Lauren McGowan: Sensuality of the Edible

Susie (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Pleasure Morsels. This is a little snack of feeling good, feeling authentic, feeling raw and juicy. And I'm really stoked to have Lauren McGowan here with me, who's my favorite cake maker. She runs Violet Bake House, which was opened in 2020. Since then, it's garnered the adoration of many fans, both gluten-free and not. Lauren loves baking, fashion history, and the Fast and Furious franchise. Lauren, welcome! Thank you so much for coming on.

Lauren (00:38)

Thank you so much for having me.

Susie (00:40)

Such a pleasure. So we're going to get right to it. You know, we don't have much space for the little stuff. So let's just like power right in. And so what really drew you drew me to your artwork, your edible artwork is the flavour of vintage. I see from Victorian era to 50s era. And I wondered what it is about the central expression of the past that you bring into your aesthetic.

Lauren (01:13)

It's actually, I love this question so much because I'm like, I'm obsessed with fashion and that I'm obsessed with like how textiles look. So especially like Victorian beautiful gowns and like 1950s precious little bows and flowers and pastels. And when you ask that question, I was like thinking about what connects these time periods and it's like a very repressed feminine sexuality.

And this decadence on the outside, but a little bit of depression, of repression, and just frilly, fuzzy, but repressed, and taking the repression out of it, kind of like eating, having this beautiful thing that you're going to destroy and eat and consume. I just think that's so lovely and wonderful. And also I just love bows, I love pearls, I love very high femme, pretty things that maybe I wasn't always encouraged to love growing up. And now I can just cover things in pink and pastel.

Susie (02:20)

Yeah, the high femme was kind of, I think our parents' generation was like, that is, that's repressed, which it is, but then also it was villainized. So now I see we're in a kind of an era of reclaiming that high femme.

Lauren (02:28)

Exactly. Yes, for sure. And to think that something frilly or something would make you less deep or less intelligent or less complex and that just because something is frilly and pretty doesn't mean doesn't equal lacking in complexity.

Susie (02:54)

And then obviously like the labia references. It's never not. Anything that's a circle or a wave, it's a cunt.

Lauren (02:57)

Yes, of course. Naturally. It's always yawning. I've made vagina cakes and it's just, it's really not hard. It's just the piping tips just to tell you what to do. It's very easy. Lends itself well.

Susie (03:20)

Oh, beautiful. Okay. Nice. And so that flows very nicely into this next question, which is how does nostalgia that we're talking about open pathways to pleasure?

Lauren (03:27)

I think you already have, like nostalgia necessitates kind of a sense of comfort. So you're already in a sense of comfort or recognition. So you're kind of more open to pleasure. So you see a cake and you recognize or you feel those feelings, but maybe it's something that's more attractive to you. Or I'm often trying to make a cake that you would imagine in a children's book or in a film or something that's a cakey version of, the most cake version of cake, a stereotypical cake sometimes, which I think is something that we never really get, like that birthday cake from Curious George, or this idea of cake and what it could be. And I just like that it kind of changes people to having big eyes, big saucers, kind of looking at the sugary things and how it just changes and makes people a little bit more open and receptive.

Susie (04:26)

That's so neat, because now I'm thinking of the creations that I've seen you make, that it's sort of like, like you said, the idea of a cake. It's like someone has drawn a picture of a cake, but it's here in 3D. There's like a whimsical but uncanny almost, it like sort of defies gravity sometimes.

Lauren (04:32)

Exactly. It's a bit off. And I think that's also reactionary to like when I was learning to bake and when I was training, it was very much the naked cake era where everything had to be like very gritty and like pure and you see everything inside of it and like we might have some decorations or the opposite which is like a cupcake with a s'more on top of it and like a donut and like just in excess, excess without stylization.

Susie (05:13)

and you're like, nope, I'm gonna turn that up to 10.

Lauren (05:14)

Nope. Yeah.

Susie (05:18)

Okay, so let's get a little more into the sensuality and the erotic. So in your experience, how does taste connect to erotic expression?

Lauren (05:20)

I think obviously it's one of your senses so it's something you're going to like inevitably taste is associated with pleasure whether it's something you that doesn't taste good or something that does taste good and also like in terms of the sensuality you're eating with your eyes you can like smell things so it's like very overall sensual experience because it's difficult to not have at least like three or four of your senses involved when you're eating.

And then you're consuming, like when I make something for someone, I'm making it with the intention for them to put it in their body, which is like an insane amount of trust between both of us, especially because I'm working with people with allergens, I have celiac disease and that's why I make gluten-free food. And just like that trust that people, that we have between each other, that I'm going to take care of you and that you're going to be safe and you'll be cared for and be able to have pleasure. I'm topping. I'm cake topping everyone.

