Interested in a relic as a surviving fragment of something past, Reynolds’ Relics are deteriorated foodie tomes including Emily Post’s Etiquette and Prosper Montagné’s Larousse Gastronomique. Each book is soaked in approximately 8 pounds of liquified Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), the infamous flavor-enhancing ingredient added to many snack foods and processed foodstuffs and used in various kitchens around the world. Generally considered a cheap additive for bland low-quality foods or, worse, a foreign enemy that attacks and gnaws on modern cuisine, the MSG ingests, digests, and regurgitates these canons of middle-class consumer elitism. As the books begin to absorb the MSG, their spines are forced to split, pages start to crimp and spread, and crystallized boils bloom over the surface of the swollen volumes. These lexicons of bourgeois instruction now become dangerously obese consumers: vulnerable bloated bodies wanting more.