{"id":166830,"date":"2024-02-22T10:57:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=166830"},"modified":"2024-02-22T10:57:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:57:32","slug":"cooking-with-franz-kafka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2024\/02\/22\/cooking-with-franz-kafka\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking with Franz Kafka"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Photograph by Erica Maclean.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Franz Kafka\u2019s first published story, \u201cDescription of a Struggle,\u201d the narrator is sitting in a drawing room at a rickety little table, eating a piece of fruitcake that \u201cdid not taste very good,\u201d when a man walks up to him. The man is described as an \u201cacquaintance,\u201d but we soon realize he is a double, or another part of the narrator\u2019s self. The acquaintance has fallen in love and wants to boast about it. \u201cIf you weren\u2019t in such a state,\u201d he scolds, \u201c[you] would know how improper it is to talk about an amorous girl to a man sitting alone drinking schnapps.\u201d The comment seems to threaten an unchecked appetite. What would the lonely, schnapps-drinking man do if tempted by the girl? The struggle that follows, metaphorically speaking, is between the sides of the protagonist\u2019s character\u2014on one side, the man who desires to stand apart from society and guard his creative self, and on the other, he who wishes to fit in and reap the pleasures of fruitcake and amorous girls.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photograph by Erica Maclean. Fruitcake batter, from Kafka\u2019s \u201cDescription of a Struggle.\u201d The protagonist consumes it sitting at a tiny table with \u201cthree curved, thin legs \u2026 sipping my third glass of benedictine.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

The tension in Kafka between appetite and its fulfillment is a crucial aspect of the writer\u2019s work. Kafka\u2019s characters are often hungry\u2014the performer from \u201cA Hunger Artist\u201d has made starving himself into an art; Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis<\/em> slowly stops eating and wastes away. But their hunger is often not for the foods of this world. Gregor refers to himself as hungering as for \u201can unknown nourishment.\u201d The hunger artist\u2019s last words are a confession that fasting was not difficult for him because, he says, \u201cI couldn\u2019t find the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss and stuffed myself like you or anyone else.\u201d Instead the characters seek the deeper forms of sustenance\u2014emotional, societal, sexual, spiritual\u2014and don\u2019t find them.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Pretzels like these, crusted with salt and caraway seeds, are a reward of belonging to the power structure in Kafka\u2019s The Castle<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The authors of the book Kafka: A Manga Adaptation<\/em> agree on the centrality of hunger to Kafka\u2019s work. The Japanese brother-and-sister duo Nishioka Kyo\u0304dai chose it as the unifying theme for their collection, along with what they call \u201cpower and economics.\u201d The book was published last November by Pushkin Press, in a translation by David Yang, and its flat, emaciated characters, with their blank faces and all-black button eyes, display the condition of people in Kafka\u2019s world, starving for something good. But why, and what? It\u2019s the manga artists\u2019 view that the food on the page is telling, and they often devote full panels to it. Despite Kafka\u2019s extremely unappetizing imagination, food appears regularly in his stories and novels\u2014and looking at it, and cooking it, might tell us something about what the characters really hunger for.<\/p>\n

In The Metamorphosis<\/em>, the food is controlled by Gregor\u2019s family. His father, mother, and beautiful young sister, Grete, spend most of the story seated at a table outside Gregor\u2019s room, eating. Gregor, in his grotesque new form, is not allowed at the table. Yet he finds himself on the morning of his transformation to be \u201cmuch hungrier than usual.\u201d Terrible as his metamorphosis is, it frees him from work and from being useful to his family, suggesting that he is showing a more authentic self. Incidentally, Kafka in his lifetime refused to specify what kind of creature Gregor was and forbade any drawing or representation of him. The Nishioka manga respects this and depicts the story from Gregor\u2019s perspective without ever drawing his body. This absence opens the realm of possibility\u2014we don\u2019t know what Gregor\u2019s transformation truly means, only how it is perceived by himself and others. An unknown winged creature longing for an unknown nourishment could be anything, including an angel.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photograph by Erica Maclean. Food-grade lye, a caustic ingredient necessary to make the crunchy pretzels from The Castle<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Metamorphosis<\/em> contains many indelible food scenes, including an early one when Gregor\u2019s sister, Grete, who at first seems like she might be able to relate to him in his new form, brings him an assortment of dishes to try. He can\u2019t manage the \u201cdish filled with sweetened milk with little pieces of white bread floating in it\u201d that was a favorite treat before, but he is drawn instead to an assortment of grotesque and rotten foods. He finds himself \u201csucking greedily\u201d at cheese he\u2019d \u201cdeclared inedible two days before\u201d and then quickly, \u201cone after another, his eyes watering with pleasure,\u201d consuming the rest.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photograph by Erica Maclean. In The Metamorphosis<\/em>, the family\u2019s lodgers are fussy eaters and take a critical attitude toward the meat-and-potatoes dinners they are served.<\/p><\/div>\n

