food and academia
A few days ago I sat in the library periodical room. I brought my own work, but the more time I spent surrounded by journals, the more I felt that as an aspiring academic I should have some clue about their contents. Last I checked, nobody seemed to have stolen my dissertation topic, but for all I knew someone could have been making my job easier by doing related research. My eyes fell on the Journal of Modern History, for I sat near the Js, and I picked up the latest issue. A quick scan of the table of contents - and there it was, a review essay on food! In half an hour my notebook was filled with the additions to my “extracurricular” reading list, and I started thinking about other connections between food and academia, running not through research but through academics’ stomachs.
Except for the few cranky dieters, we love food, and, by and large, we are not too picky. This goes especially for graduate students. I don’t know what these people eat when they get to their homes, kitchens, and spouses, but almost everything flies in academic settings: cold pizza, hot pizza, leftover sandwiches from the luncheon seminar, chips and pretzels and any crunchy things from a bag, alcoholic beverages in any price range, carrot sticks with or without a dip, and anything with sugar in it. We do not exactly starve, but the stereotype of a starving student is so strong that it never fails to guide our hand to the proverbial cookie jar as long as the cookies are free.
This makes cooking for academics an easy business. Within the walls of the ivory tower were are all children, and food is exciting. We try every item in the buffet without trying to learn their ingredients first, stuff our mouths with chocolate-covered strawberries, and delight in florescent yellow ‘cola’ drinks with weird labels. I started a friendship with red onion marmalade, eased the stress of peer review with donut holes (bought), consoled colleagues with chocolate-cranberry cookies, and expressed gratitude with fresh apple cakes. We break bread to create a community, but also use food the way people before us must have used touch - to reach out to someone when words don’t cut it, and when touch is off limits.
And this, I think, is another reason we love food so much. Academia is lonely, and food means other people. Even if they just ordered it delivered. If they made it - that’s true love, whether or not it’s fully baked.
This is an old Cooks Illustrated recipe, adapted so you can sample some yourself. Makes twelve little cakes.
1 stick buttter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/8 cup cake flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large firm apple (about 1/2 lb - granny smith or gala or winesap or jonathans) - peel and dice finely, toss with 1 tbsp light brown sugar
Some butter, sugar, light-brown sugar and ground ginger for the muffin tins.
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter the muffin tins, dust with white sugar to cover. Sprinkle a bit of brown sugar at the bottom of each cup, dust with ground ginger.
2. Whisk eggs, yolk and cream to combine.
3. In a separate bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add butter, cut into pieces, and cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and the largest piece of butter is about pea-sized. You can use a pastry cutter or a standing mixer with paddle attachment.
4. Add a bit of the egg and cream mixture, beat to combine, and then to make fluffy; add the rest of liquid gradually. This is easier with a mixcr, but can be done by hand.
5. Distrubute apples at the bottom of muffin tins, distribute batter on top, bake until the cakes pass the toothpick test and the tops are bouncy. Start testing after 20-25 mintues.
6. When you take the cakes out of the oven, invert them immediately onto a rack covered with tin foil and let cool fully. If apples get stuck to the bottom of muffin tins, scrape them out and press on top of cakes.
7. Sprinkle sugar powder or cinnamon before serving/presenting.
8. Enjoy watching the recipient forcing himself to make polite conversation to you when all he wants is to open the box right away. I hope you’ll want another recommendation letter from him!