First off, who wouldn’t think food is art? I mean, there exists culinary art which pertains to art that has to do with food. At restaurants, cooks master culinary art so that the presentation is superb and remarkably beautiful. This is just the same as a masterpiece of art at a museum because art should put people in awe. In Elizabeth Telfer’s article, she claims “An aesthetic reaction is a pleasant reaction to something. But it will not do as it stands. An aesthetic reaction need not be a flavourable one” (Telfer 10). The quote reveals that art has some sort of aesthetic reaction to it. Food not only is about flavor, but it is also about the presentation because food would less likely be eaten if the presentation was horrible. Dissanayake has a good point when she states, “a ‘disinterested’ attitude that is separate from one’s own personal interest” (Dissanayake 3). This can be related to food as art. Food is judged by an individual right there, when it’s presented. There should not be a judgement of any kind of art without experiencing its aesthetics. Food uses colors, designs, structures and textures just like art, hence food is art itself from its presentation. I claim that food is art because it is a creation/masterpiece just like an artist working with paint and canvases. Food is very similar because there is a chef who can create “a work of art” (Telfer 18) with edible arrangements, just like an artist. Art is a work of originality and uniqueness; food is considered art because no one can make the same dish more than once, there is always a slight alter. Every dish is an original creation, as is every art piece. As the author states, “all views and listeners approach works of art from their own points of view and their own preconceptions, and so in a sense each sees a different work of art” (Telfer 17). Every viewer of a painting or masterpiece has a different perspective and interpretation of what they see, and this is identical to a food dish at a restaurant.
Hi,alinadang! I really enjoy reading your post and I found you have a lot of novel thoughts about food as art by using the quotes from the two articles. I think we both believe that if art can bring us with aesthetic reaction, it must carry some characteristics that share with an art project. For instances, works of art link to food in many aspects. We call a subject as art according to “ a thing intended to used wholly or largely for aesthetic consideration” (Telfer,14). This is true for most “slow food” but rather than “fast food” we bought from MacDonald. Currently, many cooks try to make their food excellence in color, aroma and taste. In addition, just as you said, “ Food not only is about flavor, but it is also about the presentation because food would less likely be eaten if the presentation was horrible.” However, I do find that the term that Dissanayake refers about her views of art best explain this questions, which is “paleoanthropsychobiological”. That is to say, treating food as art is also a natural human behavior that everyone may acquire. If we can find something special, we can establish one human behavior to make things that “one cares deeply about or activities whose outcome has strong personal significance” (Dissanayake 22). In this way, every aspects of our daily life can be seen in artistic format. Thus, I think food should also be seen as art. Do you think the term “paleoanthropsychobiological” also works for food ?
Hello,
First off, I whole heartedly agree with you that because chefs care so much about presentation of a meal, it would be hard to explain why food is not considered a form of art. Your point about Dissanayake’s term “paleoanthropsychobiological” is very interesting, as I didn’t really consider that for reasoning food as art until now. Personally, I believe that the last chunk of the word applies the most to how food can be classified as art. Food is appealing to us as humans because of what we want to eat when looking at a menu, or deciding what to cook for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. From there, after satisfying our desire for a specific food, our psychiatric state is more likely to be at ease since we got something to go our way. Lastly, the biological portion of the word ties food and art together because without food, we wouldn’t survive. Similar to my belief that self expression is a key too survival, food is necessary to continue life on a daily basis.