This promising avenue, however, is choked off by his sister\u2019s increasing disinterest in him and by his family\u2019s wholesale rejection of his new self. Later, when he tries to leave his room, his father throws apples at him. Kafka writes that \u201cthe little, red apples rolled about on the floor, knocking into each other as if they had electric motors.\u201d This weaponized and surreally mechanized food does Gregor terrible damage. One apple sinks into his shell and leaves him \u201cin a complete derangement of all his senses.\u201d The Nishioka manga spends a page on the apples alone, depicting them on a wood floor whose hand-drawn grain has a creepily uniform and unnatural appearance that is also suggestive of the machine-made.<\/p>\n

Kafka\u2019s connection between work and technology as the forces promoting our alienation and misery seems prescient. The machine-apple is a minor note in The Metamorphosis<\/em>, but we see machines everywhere in the writer\u2019s oeuvre, from the torture machine of \u201cIn the Penal Colony\u201d (which also serves food!), to the bureaucracy on display in The Castle<\/em>. Bureaucracy itself, in this novel, can be seen as a kind of metamachine for work, and the castle\u2019s functioning is eerily similar to that of the modern corporation.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the structure of The Metamorphosis<\/em> suggests an absent ideal, wherein Gregor could be his authentic self\u2014perhaps doing meaningful work\u2014and also<\/em> be included in the social order and at the family table. The Castle <\/em>suggests something similar. Its hero, K., flounders in endless, abstract application to work for the invisible powers that run the mysterious castle. Getting such work will also allow him to settle in the village outside its gates and lead a family life. However, K. constantly sabotages his own efforts. When he gets a taste of a forbidden fruit, like the cognac he steals from a castle official\u2019s sleigh, he barely partakes of it and lets it dribble away.<\/p>\n

One element of the brilliance and ongoing power of Kafka\u2019s work is the intensely packed and folded layers of its symbolism. No symbol is ever just one thing; the fruitcake of \u201cDescription of a Struggle\u201d is a lure to taste the fruits of corruption; the apple in the sophisticated later work is both fruit of the family\u2019s participation in the machine and a placeholder suggesting the absent nourishment that Gregor longs for. I wondered what would happen if I made these foods\u2014would they be doubly delicious, both alluring and sustaining, or as grotesque as the rotten food spread and as absent of flavor as the fruitcake?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I chose to make the sausage and potatoes served to the lodgers in The Metamorphosis<\/em>, depicted in a panel of the Nishioka manga being carried by Gregor\u2019s mother and Grete in faceless and stylized lockstep, surrounded by more sinister wood grain. This was the food of exclusion, served to three men who have disturbed the family home and taken Gregor\u2019s place. I made a German apple cake, also from The Metamorphosis<\/em>, with the apples visibly embedded, as they were in Gregor\u2019s shell. Other snacks were caraway seed\u2013encrusted pretzels crunched by an official in The Castle<\/em>\u2014a symbol of power and its tasty reward. And lastly, of course, I made a fruitcake.<\/p>\n

