Artifact 2- Food

In unit 4 I examined food as an art form by reading Elizabeth Telfer’s “Food As Art” and watching two video presentations about Fast and Slow food. There were two objectives that stood out to me in this assignment, exploring the notion of food as an art form and looking at cultural differences in production and consumption of food. I believe that there are lots of foods out there that should be consider art, but there are more that should not be. What defines food as art for someone is their personal connection with food, if they have one at all.

The two videos really stood out to me because they compared two very different types of food. Fast food is the food that one could get from a chain restaurant on a long road trip. It is processed food that is produced in mass quantities in order to feed the most mouths possible. Slow food is food that takes a lot more time and effort in order to make. Slow food is normally organic food with lots of fresh ingredients and is made for a small group of people. To me slow food is art, and fast food is not. However, this is just my opinion and something that I really learned throughout this unit. After going through and reading my posts, I seemed to be a bit judgmental about how fast food is should not be considered art. I now realize that I believe that art all really comes down to the eye of the beholder, so if someone believes that fast food is art, then that is okay because it is their opinion.

I still personally feel that slow food is the best form of food as art. Slow food takes time and effort to make and I believe this to be an important factor in creating art and a meal. The work put into producing something is the most important aspect of art to me. There are some people on the other hand who believe that the burger and fries they can get at any McDonalds is an art form, because it is the type of food they enjoy eating most. It is interesting to know that people can have such different opinions about the same things. For me, the last thing that I would want to eat would be a burger and fries from a fast food restaurant but for someone else who may have grown up eating this everyday, a burger and fries could be their absolute favorite meal.