Twin Peaks, Americana Dinerama and Damn Fine Cherry Pie
A tasty rewatch as David Lynch departs for the Red Room in the sky
What to watch on TV tonight: Twin Peaks (Paramount Plus)
Last week, the creative visionary David Lynch departed this earthly realm; leaving behind a catalogue of surrealist artistic works that cement him as one of the greatest directors of our time. And with the glut of extremely mid-TV on over the past week or so (except my beloved The Traitors: what a cliffhanger for the penultimate episode last night! RIP David, you would have loved s3 xx), now’s a very fitting time to re-immerse yourself in his greatest hits.
Watching any of his films or TV shows is always a brilliant, mind-twisting experience. What is reality? What is a dream? What is a subconscious desire? And what does it all mean? There are no right or wrong answers, and Lynch would certainly never be drawn on explaining it to us, telling The Guardian in 2018: “I don't ever explain it. Because it's not a word thing. It would reduce it, make it smaller.”
My own first introduction to Lynch was Blue Velvet, screened late-night by a uni classmate in our halls – accompanied with huffs from a giant bong, which certainly added another dimension to proceedings – and what a gateway drug that was to the wild, wild west of the director’s mind. Of all his films, Mulholland Drive (2001) is probably my favourite – even now, I can easily get pulled into internet wormholes discussing mad theories – but equally incredible is his psychedelic trip of a TV series, Twin Peaks, from 1990.
At the time, there had been nothing like that on television, and to this day, there still has been nothing like it. Twin Peaks – co-created by Lynch and Mike Frost – begins as a crime story, as FBI special agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) attempts to find out who killed teenager Laura Palmer in the small town of Twin Peaks. Incrementally, everything becomes more and more warped.
Spiking traditional detective drama with flashes of the grotesque and bizarre makes for a deeply unsettling watch. The setting appears to be naturalistic – life in small-town America is so well observed – but the stilted, almost melodramatic acting means we never forget we’re watching a TV show. There are anguishingly slow and long close-ups on bloodcurdling howls and cries – Lynch zooms in, whereas other directors would zoom out – and the eerie music that seems to sink under your skin is just as impactful 35 years on, thanks to the maestro Angelo Badalamenti. Just listen to the theme tune or the foreboding dronal hum of Laura’s theme and tell me you don’t instantly shudder.
Lynch was so unparalleled in his cinematic visions, that he received an honour that few artists do: his name became an adjective. David Foster Wallace puts it best, describing the term Lynchian as: “A particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former’s perpetual containment within the latter.” This idea of the surreal in the everyday, where dreams and nightmares clash with everyday banality is no better depicted than in Twin Peaks – which is currently streaming on Paramount Plus (subscription, but you can watch for free with their 7-day trial) – and specifically Agent Cooper and his food. So let’s dig in!
What do they eat and drink on Twin Peaks?
Twin Peaks is absolutely stuffed to the gills with references to food, and it’s all rich with symbolism.
Take Agent Cooper, a man obsessed with forensically cataloguing everything that passes his lips to his long-suffering assistant, Diane. In his opening scene he talks about having a “tuna sandwich, wholewheat”, and we soon learn of his love for pies and coffee, which he likes “black as midnight on a moonless night”. He actually only says the word “pie” six times during season one, though it feels a lot more, check out this supercut of every time somebody says “coffee” or “pie” in the series.
Then, there’s his neuro-spicy hyper-specific breakfast requests, like “two eggs, over-hard; bacon super-crispy, burnt, almost cremated”, or a “short stack of griddle cakes, melted butter, maple syrup – lightly heated – and a slice of ham”, leading him to comment: “Nothing beats the taste sensation of when maple syrup collides with ham”. All this documenting what he eats points to a man desperate for control and order in a chaotic world; and of seeking small, socially-accepted moments of pleasure in a job that has him searching murder victims’ brutalised bodies on the reg. It also gives him a safe subject to make small talk about.
Looking forward to his next meal of the day perhaps is his way of compartmentalising the horrors of what he’s seen – after all, haven’t we all got through a particularly bad day at work by going online and looking at the restaurant’s menu that we’re eating at that night? But above all, there’s one thing that Cooper is crazy for, and that’s pie. In particular, the cherry pie at The Lamplighter Inn and the Double R Diner.
