Jelly Roll

"...no one knows how American food came to be the way it is from the point of view of function, design and production processes. I think the big difference in America as compared to Europe is that the food here is the same wherever you go, even down to the napkins and the salt and pepper shakers on the restaurant tables. The hot dogs, the hamburgers and the hotcakes all look the same. The decoration in Europe, particularly of cakes, seems more delicate. Here they are full of big globs of material such as chocolate or cream. The materials are used as a kind of metaphor of plentitude. Americans always put on much more frosting, etc., than is needed."

Wayne Thiebaud (J. Coplans, Wayne Thiebaud, Pasadena Art Museum, 1968, p. 23-24)