Rarely have the results of any cooking experiment been so definitive. I did quite a bit of experimentation\u2014there just aren\u2019t perfect recipes for old-fashioned, technique-driven things like fruitcake and pretzels on the internet. But post-experimenting, with refined recipes, I produced classic, simple foods that were almost unbelievably good. For my meat and potatoes dish, I used high-quality sausages of a few varieties, including some from a Polish butcher near my house in Brooklyn, and I bought a biodynamic sauerkraut from a health food store to mix with the roasted potatoes. A sheet pan plus oil, salt, and pepper makes this one of the most delicious three-ingredient meals on earth. My apple cake was also simple but outstanding. Most cakes require a painstaking emulsion of liquids in order not to break the batter. For this one, the recipe instructed me to mix all the dry ingredients together with the softened butter, making a batter that was more like cookie dough, and pat it into a tart pan with the bottom of a glass before arranging the apples on top. The tender, pillowy results made me wonder why anyone makes cake in any other way. And the flavor was mysteriously ambrosial\u2014various tasters guessed honey, almond, or marzipan\u2014despite my using nothing more than the most standard flour-butter-sugar mixture.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photograph by Erica Maclean. “No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor\u2019s flesh, so it remained there as a visible reminder of his injury.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

The pretzels and the fruitcake were not simple but were even more satisfying. Pretzels are made from yeast dough, which is tricky to time, and they aren\u2019t easy to roll out and shape without some experience. Once the pretzels are shaped, the authentic kind are dipped in a bath of a food-grade lye solution that gives them their leathery brown skin and flavor. They\u2019re then sprinkled with toppings and painstakingly dried out in the oven. My recipe below is the culmination of much trial and error, but once perfected, my pretzels were addictively salty and crunchy and gave me a bizarre food high. Pretzels, in the modern world, are underrated.<\/p>\n

There are no happy endings in Kafka\u2014you can have either your soul or the fruitcake. In one of the several fragmented sections in \u201cDescription of a Struggle,\u201d titled \u201cProof That It\u2019s Impossible to Live\u201d one character tells another that \u201cone day everyone wanting to live will look like me\u2014cut out of tissue paper, like silhouettes, as you pointed out\u2014and when they walk they will be heard to rustle.\u201d I\u2019m not sure this is true of us; there is a stubborn animality to us that persists, despite our new technologies. But it is<\/em> true of our things, evermore shoddy and false and disconnected. Take my fruitcake. The internet is full of fruitcake recipes. I tried several and never found one that made a cake you\u2019d want a second piece of. So then I went offline, making elements myself, such as candied fruit peel, and choosing the fruit and nut assortment based not on a recipe but on what I could find that was made in the smallest batches and least industrially. The dried fruit, I thought, should be tart, boozy, and pretty; the nuts should be rich and fresh, and the batter should be just enough to hold it together. Working in this vein, after many tries, I made a wildly good cake that I personally couldn\u2019t stop eating. In my book, if not in Kafka\u2019s, it was not absent goodness but goodness itself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pretzels with Caraway Seeds <\/strong><\/p>\n

For the dough:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 cup plus 2 tbsp warm water, 110 to 115\u00b0F<\/p>\n

2 tsp light brown sugar, divided<\/p>\n

1 1\/4 tsp active dry yeast<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 cups white flour<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 cups bread flour<\/p>\n

1\/2 tsp salt<\/p>\n

For the lye bath: <\/strong><\/p>\n

4 cups water, room temperature<\/p>\n

2 tbsp food-grade lye<\/p>\n

For the topping: <\/strong><\/p>\n

2 tbsp coarse sea salt<\/p>\n

1 tbsp caraway seeds<\/p>\n

In a small bowl, combine 1\/4 cup warm water and 1\/2 teaspoon brown sugar. Add yeast and stir to dissolve. Let sit five minutes until yeast is foamy. (If it doesn\u2019t puff up, discard and use different yeast.) Once the yeast is proofed, in the large bowl of a stand mixer, stir in the remaining 1 1\/2 teaspoon brown sugar, both flours, and salt. Add the yeast mixture and 3\/4 cup warm water. The dough should be soft and pliable. If it seems too stiff, add more water and knead using the dough hook attachment for five minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, covered, and set inside your microwave with the door slightly ajar so the light stays on. (This mimics a proofing box and is a trick for raising bread in colder climates. If you\u2019re in a warm climate, the countertop is fine.)<\/p>\n

