Surreal Meals: Revisiting Salvador Dalí’s lavish, unsettling cookbook

"Les 'je mange Gala'" (let's hear it for triple entendres) has recipes for a lamb Siren Shoulder, Aphrodite's Purée, and Pierced Heart, which in spite of its dramatic name seems to be more or less a giant meatball served on a biscuit—apparently even Surrealists like the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bookforum - Artforum 2016-12, Vol.23 (4)
Main Author: Rehak, Melanie
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Cookbooks
Recipes
Surrealism
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:"Les 'je mange Gala'" (let's hear it for triple entendres) has recipes for a lamb Siren Shoulder, Aphrodite's Purée, and Pierced Heart, which in spite of its dramatic name seems to be more or less a giant meatball served on a biscuit—apparently even Surrealists like their protein. There are all the usual bits of Dalí iconography—the melting clockfaces and anthropomorphic telephone receivers and hybrid animals. Because this is a cookbook, they're often accompanied by fried eggs. Sleight of hand was an important feature of French cooking at the time these recipes were published—whole ducks roasted, taken apart, then made to look as though they'd never been touched, via the sorcery of aspic and sauce; hams decorated with gelatin and truffles in floral and other patterns, making them appear covered in fabric rather than skin.
ISSN:1098-3376