{Photograph} by Erica Maclean.
In Franz Kafka’s first revealed story, “Description of a Battle,” the narrator is sitting in a drawing room at a rickety little desk, consuming a bit of fruitcake that “didn’t style excellent,” when a person walks as much as him. The person is described as an “acquaintance,” however we quickly notice he’s a double, or one other a part of the narrator’s self. The acquaintance has fallen in love and desires to boast about it. “In case you weren’t in such a state,” he scolds, “[you] would understand how improper it’s to speak about an amorous woman to a person sitting alone ingesting schnapps.” The remark appears to threaten an unchecked urge for food. What would the lonely, schnapps-drinking man do if tempted by the woman? The battle that follows, metaphorically talking, is between the edges of the protagonist’s character—on one facet, the person who wishes to face aside from society and guard his inventive self, and on the opposite, he who needs to slot in and reap the pleasures of fruitcake and amorous women.
{Photograph} by Erica Maclean. Fruitcake batter, from Kafka’s “Description of a Battle.” The protagonist consumes it sitting at a tiny desk with “three curved, skinny legs … sipping my third glass of benedictine.”
The strain in Kafka between urge for food and its achievement is a vital facet of the author’s work. Kafka’s characters are sometimes hungry—the performer from “A Starvation Artist” has made ravenous himself into an artwork; Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis slowly stops consuming and wastes away. However their starvation is commonly not for the meals of this world. Gregor refers to himself as hungering as for “an unknown nourishment.” The starvation artist’s final phrases are a confession that fasting was not tough for him as a result of, he says, “I couldn’t discover the meals I preferred. If I had discovered it, consider me, I ought to have made no fuss and stuffed myself such as you or anybody else.” As a substitute the characters search the deeper types of sustenance—emotional, societal, sexual, religious—and don’t discover them.
Pretzels like these, crusted with salt and caraway seeds, are a reward of belonging to the ability construction in Kafka’s The Fort.
The authors of the guide Kafka: A Manga Adaptation agree on the centrality of starvation to Kafka’s work. The Japanese brother-and-sister duo Nishioka Kyōdai selected it because the unifying theme for his or her assortment, together with what they name “energy and economics.” The guide was revealed final November by Pushkin Press, in a translation by David Yang, and its flat, emaciated characters, with their clean faces and all-black button eyes, show the situation of individuals in Kafka’s world, ravenous for one thing good. However why, and what? It’s the manga artists’ view that the meals on the web page is telling, they usually typically dedicate full panels to it. Regardless of Kafka’s extraordinarily unappetizing creativeness, meals seems repeatedly in his tales and novels—and taking a look at it, and cooking it, would possibly inform us one thing about what the characters actually starvation for.
In The Metamorphosis, the meals is managed by Gregor’s household. His father, mom, and exquisite younger sister, Grete, spend many of the story seated at a desk exterior Gregor’s room, consuming. Gregor, in his grotesque new kind, is just not allowed on the desk. But he finds himself on the morning of his transformation to be “a lot hungrier than traditional.” Horrible as his metamorphosis is, it frees him from work and from being helpful to his household, suggesting that he’s displaying a extra genuine self. By the way, Kafka in his lifetime refused to specify what sort of creature Gregor was and forbade any drawing or illustration of him. The Nishioka manga respects this and depicts the story from Gregor’s perspective with out ever drawing his physique. This absence opens the realm of chance—we don’t know what Gregor’s transformation actually means, solely how it’s perceived by himself and others. An unknown winged creature eager for an unknown nourishment could possibly be something, together with an angel.
{Photograph} by Erica Maclean. Meals-grade lye, a caustic ingredient essential to make the crunchy pretzels from The Fort.
The Metamorphosis incorporates many indelible meals scenes, together with an early one when Gregor’s sister, Grete, who at first looks as if she would possibly be capable of relate to him in his new kind, brings him an assortment of dishes to attempt. He can’t handle the “dish stuffed with sweetened milk with little items of white bread floating in it” that was a favourite deal with earlier than, however he’s drawn as a substitute to an assortment of grotesque and rotten meals. He finds himself “sucking greedily” at cheese he’d “declared inedible two days earlier than” after which rapidly, “one after one other, his eyes watering with pleasure,” consuming the remaining.
{Photograph} by Erica Maclean. In The Metamorphosis, the household’s lodgers are fussy eaters and take a vital angle towards the meat-and-potatoes dinners they’re served.
