leading some scientists to speculate that prehistoric megafauna ate the fruit, and then spread the still viable seeds after digestion. Scientists have found fossilized pawpaw leaves from the Cretaceous and Eocene eras – dinosaurs may have enjoyed snacking on pawpaws! The pawpaw survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and other ecological events and became widespread, colonizing floodplains and understory forests. Indigenous groups cultivated orchards of the plant, helping spread its range. The scientific name for the pawpaw, Asimina triloba, comes from the Powhatan word for the plant. Despite its fascinating history, the pawpaw is little known and has never been cultivated on a large commercial scale like other fruits. 

Pawpaw fruit showing the soft flesh and large seeds. Source. 

The largest problem is that pawpaws do not tolerate shipping well. They also spoil shortly after harvesting, giving them a very short shelf life and restricting markets to a local radius. Pawpaws have low pollination rates, leading to lower fruit production. Unlike most fruits and veggies, pawpaws are not pollinated by bees. Instead, the red flowers emit a curious carrion smell that attracts beetles and flies, which are less efficient pollinators than bees. Scientists are trying to breed tougher plants that will increase shipping abilities and have higher pollination rates, but the pawpaw still remains widely unknown. The genetic diversity of pawpaws have declined, with varieties disappearing as urban sprawl decreased habitat and farmers turned to more profitable fruits. However, it does have pockets of recognition: Athens County, Ohio is home to the world’s largest and longest running pawpaw festival; Carolinian Canada, a wildlife charity, holds an annual Pawpaw parade to encourage awareness of the plant; and many native-plant nurseries have started carrying pawpaw seedlings. As a native plant important to the ecological makeup of southern Ontario, the pawpaw deserves more awareness – and a spot on our plates!

Lost but Not Forgotten...

There are a great variety of food crops in traditional food systems, but many of these foods are not part of current markets and diets. The increased commercialization of crops and changes to traditional foodways have impacted which foods are widely available. As shown with the foods in this article, foods fall out of use when they are not marketable, relegating lesser-known crops to hobby growers and farmers markets. 

Lack of knowledge of traditional crops creates barriers in their use and promotion, which can lead to the loss of local culinary traditions. However, there has been a revival in growing forgotten or lost vegetables, as more people want to reconnect with culinary heritage. What foods are understood as “forgotten” or “lost” is often a matter of age and opinion. In France, for example, rutabagas have seen a steady revival: during the Second World War, rutabagas were eaten when there were mass food storages and restrictions, thus having a negative connotation in the public memory and were not commonly eaten after the war. Ethnobotanist François Couplan published a list of forgotten vegetables in 1986, which included dandelion and cardoon. These may have been forgotten to city dwellers, but many people living in rural areas would be familiar with these crops and use them in their everyday cooking. Of course, these are now commonly found in supermarkets (I saw cardoon at Longo’s this week!), showing how times have changed. 

Interest in reviving forgotten culinary traditions is happening globally. Cook and See is project by food designer Akash Muralidharan. The 100 day project was meant to bring back local produce that was disappearing from South Asian homes. Muralidharan was inspired to start the project after looking through his grandmother’s copy of Samaithu Paar (Cook and See), a 1951 cookbook, which listed vegetables that Muralidharan had never heard of. Muralidharan went to local markets, spoke to produce suppliers, scavenged through kitchen gardens, and polled family, friends, and neighbours to discover the lost vegetables. He found veggies like elephant yam, sunberries and red okra, detailing his finds on Instagram along with the origin of the plants.

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A post shared by Akash Muralidharan (@akash_muralidaran)

 

There are many other edible plants that have faded from use, including rampion, orache and crosne. Others forgotten plants are seeing a revival thanks to the dedicated efforts of plant enthusiasts. Plants grown hundreds of years ago had unique, complex flavours and were not designed for a commercialized world. it will be interesting to see what other lost and forgotten plants return to our gardens - and which fruits and vegetables from today become things of the past.

