Doberge Cake After Katrina Analysis
Doberge Cake after Katrina
Amy Cryrex Sins, in Doberge Cake after Katrina, communicates apropos the recipes lost during the horrific Hurricane Katrina. Sins writes about her dreadful experience, as she watched “in horror” as the levee on the 17th Street Canal broke, “sending tons of water and debris down [her] street” (Sins 45). Although she had not lost any people to the flooding, she had lost much of her collection of recipes that she had been gathering since her move to New Orleans. Sins discusses the culture and value of many of these sentimental recipes—how they represent different foods for different celebrations; times of the day; and in general, just their expressive value to New Orleans culture. In Doberge Cake after Katrina, Sins
truly helps uncover another crime committed onto New Orleans through the infamous 2005 hurricane. This crime was Katrina’s defacement unto the city’s prolific food culture. What I found to be effective was Sins writing about her return to home days subsequent to the Hurricane, and her thorough description of the figurative calamity that was her house. I found this to be effective, because it showed just how much of a tragedy the hurricane was, and because she used the scene to make the point that among the replaceable objects destroyed by the flooding, that “lost forever were the family recipes [she] had collected and cherished” (Sins 46). What I found to be ineffective was the page long recipe of the Doberge Cake. I found it trifling. I can understand its symbolic “beauty,” but it still has no pragmatic purpose being in the segment. Overall, I felt as if the writing was unique in its taste. I appreciated how Sins took a cataclysm like Hurricane Katrina, and applied her own inimitable touch to it, focusing on lost recipes. Reading a Katrina story through a first-person point of view made the reading more intimate and attractive. I enjoyed the read, especially her take on the mortality of the recipe.
Amy Cryrex Sins, in Doberge Cake after Katrina, communicates apropos the recipes lost during the horrific Hurricane Katrina. Sins writes about her dreadful experience, as she watched “in horror” as the levee on the 17th Street Canal broke, “sending tons of water and debris down [her] street” (Sins 45). Although she had not lost any people to the flooding, she had lost much of her collection of recipes that she had been gathering since her move to New Orleans. Sins discusses the culture and value of many of these sentimental recipes—how they represent different foods for different celebrations; times of the day; and in general, just their expressive value to New Orleans culture. In Doberge Cake after Katrina, Sins
truly helps uncover another crime committed onto New Orleans through the infamous 2005 hurricane. This crime was Katrina’s defacement unto the city’s prolific food culture. What I found to be effective was Sins writing about her return to home days subsequent to the Hurricane, and her thorough description of the figurative calamity that was her house. I found this to be effective, because it showed just how much of a tragedy the hurricane was, and because she used the scene to make the point that among the replaceable objects destroyed by the flooding, that “lost forever were the family recipes [she] had collected and cherished” (Sins 46). What I found to be ineffective was the page long recipe of the Doberge Cake. I found it trifling. I can understand its symbolic “beauty,” but it still has no pragmatic purpose being in the segment. Overall, I felt as if the writing was unique in its taste. I appreciated how Sins took a cataclysm like Hurricane Katrina, and applied her own inimitable touch to it, focusing on lost recipes. Reading a Katrina story through a first-person point of view made the reading more intimate and attractive. I enjoyed the read, especially her take on the mortality of the recipe.