Kitchen Economics

An excerpt from The Wonder of (White) Bread, by Martha Rosler

Profits went up!

Reading the rest of the script reminded me of my own memories of making biscuits with my great grandpa, Pampaw. They were so good! He was so good at making amazing comfort food. In class today as I was thinking about him, my sister sent me a text that she had had a dream last night about him and my great-grandma last night and that she woke up crying. Weird coincidence.

When Mikey and I were wandering around in Portland last summer, we stumbled upon this bread factory, watched some loaves go by. He taped it and he added some really complementary original music. It’s kind of meditative to watch.

This past weekend, too Mikey and I were lounging around the house flipping through channels, and a favorite show of ours, How It’s Made, was on. That particular episode was, coincidentally, on how bread is made. The scale is fascinating.

“The dough weighs 1,000 kilos – that’s almost a ton.” That’s heavy…in more ways than one.

Something I really like about the Positions in the Life World book is the inclusion of many of Rosler’s original – often handwritten – scripts, with all her scribbles, annotations and edits. It’s interesting to see and study her process; it opens up a more comprehensive understanding of the craft and the work itself.