FINE DINING: CURIOUS FOODSTUFFS AT THE HISTORIC TABLE

 A Muse Bouche | Natalie Scola

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Every few months I turn to Pinterest for design inspiration as to how to make the dining room table look beautiful for events. Pinterest brings up pictures of complex floral centerpieces, show stopping gingerbread houses, and every manner of iced cake. That got me thinking about how people dressed their tables hundreds of years ago. 

Food, like fashion, indicates wealth and status. Historically, the divide between the haves and the have-nots was incredibly pronounced on the dining table though ingredients and presentation. As dining and dining customs became more formalized, the upper classes looked to dress their tables with unusual, rare and elaborate centerpieces to further display their wealth. 

The pineapple was one such item. Pineapples, which are now readily available at the grocery store, were once incredibly rare and expensive items. They had to be shipped over great distances to buyers. Growing them in non-native climates was labour intensive and costly. Once a pineapple was purchased, it became a display as a centerpiece, being used over and over until it eventually rotted.

Another item found on dining tables was an epergne (pronounced AY-pairn), a centerpiece made of small dishes connected by scrolled branches which held fruits, nuts and other sweetmeats and confections. In the 18th century, they were a costly item made from silver or other metals. Even as the style of dining changed in the 19th century, epergnes remained on the table as decorative pieces. Manufactures began to produce epergnes from glass and porcelain, which eventually made them available to a wider audience and brought them into middle class homes.

This epergne from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, displays intricate silver metalwork as well as the characteristic bowls for fruit. Source.

Elaborate game pies were also used as showstopping edible centerpieces. While lower classes did eat meat, it was still seen as a luxury food reserved for the upper classes. People ate a wide variety of meat and poultry, including ham, beef, pork, venison, mutton, hare, ducks, pigeons, geese and partridge. A common way to eat meat was to cook it in a pie. One of the earliest English-language cookbooks, The Forme of Cury (cury from the Middle French cuire, meaning to cook), gives recipes for the making of pastries called coffins and chastelets. Coffin, or “coffyn” (meaning box) as it was in the late 14th century, were pastries made with straight sides, sealed at the top and bottom. Chastlets were much more dramatic, made in the shape of a castle, usually with each tower holding a different filling.

The page from The Forme of Cury giving the recipe for chastlets. The first lines read: "take and make a foyle (leaf) of good paste with a roller of a foot broad and longer by compass. Make four coffins of the self-paste upon the roller..." Source.

The 17th century saw more development in the art of pastry crusts. These are not be the same puff pastries we have today, but a type of hot water crust pastry made with a durable rye flour. This strong flour helped the pastry hold its form. Cooks developed pies with elaborate designs, mimicking patterns from textiles, heraldry and architecture. The pastry patterns were created by hand, either by rolling or tracing paper designs directly onto the pastry. Some were created by pressing the pastry into carved wooden boards. Later in the 18th century, earthenware and metal springform tins developed and became a common item by the 19th century.

A page from Edward Kidder's Receipts of Pastry and Cookery (c.1720) showing the intricate designs for two pies. Source. 

The fascination with novelty shapes extended beyond pies. Manufactures developed a whole range of novelty molds to be used for cakes, jellies and ice creams! Molds were made from copper and covered with tin; some had a special vent at the top to help release the food within.

While jellies are not as popular today, historically they were seen as food for the rich. Jellies begin to appear in the 14th century, but it was not until the end of the medieval period that cooks were able to perfect jelly making. Jellies were not just sweet dishes (like how we think of Jell-O today) but also for savory dishes, such as blancmange or aspic. Cooks originally obtained gelatin from boiling collagen-rich bones, such as calf’s feet. This was a time consuming process, and restricted the use of gelatin to the wealthy. In the 16th century, isinglass, a form of pure gelatin found in fish, was imported from Russia. Again, the cost of importing the ingredient was prohibitive. But by the 18th and 19th centuries, gelatin was mass produced, which fueled the Georgian and Victorian craze for molded jellies.

