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Courtesy of Lisa S. Kim
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Courtesy of Lisa S. Kim
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Courtesy of @LisaSKim
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Courtesy of Lisa S. Kim
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Courtesy of Lisa S. Kim
A few weeks ago, my friend came back from Brooklyn raving about the food served at a baby shower.
"Savory
cupcakes!" she exclaimed. Lasagna, grilled cheese, chicken potpies and
even a mac n' cheese cupcake — all shaped like the trendy dessert and
served on a cupcake tree.
Despite all the enthusiasm, my first response was quite cynical. Isn't that just baked macaroni and cheese in a muffin tin?
The idea came from
Pinterest, where you can find recipes for taco cupcakes, mini caprese sandwiches and baby meatloafs "frosted" with mashed potatoes.
Seriously, why are Americans so fascinated with miniaturized foods? Was this simply the next installment of the
cupcake trend, or did savory cupcakes speak more deeply about Americans' need to individualize everything?
Alice Julier,
director of food studies at Chatham University, says she doesn't buy
the individualism argument. The desire to shrink beloved dishes into
individual servings pervades the global gastronomical landscape, she
says. Think about tapas, dim sum or the Bento Box.
"The
Japanese have been doing it with food forever," she says. And, they take
miniaturization and individualism to extreme. They sell individually
wrapped strawberries and even have
toy kitchens
where you can prepare dime-sized doughnuts and one-inch pizzas with
micro-utensils and Lilliputian cookware. (These nano-foods are made of
seaweed extract, but they're not edible).
Making savory cupcakes brings creative, fun to the kitchen.
Courtesy of @LisaSKim.
Why shouldn't we Americans jump into the trend and miniaturize our favorites, like grilled cheese and lasagna?
These home-spun versions of
molecular gastronomy
– where food is deconstructed and then put back together — adds "a
creative fun play to cooking that people don't get to do in their
regular day," Julier thinks. And it brings us closer to our food.
"Americans now feel a disconnect with their food. This gives us some
control of foods' shape and form."
This all sounds
reasonable, but it still doesn't explain the emotional response many of
us have when we see a pee-wee pizza or bite-size lasagna. "Omigosh, look
how adorable!"
Writing in
The New York Times a few years ago, Natalie Angier called this "
The Cute Factor."
She said that humans are hardcoded to respond positively to any
features or signs that reminds us of needy infants, from "the young of
virtually every mammalian species, fuzzy-headed birds like Japanese
cranes, woolly bear caterpillars, a bobbing balloon, a big round rock
stacked on a smaller rock, a colon, a hyphen and a close parethesis
typed in succession."
If punctuation can emanate "cute
cues" that make us happy and trigger our impulse to nuture and care,
then surely miniaturized food may elicit a similar response.
This
foodie-scientist needed some solid data. So I suggested my friend come
down to Washington, D.C. and bake up a few batches of these baby
casseroles.
As soon as the bubbling mini-potpies came out of the oven, my skepticism and pedantic analyses turned to child-like glee.
Cute
little discs of brioche — brushed with butter of course — served as the
bread for the grilled cheese cupcakes. And, a thick bechamel sauce was
rich enough that the mac n' cheese cupcakes held their shape as they
cooled. Oh, how delightful!
But what finally won me over
were the lasagna cupcakes. Wonton noodles replaced the pasta, and the
thin noodles folded up along the sides of the cupcakes, sealing in the
ricotta cheese and tomato sauce. Dare I say they were better than the
large format?
Whether it's an instinctual affection for
baby Japanese birds or just a desire to connect more closely to your
dinner, the mini-food movement appears to be kicking in the U.S.
And,
it's probably no coincidence, Julier says, that we are choosing to
miniaturize calorie-rich dishes, like lasagna and meat pies. "It allows
an indulgence without the guilt."
Cute and healthy all wrapped up together in a muffin. What more does a foodie need.
