Is Food Art?
Food is natural. Food is a necessity. Food is something we use every day. So does that mean that it can’t be a form of art? By no means. By Webster’s Dictionary art is “something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.” I don’t know if you have ever spent the time to make a beautifully crafted meal, but food can embody every bit of that definition.
I grew up with a mother who has a Masters in food and textiles, and she spent a large part of her life as a home economics teacher. So growing up I learned to cook and bake and one thing I learned is that it indeed is an art form. The majority of creating a recipe is based off of feeling and the style of combining ingredients. You know what end result that you want, but a cook will have to use different styles of stirring or heating the food to make it end just the way the cook wants. I would really compare this to a painting or sculpture. An artist may know that he wants to paint a landscape or a persons face, but they may have to mix the paint several times to find just the right color for the sky or eye color. This is the same as a cook mixing salt into a soup until it is just right.
Some people complain that someone can make a lot of food by just following a few steps and “presto” there it is. This is true, but it completely ignores the creator of the recipe. Elizabeth Telfer agrees with this notion in her article “Food As Art” when she exclaims, “I have argued that we can compare the creator of a recipe to a composer, and the cool who follows one to a performer.” (p.2) If this is not enough to convince someone that food is an art form, just look at this masterpiece.
Tefler, E. (2002). Food as Art. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 2). New York, NY: Routledge.
3 comments so far
6:42 pm - 1-31-2014
By reading your article, even sometimes we can follow the instructions of making dishes. It still can be called as the art. As you said that they ignore the creator of the recipe, the recipe cannot be ignored, because some of them are created for a long time which can be called like a history. Even sometimes, the procedure is the same, but they do have different flavor or secrete in making their food special. It is the reason why some people always recommend restaurants to their friends even there are lots of restaurants are doing the same dishes. They are making their food or life special. It could be a form of art which makes people to feel happiness when they are taking their food. Moreover, I do believe the food is kind of art because, eating habits are formed by different food and it may have great influence on the characteristics of different people around the world.
9:31 pm - 1-31-2014
Jegbert,
I think you mentioned a valid point when you quoted Telfer, who suggests that those who create recipes and cook are similar to composers, and those who follow those recipes are more like performers. I tend to agree with this because I feel like chefs and people who are very creative in their cooking habits tend to specialize, experiment, and master the “art of cooking”, whereas many other people make use of those recipes or use them as inspiration to create something of their own. I think this is very relevant to the idea is food art. This is particularly interesting to me because I think that many people dismiss food as art because they are not used to thinking of food in that context. But when we seem to dig a little deeper at the real meaning of art, or the real qualifications for something to be considered art, I feel like food and cooking can both be considered very creative forms of art. My question to you since you have personal experiences and connections to cooking and preparing food is: do you think that food is comparable to other forms of art? Telfer mentions “works of art in food, whether creative or interpretive, cannot gain the same stature of those of greater permanence,” (p. 25). So do you think that the short-lived presence of food can take away from its value as “art”?
Thanks,
Anna
8:41 pm - 2-1-2014
I enjoyed reading your response on this topic. I began to explore cooking on my own when I got to college and found myself taking lots of time on the presentation before offering the food to my friends. I think that my desire to pay attention to the way that my food appears comes from the influence of Masterchef and IronChef, both shows that I follow on television. I believe that for those of us who are unable to paint and draw but are able to cook, are able to express their feelings and creativity through the food that they cook. Just like painting, cooking also takes a good amount of time, preparation, and thought. I believe that your example contrasting the addition of salt and mixing paint colors to be a very good way of illustrating their similarities. In Tefler’s essay she discusses how, “a particular cook’s version of a recipe is an interpretive work of art” (Tefler 16). So in your response you talk about a chef’s ability to create art through the food that he puts together, but what about food that is available naturally such as a pear on a tree, or a pineapple on a tree? Do these count as “art” as well?