WOMAN: Throughout history, food has
served as subject matter, inspiration, and, of course,
sustenance for artists, but food has also
been the art on a number of occasions.
Today we're going to talk about one such occasion,
and we're going to try to make it for you, too.
Today we're attempting two recipes
from the "Futurist Cookbook," originally published
in Italian in 1932.
The Futurists were careful not to call them recipes,
though, because that's a French word,
and they were after a wholly Italian way of eating,
so we're going to be trying two of their formulas.
First is sculpted meat, which is composed of a large cylindrical
rissole of minced veal stuffed with 11 different kinds
of cooked vegetables .
This cylinder standing upright in the middle of the plate
is crowned with a thick layer of honey
and supported at the bottom by a sausage
ring, which rests on three golden spheres of chicken meat.
Second, like a cloud--
a great mound of whipped cream streaked with orange juice,
mint, strawberry jam, and sprinkled lightly
with Asti spumante.
Yeah, these are going to need some back story, which I'll
share with you in due course, but the first step
in making a meat sculpture is, of course, acquiring some meat.
From what I could tell, a rissole is a sort of meat
patty, so I added a couple eggs to three pounds of ground veal,
mixed in half a cup of breadcrumbs,
soaked in half a cup of milk, a little salt and pepper,
and that made our solid substance for our cylinder.
You'll be surprised to learn that the Futurists were
obsessed with-- that's right-- the future,
and when the movement was founded in 1999,
the future meant all things technological,
automated, and fast, so I presume
this cylinder we're rolling out here
is referencing their celebration of industrialization.
And into our cylinder will go what
they describe as a quote "synthetic interpretation
of the orchards, gardens, and pastures of Italy."
Let's make sure we have 11 different kinds of vegetables
here--
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
Yep, got them.
All of these I prepped beforehand
by either roasting or quickly parboiling them
and letting them cool.
We're going to place some of each of them
into the center of our meat slab,
kind of like we're making a giant horrifying sushi roll.
Having another set of hands is helpful here,
as you pinch together the two sides of the slab
and say a little prayer in Italian, of course,
that it stays together.
We were a little concerned this guy wouldn't hold,
so he strayed from the recipe and decided
to wrap this thing in caul fat, usually
used for tureens and the like, and it's
the lacy membrane of fat that surrounds
a cow's internal organs.
Smells as good as it looks, guys.
With that in place, we took our meat baby
and carefully transferred it to a baking rack,
supporting it on either side with logs of crushed aluminum
foil.
Then you give it a little pat for good luck
and send it on its way to a 400 degree oven.
So while that's roasting, let's get our supporting meats going.
We'll put our sausages into some water and bring it to a boil.
Then on to our golden spheres of chicken
meat, which I'm interpreting as giant chicken meat balls.
Before the cameras were rolling, I
added an egg, some breadcrumbs, and seasoning
to two pounds of ground chicken.
Dividing this into only three meatballs seemed unwise,
so we made an extra for good measure
and rolled each in some panko bread crumbs
before dropping them into some hot canola oil to fry.
Got to get them golden.
So while these are frying, let's have a little Futurist story
time starring the movement's fearless leader, Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti.
The Futurists were an audacious and vocal group
of writers and artists frustrated by what
they saw as Italy's decline.
They advocated aggressively for dismissing the past,
embracing speed, and dynamism, and all things
new like airplanes, cars, technology, and unfortunately,
violence and war.
World War I claimed the lives of many members,
but Marinetti survived and put out
a manifesto of Futurist cookery in 1930
and the full cookbook a couple of years later.
The Futurists wanted to transform every aspect of life,
and cooking was something that touched the lives of everybody.
Their manifesto caused an uproar,
mostly because getting rid of the past for Marinetti
meant getting rid of pasta.
He saw Italians as being weighed down by this heavy food
and included the opinions of doctors and professors
to claim that pasta induces lethargy, pessimism, nostalgia,
and neutralism.