Susie (06:36)

You're a top. You're a cake top.

So, okay, what would be the ideal place for us as consumers to enjoy your cake if the confines of reality do not exist.

Lauren (06:40)

I think we'll start in the confines, which is when I really like when people are like holding their cake in my hands and they're like, I'm gonna have a bath with this and I'm gonna eat this in the bath or like I'm gonna eat this, this is for me this week or like me and my partner are gonna go to the spa and then we're gonna come home and we're gonna eat this cake together and just like the share, like the sensuality of having it in the bath or somewhere out of context but like in the child in me says like upon a cloud. is where you should be eating it, ideally.

Susie (07:24)

like on the top, but the clouds made of icing. Yeah.

Lauren (07:26)

Like a really fluffy, a really fluffy, like a cumulus nimbus. I think that is the type of cloud I like. The really fluffy ones, like hair-bare cloud. Yeah, absolutely. Ha ha ha.

Susie (07:31)

Can there be Care Bears around? Okay, cool. Yeah, I feel that. Yeah, don't you wanna just eat clouds?

Lauren (07:43)

Yes, that was like an obsession of mine as a child, was like trying to decide what it would be like. Like if it would be like a strawberry and whipped cream or if it would be more like a cotton candy or like what would it be?

Susie (07:57)

Mm, and then we kind of all melt into this cloudness. There's like consuming the sugar and then being floating and also sitting on this edible vehicle. There's like, what's the word for when you're...it's not engorged, but it's when you're consumed and it's sort of all, all around. Yeah.

Lauren (08:04)

envelope. Like, within it. Like that or a Roman, when the rose petals fall on you nonstop for six hours, whatever that is. There's like a famous Roman feast where there was a rumour that people drowned from all the rose petals being sprinkled over them for hours. I think they were having an orgy or consuming, I don't know.

Susie (08:34)

Uh, what is that? And they all died?

Lauren (08:50)

Well, or that's the rumour, like all of these rich people, but I don't think anyone drowned. But it's beautiful to think about.

Susie (08:57)

I'd be okay with it. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Now I'm like, wouldn't it like get up your nose? Like, no, no. Yes, it would be perfect. Not sticky at all. So we were talking a bit about the monstrous feminine before we got on the air. And you said you hadn't heard that term before. So what was it like to be researching that?

Lauren (09:29)

Well, I just researched it and what initially came up for me was a lot of film studies definitions, which like I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching queer and feminist film studies videos. That's one of my like, my side interests, which kind of comes through in my work. So that was very interesting and just thinking about the threat of femininity and the monstrous forms that femininity can take. But it was all very specific to film. So I was wondering what your definition of the monstrous feminine would be.

Susie (10:02)

Um, usually definition means like say two lines that encapsulate everything about this, but it's, uh, yeah, not something I've really articulated in like a bite-size form. It's something I use in my own creative work as like, um, it has a lot to do with, um, unkemptness of dirtiness and teeth and claws and hair and like actual dirt and earth and being in ecstasy over the visceral, like what shouldn't be shown is on display. And the etymology of monster means to show. So it's, um, monster is also the clown, the jester. I mean, kind of like going a little spirally here, but the clown is the one who has permission to make fun of, to point out what people are trying to hide. And I think that in like toxic femininity or like patriarchal femininity, like you said, everything is laced up, it's hidden. It's like, it's tight.

Lauren (11:14)

Tight, clean, digestible. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I love this. I think it's also, it makes me think of like the threat of beauty as well as like the opposite of like the blood and the tears and the sweat that come with femininity as well as the other end, which is like the threat of beauty. And I have like a little anecdote. I had an email from a PR person that asked me to, if I would participate in this Got Milk or Milk Industry list. They didn't really tell me what it was. Or it was just like a PR interview that had to kind of do with milk. But I thought that was hilarious because I do not work with milk at all. Because I can't digest it, I don't work with it. So I said, sure, of course, because to me that's hilarious to be advertising my vegan business through the milk business.

Susie (11:58)

the mustache from the 90s. Yeah, got milk? No, don't.

Lauren (12:19)

And then when I finally found the article, it was like a man, a chef that was trying to become a celebrity chef. He had a donut company that was in here in Montreal that was making a lot of like pretty donuts, like regular maple. So they had this PR kind of article with him asking him to look at different types of cakes and desserts and tell them what he thought of them as this donut celebrity man.

So there was a couple of the ones that stood out where one was the, is it cake trend? Where it was like, you know it. And so he was.

Susie (12:55)

Oh yeah. Yeah, it's where you cut into like a shoe or a suitcase and yeah.

