mid century mod foods

There is no mystery for me in the almost cultlike enthusiasm for midcentury modern architecture and design. Whether it’s a Bakelite bracelet or a Barcelona chair, there is absolutely no denying the perfect harmony of 20th century technology and art. It doesn’t matter if it’s cars, toasters, apartment buildings, couches … it’s impossible not to appreciate the vision, if not to covet the object.

The same cannot be said for midcentury cuisine. It looks bad, tastes worse, and consumed over decades surely must kill you. Whoever first decided that food and technology were meant to comingle and produce offspring was delusional. Maybe evil...

Kurt Cyr, a Palm Springs renaissance man who has not only garnered a reputation for his modernism tours and popular lecture series/social gathering, Salon of the Parched, became fascinated several years ago with the question of why people who love midcentury architecture revile the food. His discoveries resulted in ModEats, a demonstration/cooking series he put on at the Saguaro Hotel. “If we are going to talk seriously about midcentury food, the spectacle of kitsch draws the focus away from one important factor that we take for granted today,” he says, “[And that is] the revolutionary discoveries of food science during this period.”

In fact, Cyr believes the work of world-renowned chefs such as Ferran Adrià of elBulli, would not have been possible without the trailblazing work of the mad food scientists at General Foods or Nabisco. “Molecular gastronomy is definitely the grandchild of the food science discoveries of the 1950s,” Cyr says, pointing out that the balsamic vinegar pearls that top modern deconstructed Caprese salads would not be possible without the invention of … Jell-O.,,,

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General Tso

SYNOPSIS
This mouthwateringly entertaining film travels the globe to unravel a captivating culinary mystery. General Tso’s chicken is a staple of Chinese-American cooking, and a ubiquitous presence on restaurant menus across the country. But just who was General Tso? And how did his chicken become emblematic of an entire national cuisine? Director Ian Cheney (King Corn, The City Dark) journeys from Shanghai to New York to the American Midwest and beyond to uncover the origins of this iconic dish, turning up surprising revelations and a host of humorous characters along the way. Told with the verve of a good detective story,The Search for General Tso is as much about food as it is a tale of the American immigrant experience. A Sundance Selects release from IFC Films.

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Fast Food Architecture

The Atlantic's "CITY LAB"... discussions on Fast Food Architecture. Culture, Design, Consumption. 

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baba yaga

Baba Yaga is a witch (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) in Slavic folklore, who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking elderly woman. She flies around in a mortar and wields a pestle. She dwells deep in the forest, in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs, with a fence decorated with human skulls

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