Marinetti was also a friend of fascist dictator Benito
Mussolini, who wanted to relieve Italy of its dependence
on foreign markets.
Pasta required imported wheat, so they
believed the food of the future was homegrown rice, which
would create a country of quote "life agile peoples, who
will be victorious in the likely event of future wars."
Much of this was pseudo science, but they were right
about the coming war.
Anyway, giant meat sculptures like the one
we're making were to be part of this new Italian way of eating,
and now that our meatballs are nice and golden, let's
pull them out.
And seeing that our sausages, while fully cooked are sad
and looking gray, let's give them
a little dunk in the hot oil.
Why not?
It's worth mentioning that Marinetti prefaced the formulas
with a note saying that the vague quantities given should
stimulate the imagination of Futurist cooks
and may lead to fortuitous new dishes.
So you should also feel free to improvise when
you make your meat sculpture.
We pulled those out when they're nice and browned,
and since our meat baby still needs more time in the oven,
we'll go ahead and get dessert going.
So this cloud we're making is of whipped cream,
and they call for a great mound of it,
so I'm just going to whip up two cartons of heavy whipping cream
in my stand mixer.
You can do this by hand with a bowl and whisk.
It's just going to take you longer.
So like a cloud is really an outgrowth of the Futurist
obsession with air travel--
calling themselves arrow painters and arrow poets,
and including lots of airplane imagery
and even sounds in their cookery and banquets.
By the way, I added a splash of vanilla extract
and a little bit of confectioners sugar
just to make it extra tasty, just like real clouds.
When it forms stiff peaks, pour it out onto a platter
until you're satisfied with the size of your great mound.
To it we'll add the called for orange juice,
streaks of strawberry jam, and a handful of fresh mint leaves.
Then you're going to open up your bottle of Asti spumante.
Quick bubbly opening lesson here--
the technique I like is to take a kitchen towel,
cover the cork with it, and twist the bottle while holding
the cork in place.
Then you sprinkle a little of that over your cloud and buon
appetito.
Now call your team into the room and invite
them to dig in, but remember an important Futurist dining
rule, which is to avoid utensils and enjoy the tactile pleasure
of eating with your hands.
Because there was much more to Futurist eating than the food
alone, they sought absolute originality
not only in the food itself, but in its presentation,
accompanying some dishes with perfumes propelled
around the table with electric fans, intervals
of dramatic music between meals, and sometimes
even the sound of an airplane motor coming from the kitchen.
Beyond providing nourishment, food
was to make life more joyful, spiritual, and dynamic.
Anyway, now that dessert is out of the way,
let's get to the main event.
Our cylinder is finally browned, and we're
ready to assemble the sculpture.
Onto the platter go three of our golden spheres of chicken meat,
and on top of that, we try to figure out a way for it
to be a ring of sausages as the formula calls for,
but we decide to amend it a little
and make it a raft of sausages instead.
Those are vehicles of the future, right?
To give this thing its best chance of standing upright,
we've decided to support our sausage wrapped
with bamboo skewers, and then we place it atop the spheres.
Now comes the big moment where we tip up the meat cylinder,
breathe a sigh of relief that it stays together,
and place it gingerly atop the raft.
There's no way this thing is going to hold together
without a little assistance, so in go more skewers at varying
angles until we feel structural integrity has been achieved.
And then we step away to marvel at our, um, achievement?
Now's as good a time as any to tell you
that the Futurists wanted to promote good digestion as well
as quote "bring about that playful and virile state
of mind indispensable after lunch and at night."
These meals were to be quote "provocative and evocative,"
and at that I have to say they are utterly successful.
This is imagery and symbolism that transcends time and place.
And, oh, shoot.
We forgot the honey.
OK, so no one-- not even Marinetti--
thought Italians were going to start making
meat sculptures for every meal.
What Futurists were after--
overlooking the heavy fascist implications of a lot
of their messaging-- was unbridled optimism
and an eagerness to upend tradition by reimagining
an aspect of life that is part of all human--
or at least Italian human-- experience.
So come on, everybody, mangia.
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