About a week ago, some people were giving away baked goods on campus. I'm not quite sure why, but they were offering free, no-strings attached, baked goods. So I decided to grab a chocolate chip cookie- tasty, yet light enough not to ruin an appetite. It was somewhat burnt. But I realised something.... there is something about burnt cookies... especially burnt chocolate chip cookies... that's special. Of all the things you can burn, burnt cookies has a special taste to it. Sure, it represents the baker falling short, and failing in his/her endeavour to make a perfect cookie. Yet, perhaps therein lay the charm. We know that the baker was human, and that the cookie was not mass-produced and/or made by machines. There is a personal touch to it. Despite the fact that the baker obviously screwed up, it still symbolises some sort of personal attachment. Some human being, with a name and a heart, made this cookie for a reason. It almost becomes like a small reflection of that person's soul.
Burnt cookies also remind me of simpler days. Like when your little sister tried to make cookies and burnt them. Who cares? You still ate them and told her they were good- because they were. It's not like burnt cookies are disgusting... you still have all the essential elements of a cookie.
Think about it.... burnt cookies are like something your sister/girlfriend/mom/yourself could make. It reminds me of small towns, of friendly people, of simple days, of selflessness. Burnt cookies aren't made for commerce. At worst, they might have been part of an attempt to have a bake sale... and bake sales usualy fundraise for worthy causes. It's not like someone will sell burnt cookies solely for their own profit.
This stands in contrast to the mass-produced, immaculate, perservative-loaded cookies you find in grocery markets. In this sense, I'm using immaculate in the perjorative sense. They are immactulate in the non-human sense. They are immaculate cookies like ladyboys are immaculate women, only because of the extent and cost of their modifications. It's ungenuine (not to mention unhealthy!). Mass-produced cookies do not have a face to it. You don't know who actually made them, nor will you ever- because they weren't made by human beings. They were made in factories. There's no name or soul to them.... they were made just for corprorate profit. Not becuase a bunch of people wanted to do something nice for loved ones.... not becuase some people wanted to raise money for a geniune cause... not because someone wanted to make someone else's day.
Alas, this entry is more of a personal reflection than a real statement. I don't believe that burnt cookies are the ideal. Objectively speaking, they don't taste as good as well-made cookies (mass-produced or otherwise). But that doesn't mean that they are worth disposing of. There's something about burnt cookies that has a nostalgic quality to it. You know that this cookie wasn't made for the soul endeavour of profit. The cookie, like the individual who made it, is flawed. What is wrong with flaws? While we should all work to improve upon our flaws, we won't ever get rid of all of them. We are stuck with flaws: we might as well celebrate some of them. Let's not turn into a bunch of mindless robots. Yet I fear that's where the future is taking us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment