Acintya Shenoy, Week #7: The Humble Relish Tray
Credit: Simply Whisked
It’s no secret: we are what we eat, and in many ways, food is a reflection of the soul. And as I researched my future culinary contribution to the Gatsby party in December, it became apparent that the relish tray has evolved to represent the various complex reactions to the American Dream.
Relish trays are pretty much what they sound like: an assortment of fresh and pickled vegetables and fruits, including stuffed black olives, celery, radishes, and candied apples. In the 1920s, they made frequent appearances at lavish parties due to their convenience, as people could just grab something, dip it in sauce, and eat it.
The traditional American relish tray has remained a non-negligible part of American party culture since then, assuming the form of multiple new innovations, including charcuterie boards, sushi platters, and the viral “savory girl plate.” It represents a departure from traditional cooking, which requires an expert knowledge of various cooking techniques and the execution of complex, multi-step recipes. It’s wildly convenient—just throw vegetables on a fancy plate, and you’ve got yourself a dish.
On one level, relish trays represent abundance; our eyes are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of confections. We get to choose what we eat, giving us the sensation of choice and the ability to decline options, a luxury a large portion of the American population doesn’t have. This, in its core essence, is the American Dream: living a life of comfort, choice, and options. The popularity of the relish tray, and all its modern forms, is due to its creation of the illusion of wealth.
Additionally, relish trays are a departure from the hegemonic superiority of technical cooking—gone is the necessity of knowing how to broil, stir fry, deep fry, blanch, dice, or mince. All that is required to assemble a platter of food is assembling the food; at most, the chef may have to slice vegetables into bite-size pieces for convenience, and prepare dips and stuffing for olives.
This desire for simplicity is also present in modern American cuisine: the rising popularity of easy-to-make hotpot and “one-pan pasta/ramen/rice cooker dishes” all capitalize on the desire of the masses to spend less time on cooking, or the struggle of the masses to find the desire to cook after a long, exhausting day of working and worrying about the future of the country.
In this way, relish trays indicate the issues facing American society: our people are exhausted and stressed, and they’re no longer able to find joy in the creative, essential aspects of humanity. While they desire wealth and comfort, they can only simulate it by basking in convenience—a sad state that associates a break from stress with luxury and rarity.
This post isn’t a dig at relish trays; in fact, I think they’re great. But as always, food is a reflection of humanity. Perhaps, as Americans, we can look to the foods we eat to understand where we might be going wrong.
Hi Acintya! I love how you used the relish tray analogy continuously throughout your blog and connected it to many parts of America, such as the American Dream of: comfort, choice, and options as well as the issues facing American society. It was really interesting to see how the one analogy could reflect so many different sides of America. I never knew that the relish tray became popular because it was an illusion of wealth (the more you know). I always thought it was because it was a collection of different foods that allowed everyone to find something they enjoyed. Anyways, I thought that your paragraph about the issues facing American society was really interesting. It is crazy that people work so hard for the wealth and comfort they seek yet when they receive the comfort, like the joy of making a meal, they throw it all away for convenience.
ReplyDeleteHonestly the idea of how food reflects humanity is such a cool, and I feel very distinct, topic to call out. I don’t know why your blog reminded me of this, but a song by Hozier, “Dinner & Diatribes” has a music video that utilizes food as a metaphor for love (I think, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it). But the idea of food reflecting people is one that I am immensely interested in. I’ll admit, at first I was a little confused about how relish trays could be associated with American-ness, but as I was reading your blog, it truly felt like you were creating/discovering meaning. Not to say that it never existed or wasn’t there, but the blog felt like something was being discovered and that made me feel more invested. Also, I see you with the “hegemonic” mention! I really loved this blog post, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make Top Ramen again without reflecting on what this post said about “simplicity.”
ReplyDeleteThe idea of choosing a topic based off of the research we all are doing for the Gatsby party was a really neat idea! I also like how you did a kind of extended analogy, continuously connecting each aspect of the relish tray to American culture! It was really interesting seeing all the different aspects of American society’s current struggles being simplified for others to understand and the issues accurately represented by such a seemingly unrelated dish. Honestly, I’ve never actually heard of a relish tray before, so this was quite the new discovery.
ReplyDeleteThe exploration of how current Americans focus on convenience over quality and the struggle among the masses is honestly a very straightforward summary I didn’t quite expect. Your addition of how this preference for convenience stems from the lack of motivation and spirit among the American people is an angle I’ve never actually heard of before! The ending message is beautiful in its simplicity, simply because it is a simple sentence that sticks in my head and clearly gets your message across.
Acintya, it is really impressive how you managed to tie relish trays into the deep workings of our society. I did not know that relish trays have been an aspect of lavish parties since the time of the Roaring Twenties. The way you tied its various choices to the opportunities promised by a life lived in America is very impressive. Having choices makes us feel like we are in charge, even if, at the end of the day, no matter what we choose (or eat), we end up in the same situation as everyone else. The American Dream is largely a construct that we have willed ourselves into believing exists. This idea has been advertised all around the world to make it seem like the relish platter that is American society is larger and more elaborate than it ever has been. We now have the opportunity to choose which type of relish platter we would like to buy. Your transition into the ways in which relish platters represent the sad truth about American culture is very well developed. There is a stereotype that all Americans are lazy and avoid hard work at all costs but in reality, this is a very disheartening view on an extremely sad subject. The truth is, as you identified, that Americans are simply exhausted. The monotonous lives that many Americans live slowly drain all creativity and joy that one has. It is a sad reality that I hope gets fixed soon. This was an incredibly interesting read and I commend you on your ability to connect such separate ideas in such an insightful way.
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