I believe food has the potential to be a work of art. Food is extremely culturally diverse and varies from region to region even in specific cultures. One of the most amazing things about food is the way that it brings people together. Throughout time, hunting, gathering, cooking, and eating has been a ritualistic tradition that unites families. Even in our fast-paced culture, food is still an integral part of our every day lives. Food can take on so many forms and evolves over time. Chefs are artists as they manipulate raw materials to create beautiful, edible pieces of art.

This is not to say though that all food is art. Fast food, a massive industry has become mass produced, flash-fried, and artificial. At this point, can we even call fast food, food? What constitutes “real” food? Is anything that is edible food? Or, is food something that is authentic, crafted by human hands, and has not been chemically altered? These are all valid questions we have to ask ourselves when trying to discover whether we can classify food as art or not.

In Elizabeth Tefler’s essay “Food as Art,” she claims that while we can view food as an art form it is a minor rather than major art. She also argues that cooking could be considered more of a craft than an art since a craft involves carrying out instructions, which in this case would be a recipe. Building off of that idea she states that, “if the work contains a good deal of creativity, it will be thought of as an art, if it contains a modest amount it will be thought of as a craft, but there is no clear distinction” (p.16). While I do agree with Tefler that creativity accounts for the difference between an art and a craft I do think food is still considered an art due to the large amount of skill, creativity, and thought that go into preparing a good meal. However, I still would not consider fast food a piece of art and I think Tefler’s point about creativity reinforces this point as there is nothing unique or creative about a McDonald’s hamburger.

Thinking back to Dissanayake’s speech last week I feel as though these ideas resonate most closely with the era of postmodernism. The postmodernist movement broke free from all of the ideas that art was only for the elite. Dissanayake explains the movement by saying “[postmodernists] challenging the aura of exclusiveness…using hybrid mediums – sculptures made of painted wood…” (p. 6). I think food also attempts to do this. Many up and coming restaurants work to break the mold and produce food that is exciting, creative, and accessible to the modern family. There are also a lot of restaurants who try new methods and techniques to bring originality to classics.