In part 19, Binh emphasizes his connection to his Madame and Madame—“…when they dine on filet de boeuf Adrienne, I dine on filet de boeuf Adrienne. When they partake of salade cancalaise, I partake of salade cancalaise. When they conclude with Crème renversée à la cévenole, I conclude on the same sweet note.” They afford him an uncommon amount of respect and inclusion that he has never been party to in his past jobs. He eats concurrently with them, full meals as they are meant to be enjoyed, not just scraps. I began googling these dishes, as I often do for the blogs. When I searched Crème renversée à la cévenole, I unsurprisingly came across a recipe website. That’s not uncommon at all, when one is researching foods. What was surprising, however, was who the author was – Alice B Toklas, and the origin of the recipe – The Alice B Toklas Cookbook. I’m sure this was a wonderful intentional Easter egg on Monique Truong’s part, and we can hardly attribute the recipe to Binh, a fictional character. However, this provokes questions of authorship and citation. While Binh was not their cook, it’s likely they did have a cook, as did many cookbook and recipe authors. Who really created the dish, or invented the recipe? Do we credit the person with the original idea, the one with the skills and knowledge to bring that idea into a delicious reality? How can we piece this apart decades later? These are not questions unique to Toklas, or even cookbooks of the past. I am reminded of the recent Bon Appetit scandal, in which it was revealed that BIPOC members of the Test Kitchen were being vastly underpaid in comparison to their white colleagues. During the height of the media attention, I remember watching a youtube video a fan put together, cutting together all the times Sohla, one of the only members with real restaurant experience, fielding a bunch of questions about cooking techniques, giving advice, and fixing other people’s dishes. This is a huge part of recipe creation, yet was continually discounted. So when it comes to the giant, heavy cookbooks on shelves in my childhood kitchen that I remember staring at as a kid – Good Housekeeping or the Joy of Cooking – should all the credit go to the names on the spines?
Sources:
Toklas, A. (1954). Crème Renversée à la Cevenole from The Alice B Toklas Cookbook by Alice B. Toklas. Retrieved October 18, 2020, from https://app.ckbk.com/recipe/alic95361c09s001ss009sss001r003/creme-renversee-a-la-cevenole
Good question to think about! I have trouble thinking of who should be credited and how one comes up with an original recipe, since it seems like everything is already out there (:-/ @ our final assignment in this class haha). How can we credit unnamed and unknown sources of influence in cooking? How important is it to trace these origins or even be interested in the history of what we know to eat? These are questions I don’t really think about and I don’t think many people think about often.
Hi Nikki, thank you for this enlightening post! I think it’s neat how Truong includes a dish from Miss Toklas herself – a fun Easter egg, as you said – and I really appreciate how you brought up the question of citation and authorship, especially when it comes to food derived from BIPOC traditions. I find that just as music styles such as jazz or hip hop that were developed by Black artists have been commercialized and contextually divorced from their originators, so have foods and recipes been de-identified from their often BIPOC creators when credited to the (often white) people who popularize these dishes. That’s what I think brings meaning to our blog post assignment – by debunking white-centric conceptions of food, we attempt to uncover the marginalized stories of those who have worked with foods we thought we knew so well.