Bread sculpture : the edible art
Wiseman
1975
Submitter: [This was found in a] small academic library. As a for-profit, so we’re even more at risk of legal action or the like if someone finds content in our collection offensive. I’ve actually been combing through older items in our culinary collection specifically for racist content. There’s been quite a few mammy drawings in the regional cookbooks. Yikes. Those get to live in ‘special collections’ now.
We’re a small college offering only a few degrees, but we have a pretty strong culinary program, which is what makes having this in our collection particularly embarrassing. This isn’t something that supports the goals of our culinary program in the slightest, and although it can be viewed with a fun kitschy eye, it’s also a tad horrifying in it’s pure 70s-ness. It’s dated at best, and racist at worst. Especially with a largely minority population, I can’t justify keeping something this minimally-useful-if-at-all on the shelves that also makes a pun on the Hottentot Venus.
Plus, BREAD PUBES. Freakin’ bread pubes!
Holly: I had such a good laugh when I saw the pictures (below). My sides absolutely HURT from this one. How can a bread-baking book be not safe for work, you ask? Well, click through, my friends. At your own risk.
Man, those are some hot rolls.
I hate it when you try to bake bread and end up with dough nuts.
What was the person who wrote this book taking? I blame the 70’s.
God, the 70s was such a weird time. I really don’t wanna eat bread that looks like 2 people “doing it”.
You can judge a book by its font choice.
Fertility bread figures? This is seriously odd. No instructions on how the base dough can be prepared in a bread machine though. I haven’t got the upper body strength to knead dough anymore….
Honestly, these would all go over extremely well in my hippie-dippy town (earth mother goddess bread? Can we make it GF? It’ll sell like hotcakes!). I’m just having a hard time figuring out what the submitter found borderline racist.
“Hottentot” is considered a offensive in about the same way that “red man” or “Injun” is here. The accepted term is Khoikhoi.
Ah, okay, thank you. I was looking for something more visual and that completely slipped my notice.
That would be “Hottentarts”. The idea that people of African descent or origin are “hot”, “spicy”, or, if female, “tarts” is rather racist, don’t you think? (Leaving aside the fact that the Khoikhoi people were named “hottentots” by European colonizers.)
I also sadly note that those dancing ladies are not tarts. Which are small, open-topped pies, usually made with fruit, not hot sauce. Although hot sauce is good on almost anything, so…
I thought “tart” when referring to people was for women who were, well, sluts.
Or is it prostitutes? I just always heard it was a term for women – of any ethnic group – who slept with a lot of men.
“Tart” = “prostitute”. Or more loosely “slut”.
I don’t read the “Hottentarts” name as being racist, just as a pun. It’s hot spicy bread and they made them in the shape of female nudes. Hot – tarts. It’s not the best pun ever, but it’s on a par with “Hippopumpernickel” and “Catch Her in the Rye”.
People nowadays are far too quick to take offence where none was intended. Or rather, to claim vicarious offence on behalf of other people who might potentially feel insulted if they knew about it.
I’m sure I read another craft book by the same author/artist, in much the same style, back in the ’70s. It included a “Lion and Lamb” bread sculpture. I loved it, and would love to have this one!
What the flip? I have been baking bread for the last 10 years and it never dawned on me to make any of these “creations”. I guess I will continue to make regular G rated versions of rye bread.
According to the bottom of page 55, eat the baby while it’s still fresh. *shudder*
I feel vaguely uncomfortable eating gingerbread men; they’re a little too human to me. I don’t know if I could stomach chowing down on detailed, intertwined naked figures!
I’m also wondering how JD Salinger would’ve reacted to pages 58-59.
Phoney
I don’t see any bread pubes. It’s just in the illustration, not in any actual bread.
Get rid of the apparently racist content and the weird humans, get some photos instead of horrible illustrations, and you have an interesting book, I think. Dire wolf bread, anyone? That’s current (Game of Thrones). Custom-shaped bread certainly seems like something a caterer would want to offer.
Unfortunate racist implications aside…who puts Clamato in bread?
I make a bread with olive oil, oil packed sundried tomatoes, shredded cheese, garlic salt, parsley, and basil. How is that any weirder than Clamato?
Most of these are 100% awful, but I have to admit I like the looks of the stegosaurus.
Me too! Not gonna lie, if I saw this at the used book store I’d pick it up.
This is something I can see Tobias on Arrested Development making as one of his schemes. Funke’s Hot Buns!
What gets me about this is the contrast between the child-friendly Stegosaurus and Ladybug ones, versus the Naked Humans ones. I can see an audience for either, but I struggle to imagine it being the *same* audience.
Meh, it’s an earthy-hippie thing. You really could join a nudist colony with your kids back then and not have people clamoring for your arrest. Not my thing, but one could argue in some ways it’s a healthier attitude.
Taking out the creepy naked people, I could get into making bread in the shapes of cute fat animals. I could even get down with basic-human-shaped bread, but the, ahem, anatomy weirds me out a little. And no, I do not want my bread to be having sex with itself, thanks.
this was never intended to be eaten, it was a form of art work. there are newer books out there that make scenery from bread dough, then it is shellacked (sp) and hung on the wall.
It really does say you can arrange the lovers in any position! How reassuring.
The artisan bread class in the baking program at my university does bread sculpture as a final project but nothing like this (usually they make baskets and the like). I’m pretty sure there’s a whole section on it in Jeffrey Hamelman’s (of King Arthur Flour fame) book on bread baking.