While the dough is rising, which can happen in less than forty-five minutes, prepare the lye bath. Lye is a caustic substance and could damage your skin and eyes, and there are many warnings and safety guidelines available on the internet about working with it; I recommend these.<\/a> It\u2019s essential that you use food-grade lye, available on Amazon, which makes the pretzel\u2019s hard, blistered skin. Lye is also corrosive to containers, so you want a nonreactive plastic container for the following step. Tupperware-style plastic containers say which kind of plastic they are on the bottom, and you want number two plastic (HDPE, or high-density polyethylene) or number five plastic (PP, or polypropylene). Taking all relevant safety precautions, fill the container with water, add the lye, and use a silicone spatula to stir to dissolve.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Prepare to shape and bake. Set out a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and butter it liberally, otherwise the lye-dipped pretzels will stick to the paper. Preheat the oven to 325\u00b0F. Set a small bowl of water on the countertop where you\u2019ll roll out the pretzels. Combine the salt and caraway seeds for the topping. When the dough has doubled in size, cut it in quarters, then shape each quarter into an even log, knocking out as little air as possible. Cut each log into fifths. Cover the unused dough with a damp towel and prepare to roll out and shape. The objective is twenty long, thin rolled strands of about fifteen to eighteen inches each. However, the rolling can be challenging since the dough quickly gets stiff and overworked. Starting with your thumbs in the center of the ball, quickly and smoothly press down while rolling the dough back and forth on the countertop. (I didn\u2019t need to flour my workspace, but it might depend on your dough.) You want to coax the dough into shape before it loses too much air. No pinching, pressing, or pre-shaping, or it will become hard to work with. As the dough strand lengthens, flatten your hands until you\u2019re using both palms to roll, and you can really apply a lot of pressure. If the dough becomes too tough and springy, set it aside for five minutes to rest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When the dough strand has reached the desired length, twist it into shape. There\u2019s a good tutorial on shaping with photos available here<\/a>. In brief: Take a rope of dough and make a U shape. Cross the arms over once, then cross again in the same direction to make the twist. Then bring the arms down to the belly of the U, dab each one on the underside with a little bit of water, and press them firmly to create the pretzel shape. Cover and let rise again for twenty minutes. Then uncover and let sit for fifteen more minutes to form a skin. Ideally, at this point you\u2019d freeze the dough for at least twenty minutes to make it easier to work with during the dipping process, but I ran out of time, and it was fine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When the pretzels are ready, dip each one into the lye bath for thirty seconds, using a slotted spoon or tongs, then place the pretzel on the greased parchment. When all pretzels are dipped, sprinkle with the topping. Bake for twenty-five minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for forty minutes more. (The steam created during baking will neutralize the lye and make the pretzels safe to handle and eat.) The timing is less important than getting the dough completely dry and crisp. You can determine doneness by tapping the pretzel with your finger or by sacrificing a pretzel to test and breaking it. If they\u2019re browning too quickly but aren\u2019t yet crisp, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool while reducing the oven temperature to 300\u00b0F. Return to the oven and bake ten more minutes and check. If still not done, continue baking, checking every five minutes until crisp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sausage and Potatoes<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 sausages, German style, cooked or uncooked<\/p>\n

4\u20135 large white potatoes, peeled and cubed<\/p>\n

Olive oil<\/p>\n

Salt and pepper<\/p>\n

1 cup sauerkraut<\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 400\u00b0F. Arrange the potatoes on a sheet pan, drizzle generously with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss with your hands to combine. Arrange the sausages on top of the potatoes and bake, uncovered, thirty minutes, tossing occasionally, until the sausages are cooked through and the potatoes are crispy and browned. If your mixture includes cooked sausage, it will puff up and burst, but that\u2019s fine. Five minutes before the end of the bake time, add the sauerkraut to the tray and toss to combine. Serve warm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fruitcake <\/strong><\/p>\n

Fruitcakes are better with age, and many of the ingredients suggested here are better made over the course of several days. Start at least two weeks ahead of the time you wish to serve or gift your cake.<\/p>\n

For the fruit and nuts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 cups high-quality* mixed dried fruit: apricots, large golden raisins, dried pineapple, red and green candied cherries<\/p>\n

