I took this photograph with my cell phone a couple of months ago, at a local Staten Island diner. It is not an unusual scene in a diner. The monster cookies. I was enamored of their inflated forms piled high on a metal pedestal. Who eats these cookies? Does anyone? Does anyone eat the lemon meringue pies with the fake egg white swirl that’s higher than Elvis’ hair? I’ve never seen a person eat a slice from one of those pies. Do the same cookies and pies stay in their respective spots, uneaten, forever? Are they immortal props that complete the “authentic” diner experience? Maybe they were bought 25 years ago when the diner first opened and have stuck around ever since — dusted occasionally — along with the framed first fiver over the cashier’s counter.

What would American diners have in their refrigerated cases, if not the inflated meringue pie? Well, how about a real pie, like the lemon meringue pie my stepmother made years ago? Her’s was a pie that had to be eaten sooner rather than later, since it didn’t have chemical preservatives in it. After a day, little beads of egg white would “sweat out” of the meringue. The meringue would contract and slip loose of its hold on the lemon curd, as the ingredients naturally began to separate. The real deal is delicate, fragile and short-lived. I guess American diners don’t display food for actual consumption.

The next time you go to a diner for a plate of eggs and bacon, take a look around. You’ll see a fun house mirror version of nourishment: “food” that is higher, bigger, and wider than real food; “food” that is brighter and shinier than any real food; “food” that lasts longer than the paint on my car. Diner displays are steroidal fantasies of “somethin’ lovin’ from the oven” (oops! poke the little dough boy!) enshrined in a diamond-deco setting that ricochets refracted images of fake food into infinity. It’s the art of desire taken to pornographic extremes, promises of satisfaction that match our wildest fantasies while delivering nothing but the check, please.

But the cookies do look great in my photograph, don’t they? To see more, visit my Flickr page >

Cell phone photo of cookies by Robin Locke Monda, 2008