After May

Although I have referred throughout these posts to Debord and cooking, I know full well that he never went in a kitchen in his life, except to get some wine or coffee, probably when there wasn't a woman around to go and get it for him. That makes me sound as though I disapprove, but he was just a man of his generation, and not unusual. Francois Mitterand in a kitchen? Giscard d'Estang? no - wouldn't happen. One of the things I love about Debord is his cavalier attitude to most of life - 'I do the revolution, she does the washing up' he once told an English feminist woman, who was enraged by this. Why some people don't have a sense of humour I don't know - Alice Debord is a intellectual in her own right, and even though she did the washing up what does it matter? It's got to get done, and if someone ever made Debord do the washing up it might not have been done very well. 

I see these recipes as being something like the songs Debord wrote in the Salle Jules Bonnot, as much a Situationist practise as anything else (the songs he wrote can be found here). As someone who has researched a lot about late 19th century anarchism in Europe, I love the idea of him sitting there, writing about Emile Henry, the unbroken line of anarchist thought that continues today. And I love the idea of his being slightly bored in Belgium, with one jazz record to listen to, writing Enrages and Situationists in the Occupation Movement, France, May '68, and coming up with recipes that reflected what had happened. Like the songs they are funny, thoughtful and are part of the Situationist canon. 

Why do I think this is as important as anything else? Because it is putting theories into practise. When I wanted to undertake Ph.D research a while back I wanted to study how anarchists were shown in the media, and using Situationist theories to conduct that research. I believe in putting theory into practise, because why should you have theory without using it? It just becomes pointless. I have mentioned Olivier Assayas before, and in his book A Post-May Adolescence: Letter to Alice Debord he talks about the process of film making as being a Situationist activity, and I recommend his writing about this to anyone. What's the point of writing down recipes (or just vague instructions) without someone cooking them, even if alcohol won't ignite? Doing rather than reading, but I think that can also get translated as Progaganda by Deed. 

Since Debord and the Situationist International have moved from being a living thing and into the grave and a museum, I feel some things have been lost, and chief among these is the huge sense of fun, of wanting to have street lighting with an on and off switch, of massive pranks that disquiet and shock people. The big books on the desk to study reification that Carole talks about in All the King's Horses (Michèle Bernstein's 1960 Situationist novel) while Gilles merely says no, mostly, he just walks around. The big books like The Society of the Spectacle are just as important as the on and off switches, the derives, the letters and the songs. 

I have found all of this to be massive fun. Sometimes it was worrying (the lobster) sometimes it was dissatisfying (alcohol not burning) sometimes it was just really nice (the steak). Sometimes you go on a derive and find yourself in a dead end, and have to turn back. Sometimes you can't understand something you're reading and you have to read it again. Sometimes you look at graffiti on a wall and you laugh. Do it, walk down the street, cook something, watch a film called in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni and realise it's a pallindrome. 

I've found all of this process to be intensely psychogeographical. It's made me do things I thought I'd never do, and has made me think a lot, about how to do something, how to go about doing something, what I need to do next. I found that the amount of layering is something I didn't notice at first, but as I went on the putting something on top of something else, the soup on the croutons, the lobster on the chestnuts and mussels, made me think about how May had changed Debord. The experience of being in a potentially revolutionary situation, rather than just thinking or writing about it. Seeing it all happen, after writing the theory. Finding that underneath the paving stones really is the beach. 

Would I cook it again? Yes, some of it. I'm never cooking a lobster again as long as I live, but I'm glad I did. The steak, the spinach and eggs, definitely. Whenever I put a poached egg on anything again I will always do it in the style of an urbanist - although I'd have thought that would have been more in the style of crashed eggs but maybe not. I like the idea of Debord being in the kitchen with me, even if he's just a faint influence somewhere, having a drink. 

I do want to talk about disappointment. I do read a lot of recipes because I am who I am, and have trained as a pastry chef and have done some work professionally, so I suppose I expect recipes to work and when they don't there's something wrong. So coming up face to face with Debord telling me something that doesn't work sort of spooked me a bit. I know he had a few strange ideas towards the end of his life but well, don't we all. I suppose I felt let down when the vodka wouldn't light (I'm thinking specifically here about the lobster, a recipe that Guy handed over to someone else to make) but I tried repeatedly. Maybe I should have poured the vodka onto the lobster 'in the style of an urbanist' instead of a pastry chef, because you usually don't need much to light it, unless you want very showy flames. Okay, I was disappointed but the world didn't end, but I'd never felt let down by him before. I think all I will do is shrug my shoulders and say it doesn't matter.

This could, of course, be put down to the composition of the members of the house in Belgium. Guy and Alice, obviously, not Raoul Vaneigem (as he was the recipient of the letter), not René Viénet (one of the footnotes to the letter makes this clear) but I'm not sure who else was in the house with them. Maybe they had left the best cooks behind in Paris or elsewhere. Maybe someone can enlighten me about this. 

During May, to go alongside doing this, I made a conscious decision to read what I feel are the SI texts that I love most, and probably aren't the ones that are on other peoples' lists. The ones I chose reflect me and are probably predicable. All the King's Horses, The Night and Engrages and Situationists in the Occupation Movement, France, May '68. Occasionally I have wondered what recipes Michèle Bernstein would have produced, if she would have appreciated it, or just shrugged and cooked everyone a really good meal instead. I can't decide about that one.  

So now what? I've got stuff I'm writing alongside all this, so I'm not going to be bored. What I am taking from it is what it's given me, a sense of closeness and involvement that has sometimes been an extraordinary potlatch. Performing actions that other people have performed is like a sort of magic, like walking along exactly the same bit of pavement, or drinking in a particular bar, or anything. For me I have felt closer than ever to Debord and whoever else was with him in that  secluded house in Belgium, and it has been an experience that has been fantastic. I've also wondered what I was doing as well, but I suppose that is all part of the game. I know that some of the recipes will be cooked again, and I really hope I can regain some of the same feelings in the future. 

I am very glad I've done this, even when I was thinking why didn't I leave the lobster recipe to someone else, but I didn't have anyone else to hand it over to. I have read The Art of War, so I knew that in the midst of chaos there is also opportunity, and it worked, as does everything in that book. I don't know if anyone has ever cooked these dishes, but I'm very glad to have done it.

I'd like to thank some people, just a couple. I would like to give my very big thanks to the not bored website for translating the letter this has all come from, and for including it on their site, and I couldn't have done this without this resource. I'd like to thank Andrew Hussey for chatting to me in London and Paris, and that is always a great pleasure. But most of all I want to thank Guy. And Raoul Vaneigem, to whom he wrote.