SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS Recap
SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS Recap
In case you missed a post from our last issue
Dear Recipes Project readers,
Happy Autumn! We’re hard at work putting together our next issue on RECIPES AS LITERATURE, co-edited by Esme Curtis and Jessica Clark. If you’re already subscribed to our Substack, then you’ll get a newsletter preview of the Autumn issue in your inbox in a few weeks. If you’re not subscribed, then what are you waiting for?
Before we move on from summer and get cozy with recipes for apple cider and pumpkin what-nots, we thought it would be worthwhile to recap our last issue, SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS, in case you missed a post or two.
Our summer 2023 issue, co-edited by Amanda Herbert and Jess Clark, was devoted to pop culture and the ways that recipes do (or don’t!) feature in some of our favourite productions. Each of us on the editorial team spotlighted a few fantastic posts that have appeared on RP over the years and discussed the ways they intersect with some of the latest pop culture trends, from Bridgerton to #Barbenheimer.
In our first post of the issue, Amanda Herbert wrote about the Barbie movie and recipes for cosmetics that have appeared on the RP over the years. As Herbert reminds us, make-up can be a powerful tool of self-expression and transformation—even liberation. Just ask Barbie.
We followed that post up with a reflection on FX’s The Bear and the emotions that come out in the kitchen—especially in the show. R.A. Kashanipour highlighted several posts from the archives that explored recipes, community, emotions, and time-management, in the spirit of The Bear’s chaotic kitchen.
Next up was a post on The Little Mermaid by Melissa Reynolds, comparing the fantastical transformation of everyone’s favorite singing mermaid to the fantastical properties that coral was supposed to have, according to premodern medical recipes. Bonus content: deep sea creatures that (shockingly) look nothing at all like Disney cartoons.
Jessica Clark brought us back to the House of Dragons in our next post, which highlighted all the many, many ways dragons appear in recipes from across the globe. I guess we can be thankful that HBO had the budget for CGI-generated dragons, instead of having to rely on paper-and-string creations like those described by a recipe in Giambattista della Porta’s 1658 Magia Naturalis.
Sarah Peters Kernan next turned our attention to Indiana Jones and the archives of the RP. She highlighted recipes that invoke time in not-quite-the-same fashion as the “Dial of Destiny” in the latest Indiana Jones installment, while also pointing to other posts from the RP’s past that take us back to Ancient Greece, where the Dial was supposedly created. In short, if you’re looking for fantasy and history beyond the exploits of America’s favorite college-professor-turned-vigilante-archaeologist, the RP has you covered.
And don’t miss Sarah’s latest installment of the Around the Table Podcast, featuring an interview with Debra Krohn discussing the recent exhibit, “Staging the Table in Europe 1500–1800.”
Finally, Joshua Schlachet rounded out the summer issue with a post on Oppenheimer and the RP’s trove of recipes related to the effects of war. Though, as Josh notes, we are short on posts related to nuclear fusion, there are posts a-plenty on nutrition in wartime, and some that give voice to the experience of the Japanese citizens whose perspectives were absent from Christopher Nolan’s magnificent biopic.
We hope you’ll take the time to read these posts and browse our archives if you haven’t already. And stay tuned for a preview of our next issue, RECIPES AS LITERATURE, coming soon to your inbox.
—The Recipes Project Editorial Team
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