The Universe in Aspic
Kris Kneen
Oh the things they did with gelatine horses hooves and meat stock consommé eggs in aspic the bright green peas and perfectly even chopped carrot the operatic curls of prawns beheaded lubbed into jelly-moulds and curling scrolls 1905 Henri Pontcare picked at his meal dipping his beef in chaud-froid meat jelly with cream setting gravitational waves in the aspic of the universe pushing his fork against the cloudy thickening of sauce wobbling the jelly listening but not quite hearing the universal woop 1915 Einstein ate the flesh of beasts with guilt heavy in his gut agar-agar a thin substitute for animal collagen algae or Irish moss or tapioca might at a pinch (always the lateral thinker) hold the universe together providing a thick invisible medium for waves of gravity to tremble through perhaps these vegetarian options could explain the relatively weak force of gravity extra dimensions hidden in the vegan version sucking the force of it from the hearty meal of eternity Vegetable gum might just unite quantum and gravity strung together on string bean theory a vegan universe hidden amongst the pork jelly Moldovian Piftie kholodets galareta as they say in Poland the country where (incidentally) On the Physical Significance of the Riemann Tensor was published 1956 a golden age for gelatine in the cocktail party scheme of things and Felix A E Pirani describing the shimmy of a particle slow-slow-quick-quick six-count swing shrimp cocktail aspic stretch and squish (technical terms) as the universe breathes in more dimensions than our lungs might understand 2016 two peas in cold hot sauce collide lightless holes which can’t be measured except by what is absent the universal jelly wobbles out across one point three billion years of culinary atrocities think on it just think on it a table spread with jelly globes and wobbling loaves all the colours of the universe I place a globule of gelatinous savoury meat sauce on my tongue and glance up to the aspic of the universe my vast immensity of gut swallows digests ruminates on what my brain can never know.