This promising avenue, nonetheless, is choked off by his sister’s rising disinterest in him and by his household’s wholesale rejection of his new self. Later, when he tries to depart his room, his father throws apples at him. Kafka writes that “the little, pink apples rolled about on the ground, knocking into one another as if they’d electrical motors.” This weaponized and surreally mechanized meals does Gregor horrible injury. One apple sinks into his shell and leaves him “in a whole derangement of all his senses.” The Nishioka manga spends a web page on the apples alone, depicting them on a wooden flooring whose hand-drawn grain has a creepily uniform and unnatural look that can be suggestive of the machine-made.
Kafka’s connection between work and expertise because the forces selling our alienation and distress appears prescient. The machine-apple is a minor observe in The Metamorphosis, however we see machines all over the place within the author’s oeuvre, from the torture machine of “Within the Penal Colony” (which additionally serves meals!), to the forms on show in The Fort. Forms itself, on this novel, could be seen as a sort of metamachine for work, and the fort’s functioning is eerily just like that of the fashionable company.
Furthermore, the construction of The Metamorphosis suggests an absent excellent, whereby Gregor could possibly be his genuine self—maybe doing significant work—and additionally be included within the social order and on the household desk. The Fort suggests one thing related. Its hero, Okay., flounders in infinite, summary software to work for the invisible powers that run the mysterious fort. Getting such work will even permit him to settle within the village exterior its gates and lead a household life. Nonetheless, Okay. continually sabotages his personal efforts. When he will get a style of a forbidden fruit, just like the cognac he steals from a fort official’s sleigh, he barely partakes of it and lets it dribble away.
One factor of the brilliance and ongoing energy of Kafka’s work is the intensely packed and folded layers of its symbolism. No image is ever only one factor; the fruitcake of “Description of a Battle” is a lure to style the fruits of corruption; the apple within the refined later work is each fruit of the household’s participation within the machine and a placeholder suggesting the absent nourishment that Gregor longs for. I puzzled what would occur if I made these meals—would they be doubly scrumptious, each alluring and sustaining, or as grotesque because the rotten meals unfold and as absent of taste because the fruitcake?
I selected to make the sausage and potatoes served to the lodgers in The Metamorphosis, depicted in a panel of the Nishioka manga being carried by Gregor’s mom and Grete in faceless and stylized lockstep, surrounded by extra sinister wooden grain. This was the meals of exclusion, served to 3 males who’ve disturbed the household house and brought Gregor’s place. I made a German apple cake, additionally from The Metamorphosis, with the apples visibly embedded, as they had been in Gregor’s shell. Different snacks had been caraway seed–encrusted pretzels crunched by an official in The Fort—a logo of energy and its tasty reward. And lastly, in fact, I made a fruitcake.
Not often have the outcomes of any cooking experiment been so definitive. I did fairly a little bit of experimentation—there simply aren’t excellent recipes for old style, technique-driven issues like fruitcake and pretzels on the web. However post-experimenting, with refined recipes, I produced basic, easy meals that had been nearly unbelievably good. For my meat and potatoes dish, I used high-quality sausages of some varieties, together with some from a Polish butcher close to my home in Brooklyn, and I purchased a biodynamic sauerkraut from a well being meals retailer to combine with the roasted potatoes. A sheet pan plus oil, salt, and pepper makes this one of the crucial scrumptious three-ingredient meals on earth. My apple cake was additionally easy however excellent. Most truffles require a painstaking emulsion of liquids so as to not break the batter. For this one, the recipe instructed me to combine all of the dry substances along with the softened butter, making a batter that was extra like cookie dough, and pat it right into a tart pan with the underside of a glass earlier than arranging the apples on prime. The tender, pillowy outcomes made me surprise why anybody makes cake in another manner. And the flavour was mysteriously ambrosial—numerous tasters guessed honey, almond, or marzipan—regardless of my utilizing nothing greater than probably the most customary flour-butter-sugar combination.
{Photograph} by Erica Maclean. “No-one dared to take away the apple lodged in Gregor’s flesh, so it remained there as a visual reminder of his damage.”
The pretzels and the fruitcake weren’t easy however had been much more satisfying. Pretzels are created from yeast dough, which is difficult to time, they usually aren’t simple to roll out and form with out some expertise. As soon as the pretzels are formed, the genuine sort are dipped in a shower of a food-grade lye answer that offers them their leathery brown pores and skin and taste. They’re then sprinkled with toppings and painstakingly dried out within the oven. My recipe beneath is the end result of a lot trial and error, however as soon as perfected, my pretzels had been addictively salty and crunchy and gave me a weird meals excessive. Pretzels, within the fashionable world, are underrated.
