Day 94: The Pannenkoeken Tower of Babel
By Darunee Terdtoontaveedej, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 27 October 2017
The Tower of Babel symbolises the united human effort and ambitions. As it was stated in the Old Testament, humanity was one and decided to attempt to build a tower together towards God. However, seeing the human attempt as a potential threat to his divinity, God decided to intervene and confuse the people by separating them into groups with different languages and cultures. Because of the difficulties in communication, the Tower failed to materialise. The story of the Tower became an explanation on humanity’s different cultures and languages.
The Grand Feast aims to reenact the biblical myth by inviting the public to build an edible Tower of Babel together by assembling layers of pancake. Pancakes are known as a universal comfort food and commonly associated with childhood. It can be found in various forms, cultures and flavours, whether it’s the French crepe, Russian blini, Dutch pannenkoeken, Indian dosa, Vietnamese banhxeo, pancakes are simple and open to personal interpretation and techniques. However, the outcome of the Feast was to be a tower that can be eaten together.
For this Day of Learning, The Grand Feast took place at NatLab as part of World Design Event. Participants were welcomed to build their own pancake layers with the provided ingredients, which included various types of flours and milks, spices, sugar, cheese, syrup, and some fruits and vegetables, under the condition that no internet access was allowed during the process, and the participants had to agree among themselves on the ingredients, in case of specific dietary requirements.
After several discussions and negotiation, it was decided that two towers would be formed with one containing eggs and the other without. The challenges that emerge was the difficulties to imagine a pancake recipe without eggs and using unfamiliar flours. The simplicity of the pancake seemed to be underestimated and became complex with more people involved and their different associations with the dish and childhood memories. Despite the difficulties, some interesting invention emerged, for example, clay batter with samba and onion, turmeric, chilli, cheese with coconut milk batter, along with some other classics such as chocolate and bananas, peanut butter and chocolate spread, and many more.
By the end of the workshop, the towers were sliced up like cakes and shared between the participants. Yet again, The Grand Feast did not involve a strict division between students and teachers but relied on the participants’ communication between each other and the spontaneous conversations that may emerge in the process. Instead of having a set plan, The Grand Feast creates a setting for strangers to share the experiences and a meal together.
