Bao Revisited

There has been some degree of controversy around this post. To clear things up, I would like to introduce The Skeptic.

Pastry Analyst 1: i did bao

The Skeptic: you've never even had bao

Pastry Analyst 1: so?

The Skeptic: so what do you know about bao?

Pastry Analyst 1: i saw a picture. i wrote a very informed blog post

The Skeptic: you know nothing of its texture, its taste. it's like reading a review of a movie and then writing a review of the movie based on that

also, you make another assumption about the flakiness

what do you know about its flakiness? you've never had one

it flakes, just in a different way than, say, a croissant

it flakes. its sweet.

Pastry Analyst 1: its pork

The Skeptic: you're confusing flaky with crunchy

Pastry Analyst 1: pork is savory

The Skeptic: bbq pork

Pastry Analyst 1: its not flaky

The Skeptic: bbq is sweet

it flakes

it doesn't crunch

Pastry Analyst 1: it crumbles

The Skeptic: it doesn't crumble

croissant crumbles

your worldview crumbles

Pastry Analyst 1: croissant flakes

The Skeptic: bao doesn't crumble

Pastry Analyst 1 : your mother flakes!!!!

The Skeptic: you should probably just have this conversation be your bao post on your blog

Cheese Danish

Dear Loyal Readers,

I apologize for the lull in posts. The culprit: a particularly odious cheese danish.

Normally, I am a clear advocate for pastries and potential pastries everywhere. I am staunchly pro-pastry. However, the cheese danish has betrayed my trust.

One morning a week ago, I went to a local bakery to buy some breakfast goods. I really wanted one of those Dominican fried savory cheese pockets, so I naively pointed at a square-croissant looking thing and asked, "Does this have cheese?"

"Yes," she replied, and then my fate was sealed.

It did have cheese. Sort of like rotten over-sweet cheesecake mushed inside a sticky croissant facade. Was it a pastry? Arguably. It was (apparently) intended as a breakfast food, it flaked, it was sweet. And aren't danishes the pastry centerpiece of the Continental Breakfast?

The morning ended with me picking out gelatinous cheese filling on a subway platform so I could eat the croissant shell, as passerby watched in abject horror and disgust.

Is this what we've come to, pastry?

Scone

The scone raises a surprising question: would a pastry (or not pastry) still be a pastry (or not pastry) if it went by a different name? What, indeed, is in a name? Though Shakespeare asked his (or her) famous question about people and roses, it seems to me that it could be applied to pastries as well.

Extensive research has revealed that in Scotland, the ostensible birthplace of the scone, 99% of people pronounce it /skon/ to rhyme with "John". For the moment, please suspend your outrage at the Scots' evident disregard of the silent-e rule and let your analytical skills tackle the greater question: is a scone still a scone if it's a skon?

"Of course," you might say. "After all, they probably call 'apple turnovers' something different in Spanish, but it still conforms to the Platonic ideal of apple turnover!" But are you so willing to universalize your own personal experience to the people of the world? Do people in mountain villages in Peru experience the "pastriness" of apple turnover in the same way as people in mountain villages in North Carolina? Who are you to say that other cultures would not see an apple turnover and immediately group it into their Platonic categories of "bread" or "pie" or "poison"? We must be sure not to impose our Western views so tersely on the Other.

On the other hand, as we sink into the depths of relativism, the very category of pastry begins to fade and lose meaning.

The only solution is to dispatch a cadre of anthropologists to the far reaches of the globe in order to study natives' views of pastry. This, we intend to do. Please donate to our efforts.

Here is a 16th century ode to the scone, uncovered at one of our more recent archeology sites:

Tis but thy name that is my enemy;--
Thou art thyself, though not a pastry.
What's pastry? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a scone
By any other name would taste as swell;
So skon would, were he not skon call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:--Skon, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Oh scone/skon! I do wish to take you! Though we are inconclusive about both its name and its pastriness, the mystery of the scone continues to ensnare wayward analysts. Its claim to pastry is perhaps more straightforward than its name: it is sweet, a breakfast food, sometimes filled with covert ingredients (raisins, nuts, orange zest, etc). It fits well on a breakfast plate and can come in striking shapes, like wedges. However, it does not flake (it crumbles) and it is often shoved in bread categories, like biscuits and toast. Though this may be some weird perversion of the British, we do not yet have significant evidence to discount it entirely.

