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.
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| 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.
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| 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