There aren’t any joyful endings in Kafka—you may have both your soul or the fruitcake. In one of many a number of fragmented sections in “Description of a Battle,” titled “Proof That It’s Unimaginable to Stay” one character tells one other that “in the future everybody eager to dwell will appear like me—minimize out of tissue paper, like silhouettes, as you identified—and after they stroll they are going to be heard to rustle.” I’m undecided that is true of us; there’s a cussed animality to us that persists, regardless of our new applied sciences. But it surely is true of our issues, evermore shoddy and false and disconnected. Take my fruitcake. The web is stuffed with fruitcake recipes. I attempted a number of and by no means discovered one which made a cake you’d need a second piece of. So then I went offline, making components myself, equivalent to candied fruit peel, and selecting the fruit and nut assortment primarily based not on a recipe however on what I might discover that was made within the smallest batches and least industrially. The dried fruit, I assumed, ought to be tart, boozy, and fairly; the nuts ought to be wealthy and contemporary, and the batter ought to be simply sufficient to carry it collectively. Working on this vein, after many tries, I made a wildly good cake that I personally couldn’t cease consuming. In my guide, if not in Kafka’s, it was not absent goodness however goodness itself.
Pretzels with Caraway Seeds
For the dough:
1 cup plus 2 tbsp heat water, 110 to 115°F
2 tsp gentle brown sugar, divided
1 1/4 tsp lively dry yeast
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
For the lye tub:
4 cups water, room temperature
2 tbsp food-grade lye
For the topping:
2 tbsp coarse sea salt
1 tbsp caraway seeds
In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup heat water and 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar. Add yeast and stir to dissolve. Let sit 5 minutes till yeast is foamy. (If it doesn’t puff up, discard and use totally different yeast.) As soon as the yeast is proofed, within the massive bowl of a stand mixer, stir within the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar, each flours, and salt. Add the yeast combination and three/4 cup heat water. The dough ought to be gentle and pliable. If it appears too stiff, add extra water and knead utilizing the dough hook attachment for 5 minutes, till the dough is easy and elastic. Place in a evenly oiled bowl, coated, and set inside your microwave with the door barely ajar so the sunshine stays on. (This mimics a proofing field and is a trick for elevating bread in colder climates. In case you’re in a heat local weather, the countertop is ok.)
Whereas the dough is rising, which might occur in lower than forty-five minutes, put together the lye tub. Lye is a caustic substance and will injury your pores and skin and eyes, and there are various warnings and security tips out there on the web about working with it; I like to recommend these. It’s important that you just use food-grade lye, out there on Amazon, which makes the pretzel’s onerous, blistered pores and skin. Lye can be corrosive to containers, so that you need a nonreactive plastic container for the next step. Tupperware-style plastic containers say which sort of plastic they’re on the underside, and also you need quantity two plastic (HDPE, or high-density polyethylene) or quantity 5 plastic (PP, or polypropylene). Taking all related security precautions, fill the container with water, add the lye, and use a silicone spatula to stir to dissolve.
Put together to form and bake. Set out a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and butter it liberally, in any other case the lye-dipped pretzels will keep on with the paper. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Set a small bowl of water on the countertop the place you’ll roll out the pretzels. Mix the salt and caraway seeds for the topping. When the dough has doubled in measurement, minimize it in quarters, then form every quarter into a good log, knocking out as little air as doable. Minimize every log into fifths. Cowl the unused dough with a moist towel and put together to roll out and form. The target is twenty lengthy, skinny rolled strands of about fifteen to eighteen inches every. Nonetheless, the rolling could be difficult because the dough rapidly will get stiff and overworked. Beginning along with your thumbs within the heart of the ball, rapidly and easily press down whereas rolling the dough forwards and backwards on the countertop. (I didn’t must flour my workspace, but it surely would possibly rely in your dough.) You wish to coax the dough into form earlier than it loses an excessive amount of air. No pinching, urgent, or pre-shaping, or it’s going to develop into onerous to work with. Because the dough strand lengthens, flatten your arms till you’re utilizing each palms to roll, and you’ll actually apply a number of strain. If the dough turns into too powerful and springy, set it apart for 5 minutes to relaxation.
When the dough strand has reached the specified size, twist it into form. There’s tutorial on shaping with images out there right here. Briefly: Take a rope of dough and make a U form. Cross the arms over as soon as, then cross once more in the identical route to make the twist. Then carry the arms all the way down to the stomach of the U, dab each on the underside with a little bit little bit of water, and press them firmly to create the pretzel form. Cowl and let rise once more for twenty minutes. Then uncover and let sit for fifteen extra minutes to kind a pores and skin. Ideally, at this level you’d freeze the dough for no less than twenty minutes to make it simpler to work with in the course of the dipping course of, however I ran out of time, and it was nice.