The centering of a pie is clever as it’s steeped in the American psyche; as Foster Wallace put it, the “mundane”; the traditional banality of the dish; the everyday US comfort food that pops up time and time again - served up as is customary in the local diner, all across the country - as the story gets darker and weirder. While it’s stitched into Americana lore “as American as apple pie…” the saying goes for a true patriot, for this story the apple gets switched up to cherry. Why cherry? Well, firstly it’s the colour of blood; this being a murder story that constantly verges on horror. But more importantly, it ties in with Lynch’s own obsession with the colour red, which permeates almost every scene in the series; from red lipstick, red neon signs and red stripes on the high school girls’ bathroom walls to the red filter washing over the film and, of course, the Red Room, where all manner of fucked-up shit happens.
Red signifies death, danger, anger and passion, but is also womb-like, taking us back to the place where all life began. When a slice of cherry pie is handed out to a customer, we see the knife-slash of the pie with all its innards spilling out; bursting cherries that could also signify a loss of innocence of young girls (‘popping their cherry’; a particularly nasty phrase that takes on even darker connotations, given the further revelations of the series). It’s a shock of colour that reminds us although the people of Twin Peaks are going about their regular daily business, there’s a darkness and depravity running through it all.
Outside of pies, we have Lucy’s doughnut buffet that she lovingly prepares nightly for the cops of the town (wait, is that inspiration for Pinterest doughnut walls at weddings?). Again, this plays on the American stereotype of doughnut-stuffing inept local policemen; with the snack taking an icon-like format, as Lucy piles them up on top of each other like a totem pole. Then there’s the brie and butter baguettes that brothers Ben and Jerry (no, not those ones) bite into grotesquely, almost orgiastically – from the middle of the baguette too, for full feral effect. There are carnal, explicit overtones to this; especially when Ben says: “this reminds us of Ginny and Jenny down by the river”, darkly suggesting that they too were subject to a similar assault by them.
While Cooper’s reaction to eating and food seems wholesome and sweet, if not a little anal; watching the Horne brothers attacking their food feels more savage and disturbing. Through the food and how they consume it, the characters’ true natures are revealed.
What to eat and drink while watching Twin Peaks?
The inspiration for the Double D diner was actually Twedes Cafe, just outside of Seattle, and you can actually visit and eat a slice of the iconic cherry pie, should you so wish (they also do a pie-delivery service, but sadly is not international).
But it’s not actually that hard to knock up your own damn fine cherry pie!
Cherry pie
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
Ready-to-roll packet of sweet shortcrust pastry (or homemade, you do you, but I have not got time for that)
About 800g of frozen cherries
100g caster sugar
100 mls cherry juice
3 tablespoons of cornflour (mixed into a thick paste with 3 tablespoons of water)
2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and the zest of half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
Pinch of salt
Method
Mix all the ingredients (apart from the pastry) in a bowl together.
Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and cook on a low hob for 4 or 5 minutes, or until the mixture is heated through and thickened.
Set aside and allow to cool thoroughly (important!).
Line the bottom of a pastry case with the rolled out pastry, making sure to leave enough for the lid as well.
Top the pastry case with the cooled cherry mixture, and press down edges.
No fancy-pants latticing here, so just add a full-on rustic pastry lid, making sure to prick the top several times with a fork for air holes, and brush on an egg wash, if you like.
Cook at 190 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Serve with cream or ice cream.
As for a drink: damn fine pie needs damn fine coffee, especially with it being a another staple of the Americana diner. Fun fact: Lynch was a massive coffee drinker and even had his own [now defunct] line of organic beans called David Lynch Signature Cup, with the tagline “It’s all in the beans…and I’m just full of beans”, as uttered by Devon Berk (Justin Theroux) in Inland Empire (see the Lynch-directed advert for his coffee here).
Anyway, if you’re binging Twin Peaks late into the night – and if you ever want to sleep again as a result – best stick to decaf; an Americano, of course. Or should that be Americana?
Cheers!