Lauren (13:01)

and it's cake. And this man was like, this is brilliant. Like, look at the artistry, it's so amazing. And then he was asked, they showed him pictures of my cakes and they were like, what do you think about this? And he was like, this is just frosting porn. It's just pretty, there's no substance to it. Like, it's all looks. And I was just like, thank you for this sound clip. I'm gonna use this forever. And it was just like.

Susie (13:23)

That's why I've been so addicted to this frosting porn. It's out of control.

Lauren (13:28)

It's out of control, it's no substance, it's just frills and probably tastes bad. He was just like, it probably tastes terrible. So that was just like, oh, thank you. Like, this is what I've been trying to put into words for a long time, just like, that there's gonna be this thing that like, if you look at my work, that it's gonna be nothing, or like certain feminine things that it's just like, like bimbo culture, like it's a bimbo cake. It's got, you know what I mean? Like, in which I'm like, thank you, that's exactly what I'm going for.

It's not for you, I see that.

Susie (13:59)

Yeah, and it's also kind of a disguise. It's like, yeah, you're right. No, there's nothing here. It's just air.

Lauren (14:02)

Yeah, and it's a disguise. Yeah, there's nothing here for you. It's just air and like, I don't really advertise it. I'm like, of course, like I love to use seasonal ingredients and like I work with local farmers and I'm like trying to use different like non-wheat things and trying to like making sure that I'm sourcing cocoa at least decently. But it's just the assumptions like based on that. And I often see that as like my monstrousness as well as to make this pretty thing and then consume it and crush it. I've had cakes that go bad or I keep old layers of cakes in the fridge or redecorate them. I had a video where I smashed it and that was the most hate I've ever had from smashing, tearing apart this cake, which would have been consumed. And which in the comments I wrote, the frosting has gone bad, the cake has gone bad. It's not, I don't really wanna waste, regardless of how much waste there is at your local grocery store or your local Starbucks at the end of the day when they throw away the muffins, it's not that different. But just like the immediate revulsion that people feel of breaking the beautiful thing, it was very interesting. Whereas it's still going to happen, it's just how you go about it that is controversial.

Susie (15:17)

I'm hearing in this that the monster that these two groups of people see. So one is that it's to be ignored, to be humiliated and isolated. Hello kitten. Meow meow.

Lauren (15:28)

I'm sorry.

Got a lot to say. She's almost 21. She sees other dimensions. She's, I'm sure of it.

Susie (15:37)

She's seen some stuff, yeah. That's right. She's like, I have an opinion. Ha ha ha.

But then this other group is probably following you already. And then I have thoughts about this, that maybe you are the kind of easiest person to clap back against. So it's like, okay, I see you doing this thing that I think is wrong in the broad scope. And so you're the one I'm gonna attack.

Lauren (15:59)

And I think it's just like, I mean, it's also just an immediate reaction where people are like, no, that's wasteful. No, you can't like that when we see it so immediately that's wasteful. But when things are hidden away, it's a lot less Like we can just ignore it a lot more easily But to have it in your face, like this thing can be destroyed just as easily. It's just like a Gut heart reaction in our bodies She's also like don't hurt the pretty thing It's got to be okay. So this careful, like this ignore or extreme carefulness also I think is very interesting. Whereas you're like there's a lot more strength, there's a lot more strength and complexity here again. You don't need to like be so precious.

Susie (16:43)

Yeah, we could all do with a bit of a smash, I think. Like, a bit of a scream, a bit of a howl, and like, get our fluids on display.

Lauren (16:55)

Yeah! It felt amazing to smash that cake, I have to say.

Susie (17:04)

Okay, so this is great lead-in to this question. What is it about the mess that is so exciting to us?

Lauren (17:07)

it's all the doing what you're not supposed to, the taboo of it. I also got to, for a market this December, I got to sit on one of my cakes and that was incredible. I've been waiting to do it. And then I got to make a cake for someone else to sit on at a party and just to see, watch as slowly people were, oh my God, I don't know, this person that sat on the cake said you can eat the cake off of me if you would like to, I can feed some cake from you, please don't touch me here, please don't touch me there. Beautiful consent, beautiful negotiation. And then it was just like to watch people slowly be like, oh, I don't know and come out of their comfort zones and be like, I do wanna smash the cake, I do wanna make the mess, I do wanna eat it and feed you and lick and eat this cake and just to see, they come out of people was so amazing and to see them.

Susie (18:08)

In a practical sense, what do you recommend for the most sittable cake?