When the pretzels are prepared, dip each into the lye tub for thirty seconds, utilizing a slotted spoon or tongs, then place the pretzel on the greased parchment. When all pretzels are dipped, sprinkle with the topping. Bake for twenty-five minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for forty minutes extra. (The steam created throughout baking will neutralize the lye and make the pretzels protected to deal with and eat.) The timing is much less necessary than getting the dough fully dry and crisp. You’ll be able to decide doneness by tapping the pretzel along with your finger or by sacrificing a pretzel to check and breaking it. In the event that they’re browning too rapidly however aren’t but crisp, take away them from the oven and permit them to chill whereas decreasing the oven temperature to 300°F. Return to the oven and bake ten extra minutes and test. If nonetheless not executed, proceed baking, checking each 5 minutes till crisp.
Sausage and Potatoes
3 sausages, German model, cooked or raw
4–5 massive white potatoes, peeled and cubed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 cup sauerkraut
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Prepare the potatoes on a sheet pan, drizzle generously with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss along with your arms to mix. Prepare the sausages on prime of the potatoes and bake, uncovered, thirty minutes, tossing often, till the sausages are cooked by and the potatoes are crispy and browned. In case your combination consists of cooked sausage, it’s going to puff up and burst, however that’s nice. 5 minutes earlier than the top of the bake time, add the sauerkraut to the tray and toss to mix. Serve heat.
Fruitcake
Fruitcakes are higher with age, and lots of the substances prompt listed here are higher revamped the course of a number of days. Begin no less than two weeks forward of the time you want to serve or present your cake.
For the fruit and nuts:
2 cups high-quality* blended dried fruit: apricots, massive golden raisins, dried pineapple, pink and inexperienced candied cherries
2 cups rum
3/4 cup gentle, chewy Medjool dates, chopped
1/4 cup blended candied peel, chopped (use provided that selfmade, in any other case substitute crystallized ginger)
1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (advocate a mix of pecans and pistachios)
*NOTE: The important thing to a scrumptious fruitcake is scrumptious dried fruit. You’re in search of a mixture of tart, candy, juicy, and fairly in your fruit selections. The kinds of fruit you employ matter lower than selecting fruits that may look and style the perfect.
For the batter:
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup darkish brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup golden syrup
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tbsp water
Chop the apricots or different bigger dried fruits in your two cups of fruit combination. (I like to depart the colourful candied cherries complete for visible attraction.) Place the combination in a coated, nonreactive bowl and canopy with the 2 cups of rum. You need the fruit to be totally submerged. Cowl and let sit for eight hours or in a single day and even longer. (You aren’t soaking the dates or the candied peel.)
When it’s time to assemble the cake, preheat the oven to 300°F. Grease a nine-by-four-inch loaf pan. Place the butter and brown sugar within the bowl of your stand mixer and whip till fluffy and well-combined. Add salt, spices, and baking powder and whip to mix. Add the eggs, separately, scraping down the bowl between every addition, adopted by the golden syrup. Add the cocoa powder and flour and stir till simply mixed. Add the water, the dates, the nuts, and two cups of the fruit combination, scooped out of the liquid however not drained, and stir till mixed. (The fruit will swell up with soaking, so you will have greater than two cups. Reserve for one more use.) Spoon the batter into the pan and bake for forty-five to seventy-five minutes, till a tester entered into the cake comes out clear. Eat instantly.
German Apple Cake
Tailored from Bon Appetit.
1 stick butter, minimize into items, room temperature, plus extra for greasing the pan
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1 egg, fork-whisked
1 tsp vanilla
3 medium, agency, tart apples, equivalent to Granny Smith
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a nine-inch loose-bottom tart pan and mud with breadcrumbs, tapping out the surplus. Whisk the sugar, lemon zest, baking powder, salt, and flour collectively in a big bowl. Then make a properly within the center and add the egg, vanilla, and butter. Stir till the dough comes collectively in massive clumps, then knead gently along with your arms till it comes collectively in a mass. Flour your arms a little bit if the dough is just too sticky.
Gently press the dough into the ready pan, flattening with the underside of a glass or measuring cup and utilizing extra flour if it sticks. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Place them minimize facet down on a chopping board and make skinny, parallel crosswise slices in every quarter, taking care to not minimize during, so the apples keep in a single shingled piece. Prepare the apples in concentric circles over all the floor of the dough, trimming to suit if vital (you will have some further items). Bake forty-five to fifty-five minutes, till the apples and crust are golden in coloration. Verify after thirty minutes to ensure the cake is just not browning too rapidly; whether it is, cowl with a bit of tinfoil. Cool and serve.
Valerie Stivers is a author primarily based in New York. Learn earlier installments of Eat Your Phrases.
