Unit 4 – Food Research
For my article, I decided to read “From Palate to Palette: Can Food be Art” by Jacquelyn Strycker who is an artist and creates drawings and paintings for a living. In this article, she begins talking about her enjoyment towards making her meals, yet felt bad because she would spending hours each night preparing her meal when she believes she should be spending her time more efficiently on being in the studio. What’s interesting is that as she continues to cook her meals, she begins to view it more as a creation of some sort. It no longer became about wasting time, yet more importantly how can I incorporate this into my profession. After a while “I came to see that making food—combining textures, flavors, scents and colors – is also creative”. All of these aspects of a meal really define itself as an art form. When discussing drawings are paintings, we look at the shade, the textures, the colors, the mood, etc., which if you think about it is very similar to the aspects of creating a meal. She also says “Proust on the madeleine is art, the madeleine itself is not art”. I really love that line because it shows that you must be creative and understand the complexity behind art to create art. As we go more into the article, the author describes the various forms on how food can be art. She explains different artists creations of food art, yet I see food as art not as a portrait or something to look at, I see food as an art as its flavors, and smell and colors. Its not the image of the food that I believe makes it art, it’s the creation of flavors that is put together to create a whole.
Issues raised in my article as well as the readings from this week bring up the question on whether food is art or not, and how it is seen as art. Food as art can be viewed in so many different ways from the beauty of its colors and shape, to the beauty of the mixture of flavors and textures. People always question if food is seen as art, yet many artists have included cooking into their practices and incorporate it into their work. Although they believe that cooking is an addition to their work, it’s hard to determine whether a meal for hunger is considered creative enough to share and move people. An experiment that was explained in this article was an example from Fallen Fruit Collective where they collaborated with different people to try and create flavored jellies. This was done as a social experiment for who know which flavor of jelly would taste the best. This experiment was done without working with recipes and people came together and combined different flavors to make a new jelly. But is this really art? Because another question is which comes first, does food come before the art or is the art more prevalent then the food.
The issue of what comes first is an important thing to discuss because whether art comes first or food can skew what the final product is really viewed as. When human beings are hungry, we enjoy making a meal and feeding our hunger. Yet, how can we call an act for human survival art if it’s a common act that every single person does. The definition of art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”. This definition came straight from Google, and if you skew it around it does define what food and cooking produces. When a chef goes into cooking a meal, he uses his creative skill and imagination to make something that is going to be delicious for his “viewer”. If the chef were to cook bland or simple meals, then it would not be considered art for his expression of the food didn’t show creativity and imagination. Although I say that art can anything and everything, it really takes a certain skill to produce something beautiful and worth sharing with the world. The importance and reasoning behind art is to move you emotionally or create a feeling that expresses how the painting changes you. Personally, I love food and love the way it changes my perspective on life. As I continue to grow and cook food, I now understand my own interpretation of food as art and I am excited to incorporate it into my cooking.
Strycker Jacquelyn, (2013 January). From Palate to Palette: Can Food be Art? http://createquity.com/2013/01/from-palate-to-palette-can-food-be-art.html