in the kitchen with embodied
The satirical cookbook for Issue 12: The Food Issue
“Artificial representations of food, a sculpture of apples or a kooky illustration of your grandmother’s meatloaf, reveal the semiotics of food. However, one of the most famous chefs of our time Martha Stewart might have a different opinion. Although her cookbooks are celebrated across the country as a staple of typical American culture, her work only speaks to a specific demographic. Her cookbooks conjure the American Dream: the white picket fence, coming home to prepare a meal for your family — all while wearing a smile. However, for many Americans, this is not a lived reality. Enter, EMBODIED.
“In the Kitchen with Embodied captures food as a signifying system. It accounts for our imperfections, and even comments on the sexuality of food as it relates to the body. Each recipe is a satire on the isolation, vulnerability, and even strange attachments that consume us when we eat food.
“A sculpture of apples in a plastic bag lines the border of this cookbook and reappears in an apple pie recipe to explore shape and sexualization. Hannah Rothbard, a freshman at NYU Gallatin says: ‘a plastic grocery bag takes the form of a bra filled with two cast plaster, acrylic-painted, and varnished apples representing breasts. The bag is torn down the middle evoking the notion of cleavage.’ She chose to explore the ‘objectification of women through fruit imagery primarily because of the ways women's bodies are figuratively described.’ Here, Rothbard defies symbols of domesticity.
“Challenging the conventional notions of the cookbook and its ingredients, In the Kitchen With Embodied is anything but cookie-cutter.”
- Kelsey Jain, creative director