Lauren (18:15)

A low sugar depending on what you've got going on. You don't wanna have a yeast infection, that would be terrible. A lower sugar, something that doesn't have a lot of stuff, that's important. Like not an American icing or like a grocery store cake, you'd wanna wear some protection, that's my number one thought. And then a garbage bag under whatever you're sitting on the floor. But I think vanilla, a strawberry, something with funfetti or sprinkles, sprinkles are pretty.

Susie (18:32)

Great.

Is there, you know, back to kind of the cloud substance, is there a density or a height of icing that is most pleasurable?

Lauren (18:47)

I think an extreme amount, more frosting than cake, so it's less dry. And I would assume that whipped cream would feel very nice and also be very moisturizing for your skin. Yeah, I'm like pretending you can feel it on my skin. It's everywhere. Yeah.

Susie (19:02)

I like, you're pretending to moisturize your skin with it. That's everywhere. But then what? So yeah, there's the doing of it, right? causing the mess and now it's everywhere. And then what? Now you're covered in a lot of stuff. So in my own experience, there has been a kind of a helplessness. Like, well, look at me, I'm completely uncivilized.

Lauren (19:20)

And I think it's like, can you get through that stage? Because it's all fun and games when you're messy and throwing around and then you have that sticky moment. So I guess it's like, how do I continue from this? Am I the type of person that needs to hop in the shower when they're all sticky? Or you do what I do and wipe it off and go to the movies? Just be so sticky for three hours.

Susie (20:00)

Just put your pants on over top of whatever it is.

Lauren (20:01)

Just put your pants on.

And see how it is. Yeah, I think yeah, I think it's the lack of control the or like pushing through things also not being right. I also have like diagnosed OCD not specifically into any kind of like mess or contamination but I do have a preference for things being like just right and just so and like an extreme sense of control That's not necessarily everything in order but things being in a certain way. And so I think to challenge myself and to like, I really enjoy mess and really enjoy that because it feels so opposite from what my natural instinct to do is, which is to like form control and like keep things just right or just so.

Susie (20:56)

That's such a beautiful, yeah, just about anxiety, right? And how we need to know what's gonna happen, but in a certain container with a certain intention, there, like the holding is already pre-made. So it is possible to lose control in a particular way.

Lauren (21:01)

Yeah, it's safe and like it's okay. And if it's not like you can wash up, you can be fine. Like it's just, what did I write? Oh, I wrote, it's not supposed to be like wicked to do this, like, you know what I mean? Like it's just feels so opposite to be in this, to be creating and then messing or like, even just like eating with hands, like I always encourage people to eat with their hands or like.

to take a big bite with their hands, just to like give into that for a little bit.

Susie (21:46)

So I don't know if you kind of already, I mean, we have been talking about it around it, but you mentioned before we started recording about creation and destruction. So this is kind of where you're hanging out with it, say. Beautiful. Oh my gosh. Lovely. Don't you have a book coming out or a zine or something? Yeah.

Lauren (22:00)

I'm working, yeah, so I was just talking to you about it because I'm kind of sitting between, do I write a zine about cakes and cake decorating? But I also, I've been going through a lot of health issues and the way, I have a very restricted diet when I'm not having little bites of cake. I have to eat, I can't eat a lot of things. So it's also like this, I want to write a zine about, just like,

finding pleasure in those moments. And like the small like very nourishing ways that you can find pleasure. Because I am pushing sugar and butter all the time. And so I can't sustain myself on that all the time and I don't. So I think just like the two, the pleasure of the cakes, but also like the pleasure of caring for oneself is something that I'd like that I'm working on.

Susie (23:10)

Yeah, thinking and exploring a lot around low desire and around shifting body and shifting needs and how to, yeah, find the erotic self within a kind of less than ideal emotional physical environment.

Lauren (23:15)

For sure. Yeah, and I think for me that it all becomes very romantic poet things. It's all, it's like putting nice oils on my body after I have a shower, anointing myself or having some beautiful fruit or just these very simple small ways, nice spices, just like being a merchant in the 1400s, being like, I'm just covered in beautiful oils. Like I've got fragrant flowers around. It's these small little human pleasure things that I find is what really helps me feel better and like more embodied when I'm in pain or I'm not feeling well.

Susie (24:09)

Yeah, and builds capacity so that when you do want to maybe connect with someone else, you're not starting from like a deficit. You've already got your 1400s skincare.

Lauren (24:11)

Yeah, and that carries pleasurable, not a chore, which it can be sometimes when you're not well. Just to put little small little bits in there to not be like, oh, I have to shower. I don't know if I'm gonna shower, like you spoke about spoons, do I have the energy for this or that today? And making those decisions and trying to insert small pleasure that doesn't take away energy but can add to it.

Susie (24:46)

Medicine. Thank you.

Lauren (24:49)

Mm-hmm.