The article I read is called “Occupational Aesthetics: How Trade School Students Learn to Cook” written by Gary Alan Fine from his book “The Cultural Study of Work by Douglass A Harper”. In the article, Gary discussed a lots about the difference between expressive work and learning of a craft. He uses cooking as an example which can fit into each category. Gary inferred that when people are learning to cook, they are taught particular aesthetic such as how trench bread receives four slits across the top prior to baking. After than, he explains the importance of visual appearance, tastes and the texture of cooking. He also claims that cooking allows people to enhance their potential of creativity, such as how to improve the visual look and a dish, the taste of flavor and the texture. According to Gary, food is not a form of a traditional art, but it does share many qualities and similarities of an art.

In the article, Gary also describes many detail about how a chefs a trained to make a food. Chefs are usually required to CREATE their dishes appealing to different tasts and lloks. In Gary’s words, it is called “lowest common denominator”, which is saying that a chef must create something that everyone is desired to eat. However, he also argues that “this creativity does not go far enough to consider food a fine art” because “an artist must only create something that will be sold one, but in order to be successful, a chef must create dishes that will be ordered over and over again”.

Somehow I am kind disagree with the opinion that Gary mentioned in his article. I believe that the potential of human creativity does not have limits no matter what type of art you are working with. Traditionally, restaurants are required to update their menu monthly or yearly; in order to achieve that, chefs must create dishes that cutomers may never see it before. This requires a high sense of creativity. However, according to Gray’s opinion, “chefs hardly ever receive praise for inventing a new dish even though the creative processes are the same”.

Source:

Harper, Douglass A., and Fine Gary Allan. The Cultural Study of Work. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003.