The Politics of the Apocalypse

It is a slightly daunting task to discuss the coming of the end, but I shall try my hardest without conjuring doom. Nevertheless Shannon O’Malley engages within the concept of the apocalypse as she visually and verbally engages with the form of a cookbook to make it an exciting and politically charged text. Before each recipe O’Malley gives a brief satirical context to outline the aspect of society the aims to critique, which she supports with factual content.

The Risen South White Cake from an initial glance appears to be pretty bland. The ingredients include flour, sugar, eggs, fat, milk, baking powder and some vanilla extract: a basic sponge. What makes the cake unique and extremely comic is its method and presentation. While making the sponge readers are told to look out for a “pure and smooth (batter), just like the Aryan race” (42). O’Malley conflates the American South with terminology associated with Nazi Germany, evoking the ideology of eugenics and superiority. By including these connections the recipe becomes comic, as it becomes clear to readers that the cookbook is used by O’Malley to criticise the racist beliefs of both cultures, rather than a book for insightful culinary information.

Risen South White Cake - an inventive use of cinammon sticks!

The ideological joke is continued within the decoration, by using the only ingredients that could be used to flavour the cakes: two cinnamon sticks. Readers are instructed to make a crucifix, by tying “your cinnamon sticks together with twine and submerge into a cup of vegetable oil. If you really want to rock this one, take your cake out and ignite it on someone’s lawn” (42).

An alternative apocalypse is used for commentary of topical issues, such as the catastrophic Haiti earthquake in 2010. The design of the Seismic Haitian Mud Cake looks incredible, yet it is inedible. The recipe, containing just dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, critiques the self-righteous nature of first world nations only helping third world countries during natural disasters.

Seismic Haitian Mud Cake

The cake is used both as a literary and visual representation of the indifference to assist poor nations unless there is a natural disaster. O’Malley uses dark humour in her preface to the recipe by remarking “[y]ou never know how long it will take for a disaster to strike that will guilt the international community into finally bringing you a meal” (11). The link between food and guilt is particularly interesting, and in the wake of such a devastating event is particularly chilling. Following from this, the barren and dry structure of the cake as a result of being left “to dry under the scorching sun”(12) for 12 hours poignantly depicts the abandonment of these nations either before natural disasters as “[a]ll of a sudden, rich people everywhere flew to Haiti and got to be a part of something” (13).

The final recipe I will look at will be the Pharma Nation Nut Cake, which  identifies a problem of over-reliance of pharmaceuticals “[b]ecause  having feelings is symptomatic of a “disorder” and the only way to cure a disorder is to dose it with antidepressants, the entire population is sure to find happiness through one fatal, pharmaceutical, mouth-foaming seizure” (121). Once again readers are given a specific instruction for the decoration by covering the cake “with 1 cup of your favourite little helpers” (122). The satire in this recipe is fuelled on irony, as the problem O’Malley identifies is in fact perpetuated by making and consuming this cake.

Throughout all of these recipes, the evocation of laughter is used for a socially transformative effect. As readers are subjected to what the cookbook considers to be a cause of the apocalypse, they question the ways in which the issues raised by O'Malley can be prevented or resolved.

Works Cited:

O'Malley, Shannon. Apocalypse Cakes: Recipes for the End. London: Running Press , 2011. Print