Aspic was an incredibly popular dish, appearing on tables in the late 18th century. These were clear, savory jellies which encased whole or sliced ingredients. Their elaborate molded shapes made them show-stopping centerpieces; some were intentionally designed to be inedible! Molds were made out of wood, pewter, ceramic or ceramic coated in copper or tin. The more elaborate molds – those with many details or pointed tops – were the most difficult to form correctly. Aspics were so popular that the famed French chef, Antonin Carême, developed a category of food he called “chaud froid”, which were hot dishes served cold.

Examples of the types of molds available for savory jellies. Source. 

Sweet jellies were also popular desserts and had their own range of flavour and molds. Blancmange, a dish made with almond milk, originated as a savory dish in medieval times and included shredded chicken or fish. By the 18th century, it was a sweet dish, with sugar, cream and rice and served in tall, decorative forms. Flummery, a softer pudding made with starch from flour, oats or almonds, and milk, was molded into elaborate and novelty shapes. In Elizabeth Raffald’s 1769 cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper, she provides a number of recipes for molding flummery, including: a nest of eggs, floating islands, stars, moons, and eggs and bacon. She declares these unique dishes: “pretty decoration for a grand table.” Raffald gives instructions on how to form shapes by using dishes and other pots, but by the 19th century, specialized molds made it easy to create interesting novelty flummeries for the table.

Elizabeth Raffald's recipe for Eggs and Bacon made from flummery. Source. 

A modern-day recreation of the eggs and bacon in flummery recipe. Source.

Ice cream was seen as a rare and expensive delicacy. It was difficult to produce because ice was hard to obtain and conserve year round. Ice could be stored in special ice houses, but only the rich could afford to maintain them and enjoy frozen dishes all year. “Ices” were a popular social treat throughout the Georgian era – Jane Austen’s novels make mention of eating ice – but it was not until the mid-19th century when ice and ice cream became affordable. Ice was imported from Norway and the United States, and inventors developed better churning machines, allowing the middle classes to produce ice cream at home. 

One manufacturer was Agnes Marshall, known as the “Queen of Ices.” Marshall developed her own ice cream empire, publishing cookbooks, running a cookery school, and manufacturing ice cream churners and novelty molds. Ice cream molds continued the trend of novelty ice cream shapes, which likely developed in Italy in the late 17th century before becoming popular throughout the rest of Europe. By the 19th century, novelty ice cream forms had taken the shape of fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs.

 

Ice cream molds offered by Agnes Marshall in her cookbook The Book of Ices (1893)| Source

Marshall capitalized on this trend, offering an incredible array of mold shapes to choose from: pineapples, grapes, melons, wicker baskets, wheat, and birds. A common – if unusual – shape was a bundle of asparagus! Many of the flavours Marshall gives in her cookbook are familiar to us today, like pistachio, lemon and cherry. Others are foreign to our taste buds, like cucumber. She provides instructions to freeze fruit ice cream in the mold that matches it’s flavour: pineapple ice cream in the pineapple mold, peach ice cream in the peach mold. Marshall even produced her own line of food dyes to colour the ice cream realistically.

A surviving example of a three-part pewter asparagus mold. Source. 

A modern-day recreation of ice cream in the asparagus mold. Source.

The great diversity of edible and dramatic centerpieces would end by World War I, as modernist ideas began to change dining trends to be more minimal. Some trends, like jelly foods, had a revival in the 1950s; with refrigerators seen as a status symbol in the post-war economy, gelatin-based dishes once again were seen as an indicator of wealth.

It’s easy for us to be shocked when looking at historical, either in cookbooks or in modern-day recreations because the food, flavours and presentations seem so different from what we have today. Shocking food combinations live on in modern cookery, like bacon ice cream or the novelty foods served at the Canadian National Exhibition each summer. What is lost is the incredible skill and artist that went into producing these elaborate dishes and the molds that formed them. While cookbook authors live on in their publications, home cooks and kitchens staff are unnamed and unrecognized as the talent behind these unusual dishes.