By Amy Van Veen (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: September 19, 2012
Food is a wonderful thing. Mixing together four different spices and suddenly getting a gingerbread flavour is stunning. Putting water, flour and yeast into a bowl and having it turn into bread is a magical process. Whipping egg whites until you think nothing will happen and suddenly having it turn into meringue is another supernatural transformation worthy of being a sci-fi novel plot point. However, there are certain things about cooking and baking that I feel need to be addressed.
Desserts are sweet. Entrées are savoury. Let’s keep those two things clear.
However much Pinterest entices me to make a cupcake that looks like a hamburger or a cheesecake that is actually a disguised pesto cheeseball, I do not want to take that bait. I don’t want to bite into a burger and only then realize it’s a cupcake. The whole process of anticipation sets me up for something entirely different. Here I am expecting that umami flavour of onions and garlic and—what the shit!?—what’s this buttercream frosting doing on my burger? By the time my mind reconvenes with my taste buds, it’s too late. A bad first bite is like tripping on the first step down stairs. The rest of it is ruined. And why on earth would you turn cheesecake—something fluffy, sweet and creamy—into something that normally requires a cheese knife and a cracker? Why would you put your fellow eaters through that kind of psychological trauma?
Imagine the scene. There your guests are, sitting around your dinner table topped with either hand-crocheted place mats or that vinyl tablecloth you got on sale. You’ve completed your amuse-bouche appetizers and brilliant entrée, the recipes for which you’ve retrieved from some obscure foodie blog. Your guests are settling into that post-consumption glow and you set before them a fluffy slice of cheesecake. Their eyes widen. Their mouths water. They’ve never seen green specks in a cheesecake. Maybe it’s spearmint, they think. Or some kind of lime zest. And then they bite into it and offer up stiff smiles with the unexpected bite of savoury cheesecake sitting on their tongues. They nod with a mixture of suppressed uncertainty and horror. Never again will they come over for dinner. Never again will they inquire into what you’re eating for lunch or ask to “grab a bite” lest you take them to some scary savoury dessert place where people force you to eat beef milkshakes and mushroom trifles. Why would you do that to your friends? Why would you scar them like that? You’ve broken the sacred trust between mankind and sweet dessert.
It’s not that I have a problem with food experimentation, but it requires a level of expectation. I’ll be the first one to admit the glory of maple syrup on pretty much anything. Buddy the Elf was right. Maple syrup bacon. Maple syrup sausage. Maple syrup salmon. On top of that, I have recently made myself open to the idea of fruit and meat. Apple chicken sandwiches, for instance, or the incredibly odd tradition of putting what is essentially cranberry jam onto a helping of Thanksgiving turkey. These kinds of pairings are ones that I am open to because I know it will be weird at first but it’s something I will eventually come around to. Plus, it’s not like something sweet is masquerading as something savoury or vice versa.
The horridness of pitting your eye against your taste buds, however, is something I cannot condone. No matter what social media website tells me otherwise.