2 cups rum<\/p>\n

3\/4 cup soft, chewy Medjool dates, chopped<\/p>\n

1\/4 cup mixed candied peel, chopped (use only if homemade, otherwise substitute crystallized ginger)<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 cups chopped nuts (recommend a mixture of pecans and pistachios)<\/p>\n

*NOTE: The key to a delicious fruitcake is delicious dried fruit. You\u2019re looking for a combination of tart, sweet, juicy, and pretty in your fruit choices. The types of fruit you use matter less than choosing fruits that will look and taste the best.<\/p>\n

For the batter: <\/strong><\/p>\n

1 stick butter, room temperature<\/p>\n

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed<\/p>\n

1\/2 tsp salt<\/p>\n

3\/4 tsp cinnamon<\/p>\n

1\/8 tsp allspice<\/p>\n

1\/8 tsp nutmeg<\/p>\n

1\/2 tsp baking powder<\/p>\n

2 eggs, room temperature<\/p>\n

1\/4 cup golden syrup<\/p>\n

1 tbsp cocoa powder<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 cups flour<\/p>\n

2 tbsp water<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chop the apricots or other larger dried fruits in your two cups of fruit mixture. (I like to leave the colorful candied cherries whole for visual appeal.) Place the mixture in a covered, nonreactive bowl and cover with the two cups of rum. You want the fruit to be fully submerged. Cover and let sit for eight hours or overnight or even longer. (You are not soaking the dates or the candied peel.)<\/p>\n

When it\u2019s time to assemble the cake, preheat the oven to 300\u00b0F. Grease a nine-by-four-inch loaf pan. Place the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and whip until fluffy and well-combined. Add salt, spices, and baking powder and whip to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition, followed by the golden syrup. Add the cocoa powder and flour and stir until just combined. Add the water, the dates, the nuts, and two cups of the fruit mixture, scooped out of the liquid but not drained, and stir until combined. (The fruit will swell up with soaking, so you may have more than two cups. Reserve for another use.) Spoon the batter into the pan and bake for forty-five to seventy-five minutes, until a tester entered into the cake comes out clean. Eat immediately.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

German Apple Cake<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adapted from <\/em>Bon Appetit. <\/em><\/p>\n

1 stick butter, cut into pieces, room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan<\/p>\n

1\/4 cup breadcrumbs<\/p>\n

2\/3 cup sugar<\/p>\n

1 tbsp lemon zest<\/p>\n

1 tsp baking powder<\/p>\n

1 tsp salt<\/p>\n

1 cup flour<\/p>\n

1 egg, fork-whisked<\/p>\n

1 tsp vanilla<\/p>\n

3 medium, firm, tart apples, such as Granny Smith<\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 350\u00b0F. Butter a nine-inch loose-bottom tart pan and dust with breadcrumbs, tapping out the excess. Whisk the sugar, lemon zest, baking powder, salt, and flour together in a large bowl. Then make a well in the middle and add the egg, vanilla, and butter. Stir until the dough comes together in large clumps, then knead gently with your hands until it comes together in a mass. Flour your hands a little if the dough is too sticky.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gently press the dough into the prepared pan, flattening with the bottom of a glass or measuring cup and using more flour if it sticks. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Place them cut side down on a cutting board and make thin, parallel crosswise slices in each quarter, taking care not to cut all the way through, so the apples stay in one shingled piece. Arrange the apples in concentric circles over the entire surface of the dough, trimming to fit if necessary (you may have some extra pieces). Bake forty-five to fifty-five minutes, until the apples and crust are golden in color. Check after thirty minutes to make sure the cake is not browning too quickly; if it is, cover with a piece of tinfoil. Cool and serve.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Valerie Stivers is a writer based in New York.\u00a0Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Eat Your Words<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cKafka\u2019s characters are often hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30795],"tags":[31621,67827,5410],"class_list":["post-166830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eat-your-words","tag-eat-your-words","tag-featured","tag-franz-kafka"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCooking with Franz Kafka by Valerie Stivers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 22, 2024 \u2013 \u201cKafka\u2019s characters are often hungry.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2024\/02\/22\/cooking-with-franz-kafka\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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