I leave you with a clip from a horror movie about the very real possibility of pastries destroying humans, a warning to us all to keep The Other, and our (sometimes extravagant) notions of pastiness, firmly in check:

Apple Turnover

The apple turnover has been conclusively established as a pastry. I submit as evidence the following brain scan, one of many from a comprehensive 6-year study of 1000 pastry-lovers:


It should be noted that though similar hippocampal distension was recorded in all participants, it was significantly more drastic in the males in our study. Similarly, the tectum/cerebellum conjunction was more pronounced among participants who self-identified as bisexual. We will continue to research the implications of these abnormalities.

Cupcake

It has come to my attention that some people have been arguing that muffins and cupcakes are indistinguishable. That is evidently ridiculous (see figure 6a). The Platonic forms are as separate as apples and swans. Further, if the the muffin were the jock of the pastry world (which it would be, could we confirm its pastry status), the cupcake would be the effete intellectual smoking on the steps. Smoking candy cigarettes because it doesn't know what's up. And then other really skinny pastries would write songs about it, kind of ironically. That would never happen to the muffin and if he saw the cupcake in an alley he would punch him in the frosting.


The cupcake is certainly the most twee of potential pastries, but I will try not to let that bias my judgment. Its pastry-like qualities include its crumbliness, its sweetness, and its size. Indeed, it has often been remarked upon by pastry analysts the strange coincidence of size of most pastries; just enough to fit on a dessert plate, perhaps. What does this say about the historical evolution of the pastry? Was it once--perish the thought--an after dinner treat? We are, as of yet, inconclusive, but it certainly raises perplexing questions.

The strikes against the cupcake are numerous. It is clearly a dessert (or an ironic snack). It does not flake. You do not eat it for breakfast. To invoke the slippery slope argument again, admitting the cupcake to pastry status would then amount to the admittance of nearly all cakes; a catastrophe for the pastry world.

Further, cupcakes are clearly a product of and for the bourgeoisie. I submit as evidence, (1) cupcakes used as part of cultural appropriation and (2) lots of white people waiting in line to pay $4 for a cupcake. Pastries are of the common people. Nobody waits in line for an apple turnover or a croissant. You buy them at a sidewalk cart.

Cupcakes eaters of the world: you have nothing to lose but your chains*.

*Your chains of insurmountable privilege that prevent you from fully participating in the universe of pastry.

Baklava

I have indeed heard it said, on more than one occasion, that baklava is the quintessential pastry. Its flakiness is unparalleled and it is dripping with sweet honey in a way that makes it the envy of all food products. It is layered and includes both crunchy nuts and soggy sweet goo, both important elements of pastry.

Its fatal flaw, however--beyond its evident hubris--is the stubborn way it has been shoved into a dessert category, shunned from breakfast foods. As we know, there is an inverse relationship between the likelihood that something is a pastry and the time of day it which it is eaten. Please see figure 5c.The question then becomes: is baklava the exception that proves the rule or simply an exception to the rule? Are we objectifying the baklava even by having this discussion? How have we gotten so far from the essence of baklava? Is it right of us to punish the baklava for a reason so totally out of its control and dependent on human whims?

To quote Foucault, "In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating."I would like to admit that I have eaten baklava for breakfast before. Together, the revolution is in our hands.

Bao

This bao (or baozi, according to the Internet) is filled with roasted pork and it is the inspiration behind the theme of our discussion today: can a pastry be filled with meat? To some extent, then, I would like to acknowledge that we will be holding up the bao as a strawman; obviously the bao cannot represent all meat-filled or meat-related pastries, and the bao deserves to be analyzed in its own unique context without being forced to symbolize carniverous bread-like maybe-breakfast foods everywhere. This does not do the bao justice, whether or not we eventually decide it is a pastry.

However, it remains a fascinating debate among pastry analysts and afficianados everywhere: can a pastry incorporate dead, cooked animal? See Figure 4c for a helpful diagram.

We will approach this problem epistemologically. Princeton University's "wordnet" guide, the dictionary of note, defines pastry as, "a dough of flour and water and shortening." According to this gloss, pastry refers to the bready (some might claim flaky) outside of a pastry--or of the bao--not the filling. It can therefore be surmised that a pastry, potentially, could be filled with anything, so long as its outer contours conform to the basic tenets of pastrydom. This opens up a whole new world of hypothetical pastry: pizza pastry, shoe pastry, cumin pastry, and, dare I say it, steak pastry.

