Text by Joseph Soller
Illustration by Mette Kaljas
Cherries Jubilee is a dessert sauce, sweet, brandy infused, and often served warm over ice cream–or in the case of the restaurant I worked at this summer, crepes. The word jubilee is used to mark the celebration of special anniversaries. It is a fitting name for a dessert, because dessert is always a celebration. I love desserts. Each day, I fill my palette with the sweet, flaky, and buttery flavors of pastry. I savor the crunch of a streusel topping that protects the hot, gooey interior of a pie. Ice cream is a constant in my life, after a long day, after a late night, but mainly after dinner. Jubilee is a fitting name for a dessert, as dessert marks the celebration of food, and in a larger sense, the celebration of life.
We live in a time in which sweets have become vilified, pointed out as the culprit of weight gain and a testament to a person’s lack of control. Dessert is scoffed at, skipped over by restaurant owners who, more and more, would prefer to serve the same ‘molten-chocolate-lava-cake’ than make an attractive final dish. In grocery stores, sweets are taxed and placed on the periphery. High-protein health options appear alongside real treats, malicious clones set on making life more productive—turning food into fuel, humans into machines.
Dessert is not meant to be optimized. It has no goal other than to bring joy. Dessert is for those who celebrate; those who cherish the little things; those whose everyday includes time for jubilee. It is the meal that reminds us why we are alive, that there is something sweet at the end of it all.
