Just in time for Thanksgiving, an archivist at the Smithsonian Institution has stumbled upon a treasure trove of culinary and visual art history. In a dusty storage room, a box incorrectly labeled “the finer china for trustee dinners” contained a treasure trove of recipes, cooking notes and holiday menus from some of the most renowned artists in the United States. From Andrew Wyeth’s cornbread to Mary Cassatt’s account of baking pie with her mother, these records are published for the first time in a Hyperallergic Exclusively, a spokesperson for the Smithsonian said she hoped that “for the love of God, we will all be given something else to talk about at the dinner table besides politics.”
Editor’s Note: After some discussion, we decided not to include John Baldessari’s recipe below because it only consisted of the phrase “I’m not eating turkey anymore” written 58 times in cursive script on the back of a placemat written.
The Abandoned Cornbread by Andrew Wyeth
Combine cornmeal, buttermilk and egg and fry in a cast iron skillet. The result should be a dry, austere bread that evokes the arid landscapes of New England and challenges the bucolic vision of rural America. Eat alone, in melancholy silence, as you crawl across a barren field.
Mary Cassatt’s Thanksgiving Pie to Bake with Mom
Is there anything sweeter and more steadfast than a mother’s love? As I write this, the smell of pumpkin and spices fills the air: Mom and I are baking a Thanksgiving pie together! She insists on showing me how she folds the edges of the crust, although I don’t think my hands will ever master it as well as hers. She is the essence of tenderness. It humbles me how she – NO, MOM, I DID NOT FORGET THE NOTMAT. YES. YES. OKAY. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THAT. What an unparalleled joy to enjoy these special moments together, to create the memories we will cherish forever. It is in the maternal bond, and not in the romantic expression, that we connect with our true selves so that we – I TOLD YOU I AM NOT GOING ON A DATE WITH MR. WEATHERBY’S SON. Yes, I know he’s a fine gentleman. I’M NOT GOING TO DIE ALONE WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT??? WHAT IS THAT SMELL? I set an oven timer, what do you mean something is burning. HELLO????? MOM???!!
Richard Serra’s “Tilted Cranberry” (1980)
Buy a heavily rusted 100 foot can of cranberry jelly. Cold roll the sides of the tin to achieve a slightly sloping curve on both sides before removing from the tin. Test the doneness by measuring whether the shape is sufficiently aggressive and imposing. Hollow out a central cavity in the jelly and experience the intimacy and claustrophobia of the cranberry from the inside.
Edward Hopper’s Dinner
The streets of New York City are empty of people, only their lit windows visible from these deserted streets. With no family to celebrate with, you head to the last reprieve of the weary: dinner. It’s just you, a few travelers and the guy behind the bar. You order a cup of black coffee and a piece of cake for dessert.
Jackson Pollock’s gravy
Place a white tablecloth on the floor and drip, pour and drizzle the gravy straight from the saucer with sweeping gestures that show off your manly bravado. Take a sip of vodka for good measure. When the guests arrive, blame your wife for the mess. Later, ask her to help you sell the stained fabric as a painting and watch as she single-handedly launches your artistic career.
Minimalist meal by Donald Judd
Send the specifications for your Thanksgiving dinner to an industrial manufacturer, including meticulous instructions for obtaining identically sized sweet potatoes and stacking them at equal distances on the wall, and a diagram of a turkey being intercepted by a metal pipe. Serve to guests while bragging that you spent all day in the kitchen.
The sublime potato by Ansel Adams
You can’t improve potatoes. You can only reveal your impression of potato or its impact on you. The photographer must strive for the pure and unadulterated potato, to capture its majesty and rich tonal range, so that man can come to stand in awe of the potato and, as a result, reflect on its relative insignificance in the scheme of the universe. Potato.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s awkward cabbage
Cut the cabbage in half and arrange the sections suggestively. When asked to pass the dish, say out loud “how sensual that cabbage looks today,” and note that it “reminds you of something, but I won’t say what.” Allow an awkward silence to follow.
Alma Thomas’s deconstructed green bean dish (bird’s eye view)
Inspiration lies everywhere in the natural world, even in the simple green bean casserole. First distill the dish down to its essential components and then place them in a concentric circle. Consider the transcendental possibilities of vegetables. Matisse could never do that.
