Tiramisu is such an interesting piece of this debate because (as I only learned in the last year) it's such a modern invention. Debating whether something does or doesn't qualify as tiramisu feels affected by the fact that we know the name of the guy who invented it, and it was within a lot of our lifetimes, rather than the idea of a cake which is probably almost as old as ground grain.
Let me own that I am fresh from reading Ultra Processed People and it gave me a lot of, erhrm, food for thought. I think the problem for me with that recipe, just like quite a lot of recipes from the 50s-70s in the US is that (other than the egg whites) it’s mostly ingredients that aren’t real food. It feels sad and unreal, the stuff of science fiction and astronaut food.
I get that people make their own concoctions and may mislabel them out of naive enthusiasm or crass misappropriation. We should do better. But, I am less and less comfortable with people arguing it is a sign of virtue to eat something like heavily processed protein powder rather than an occasional slice of the real thing (matcha infused or not)
That is not a joyful food. It’s a food designed to try to stave off a genuine craving and to be photographed against the backdrop of someone exhibiting the outcomes of denial of appetite.
Off my soapbox a bit but man, I’d so rather have something small and real if I’m being moderate - a bit of dark chocolate, a slosh of real cream and some turbinado or jaggery in my coffee, a piece of truly in season fruit.
Yeah, I'm with you, that's not a cake. I think one could make an argument for calling it a soufflé? It's still sort of antithetical to the generally decedent vibe of traditional soufflés... but, like you said, "does the spirit or intention of a food actually matter?" I think that in many (most?) cases, there's no hard line between when something flips from being a certain type of food to being a totally different type of food — it's more of a sliding scale.
Actually, this discussion kind of reminds me of the Salad Theory by Gwen Malmquist, which is a work of art that arrives at a position of "radical salad anarchy" and you should definitely read it if you haven't seen it before: https://saladtheory.github.io
Dessert cakes are not the only cakes. I rarely make them. I do frequently make crab and fish cakes, bean cakes and potato cakes. I will occasionally make cakes of other vegetables. And yes they all have an egg to hold them together but not flour. I would contend that the form is what makes a cake. The cake must have cohesion and stand alone.
Substituting ingredients and methods make a recipe something else. It may relate closely to the original or it may not but they aren't the same recipe.
Tiramisu is such an interesting piece of this debate because (as I only learned in the last year) it's such a modern invention. Debating whether something does or doesn't qualify as tiramisu feels affected by the fact that we know the name of the guy who invented it, and it was within a lot of our lifetimes, rather than the idea of a cake which is probably almost as old as ground grain.
Let me own that I am fresh from reading Ultra Processed People and it gave me a lot of, erhrm, food for thought. I think the problem for me with that recipe, just like quite a lot of recipes from the 50s-70s in the US is that (other than the egg whites) it’s mostly ingredients that aren’t real food. It feels sad and unreal, the stuff of science fiction and astronaut food.
I get that people make their own concoctions and may mislabel them out of naive enthusiasm or crass misappropriation. We should do better. But, I am less and less comfortable with people arguing it is a sign of virtue to eat something like heavily processed protein powder rather than an occasional slice of the real thing (matcha infused or not)
That is not a joyful food. It’s a food designed to try to stave off a genuine craving and to be photographed against the backdrop of someone exhibiting the outcomes of denial of appetite.
Off my soapbox a bit but man, I’d so rather have something small and real if I’m being moderate - a bit of dark chocolate, a slosh of real cream and some turbinado or jaggery in my coffee, a piece of truly in season fruit.
Yeah, I'm with you, that's not a cake. I think one could make an argument for calling it a soufflé? It's still sort of antithetical to the generally decedent vibe of traditional soufflés... but, like you said, "does the spirit or intention of a food actually matter?" I think that in many (most?) cases, there's no hard line between when something flips from being a certain type of food to being a totally different type of food — it's more of a sliding scale.
Actually, this discussion kind of reminds me of the Salad Theory by Gwen Malmquist, which is a work of art that arrives at a position of "radical salad anarchy" and you should definitely read it if you haven't seen it before: https://saladtheory.github.io
Dessert cakes are not the only cakes. I rarely make them. I do frequently make crab and fish cakes, bean cakes and potato cakes. I will occasionally make cakes of other vegetables. And yes they all have an egg to hold them together but not flour. I would contend that the form is what makes a cake. The cake must have cohesion and stand alone.
Substituting ingredients and methods make a recipe something else. It may relate closely to the original or it may not but they aren't the same recipe.