However, as we return to the bao, I find myself still uncertain. It is important that I now reveal my own biases and position of privilege in respect to the bao. As a white, midly oppressive American, it is possible that I do not, and cannot, understand the true nature of the bao, a traditional Chinese dim sum food. Indeed, the bao problematizes the very Western notion of "pastry." It is entirely possible that non-Western nations developed pastries in wholly different, now unrecognizable forms, centuries before they were co-opted and standardized by the West. These "neo-pastries" could have striven for a different ideal, stood for different values, and altgether eclipsed the modern notions of true pastriness. Under years of colonization, it is possible that this notion of pastry was slowly and methodically destroyed by the homogenizing forces of Western civilization and European hubris. Of this subject, alas, my ignorance overwhelms me and I float in a sea of cultural insensitivity. However, I am determined to bring you a clear and precise analysis regardless.

I remain skeptical. The bao's savory filling does seem to detract from its overall pastriness, despite its sweet bready shell. Its alleged flakiness seems but a pipe dream, although it is possible that I am measuring this using a very culturally specific understanding of flakiness. Some might say: it flakes differently. I think that I would rather eat it for lunch than for breakfast (that is, if I would eat it at all, considering my knowledge of The Meatrix). Finally, I just find it hard to imagine somebody waking up one morning and saying to him or herself, "Man, I want a pastry!" while reaching for a bao.

The bao is perhaps misunderstood and underestimated. But please do not become distraught; we will return to analyze its brethern at a later date, when we take on the elusive and extraordinary Red Bean Bun. Redemption awaits.

Eclair

The eclair will try to seduce you. At first glance, we want to say, "Of course it's a pastry!" It's sometimes flaky, always sweet, and involves crisscrossed melted chocolate. Further, it has a cream filling, and fillings--whether they be sweet or savory--are often characteristic of pastries. Indeed, it is almost as if the eclair has transcended its own pastry status, anthropomorphized, and consumed a cream puff. It thus has risen above the level of mere pastry, taking on super-pastry status.

However, we should not be so quick to submit to the eclair's wiles. For after all, is not approving the eclair as pastry also tacitly approving the doughnut? It would be hypocritical to reject a Boston Creme, for example, when we have so instantly affirmed the eclair. And then what about the Boston Creme Pie?? Are we so willing to say pies are pastries just because we have warmed to the eclair?

It is a slippery slope. See figure 3a.


Are you still so sure about the eclair?

Muffin

The muffin is an interesting specimen. Its ambiguity has long confounded researchers in the pastry community and, indeed, it is often the lynchpin upon which people's pastry biases lie. Those who say muffins are pastries have essentially abandoned the so-called "flakiness index" through which pastries are analyzed based on their relative flakiness, one of the first known measures of the quality of pastry. Are we, as a society, ready to make that jump? See Figure 2 for a complex analysis of available data.


In defense of the muffin-as-pastry, it is certainly a breakfast food and usually--though not always--sweet. Personally, I am much more inclined to bestow the pastry title on a blueberry muffin with a sugary crust on top than a bran muffin, but for the sake of argument, we will take "muffin" as an indivisible Platonic category unto itself.

Muffins are eaten with coffee and they can be purchased at sidewalk carts. Sometimes they are frosted, though whether this adds or subtracts from their pastriness is a matter of much debate. Can this enigma ever be resolved?!?!

A Poem for the Muffin

There once was a muffin made of bran
Of which no one was much of a fan
"Oh Heavens to Pete!
"Muffins should be sweet!"
Said a very disgruntled young man.

Readers, let this be a lesson for you.

Croissant

The croissant is perhaps the quintessential pastry... or is it?? Pastry is a category notoriously difficult to define. What qualities exude 'pastriness'? What disqualifies a bready product from achieving pastry status? In other words, what is the Platonic ideal of pastry and where does the croissant appear on the spectrum of pastry?

For, indeed, like gender, pastry perhaps is better seen as a continuum, not simple black and white categories. See figure 1A.

Clearly, however, the pastry-continuum theory can really never be proven or rejected, and it is the goal of this blog to establish clear pastry categories: pastry, OR NOT.

Back to the croissant: its flakiness indicates that is is a pastry, for flakiness is indisputably one of the foremost pastry-like characteristics. However, does that mean that if you eat a hard, old croissant it is less of a pastry? Further, croissants lack a certain sweetness inherent in most pastries (though here advocates of spanikopita will surely protest). Is the honey-coated croissant somehow "more pastry" than the plain croissant? Or does the hegemony of sugary breakfast food blind us to the true nature of the pastry? These are not questions that we should take lightly.

Indeed, the croissant seems, on one level, like one of the easiest pastries to affirmatively categorize. You eat it with coffee. It goes well with butter or jam (but then again, so does toast, and are you so sure about toast???). You can buy it from a sidewalk cart. And finally, it is a breakfast food, and studies have shown that pastries are most often consumed at breakfast.

On the other hand, what if it were a melted ham and cheese sandwich inside a croissant? We will leave that for another day.