So, first I made flippant comments about “Convergence of Computer Science and Critical Theory Cookies”, and cookies that reference other cookies. Then I made some small loaf cakes with brownies for a base. Then Leonard pointed to his 2003 post on meta-desserts — desserts that reference other desserts.
As he points out, desserts can basically be piled on top of each other indefinitely, or at least until you hit the ceiling. This is why I like baking: you can leave out major ingredients, accidentally replace them with something else, freeze or heat up the result or cover it in chocolate sauce, and then when you’re finished you can chop it up, cover it with cream, mix it with fruit — and chances are it will still taste good.
However, there are limits, and also classificatory difficulties. What are the fundamental dessert types, the metaphorical atoms of dessert, or “dessertoms”? A brownie is very “stable”, which is to say it can be combined with many different desserts while still remaining delicious — but surely it isn’t a fundamental dessert type: a brownie is basically just a sulky teenage cake. A crepe, on the other hand, probably is a fundamental dessert type, but it’s a relatively unstable one — it won’t taste good if you put it on a cookie.
Furthermore, desserts can be transformed not just through the application of another sort of dessert, adding dessert type A to dessert type B, but also by the application of a Dessert Function. Dessert Functions are things like “freeze it”, “put nuts on it”, “take out all the flour”, “cover it in alcohol and set it on fire” — stuff you can do to any dessert that has a good chance of leaving it edible, or better still transforming it into an exciting new dessert.
Clearly this is a topic that requires for further discussion:
- a rigorously defined vocabulary;
- extensive research to discover the fundamental dessert types;
- some sort of consistency in what “applying dessert type A to dessert type B” actually entails; and
- Lots of little pictures on graph paper.
Well, if we have a Meta-Dessert Conference and Party, I can bring number 4.
I call it “A Sketch towards a Taxonomy of Desserts and Meta-Desserts”, though I’m thinking of adding a subtitle as well. I’ve listed dessertoms: cookie, cake, sweet bread, pastry, crepe, crumble, fruit, chocolate, cream, custard, egg-white-and-sugar, and ice-cream. (Obviously this is a very broad-grained study, and further research would be well-advised to, eg, clarify that the broad category of “cake” can itself be divided into a number of fundamental types which can have transformations enacted upon them while still remaining cake). These run along the top of the page; following a column down, you can see what might happen to each dessertom when a different dessertom is applied to it (to apply Dessertom A to Dessertom B, you either (a) use Dessertom A as a component ingredient in making Dessertom B; or (b) put Dessertom A inside Dessertom B; or (c) put Dessertom A on top of Dessertom B, in roughly that order of preference).
I’ve also included seven Dessert Functions: shrink, freeze, chill, put in food processor, heat, add leavening, and remove leavening. At this point I ran out of graph paper, and had to leave out “add nuts”, “squash”, “take out flour” etc, but just because they aren’t on the page doesn’t mean they aren’t equally valid.
To reference the entries on the sheet I will refer to the Dessertom in brackets, and prepend the applicable operation: the notation for applying Custard to Crumble is therefore Custard(Crumble); performing Freeze on Chocolate is Freeze(Chocolate). The result of the operation is indicated by an arrow: Freeze(Chocolate) -> Frozen Chocolate.
