“Soul Food-why cooking isn’t art” which was published in The American Scholar was written by William Deresiewicz. The author states the point, “But food, I concluded, is not art, is not narrative or representational, does not express ideas or organize emotions, cannot do what art does and must not be confused with it”. This statement is really directly point out the attitude of the author, which is the food is too extensive and non-organized to be art. However, the author changes his claim to food is art in the body paragraph. Deresiewicz gives an example about curry to interpret his idea, that is, curry can be cooked with other food and can have more flavors that cook curry itself. Then, he back to his original opinion, he says “If food were really a narrative medium, then all food would be narrative, just as the clumsiest and most simplistic story is. If food were really a narrative medium, it would also be able to speak about anything, to whatever degree of detail and specificity you want—not just, as with the curry, itself”. He believes that food is not narrow and specific enough to show the emotion. At the end, he claims that “if art is everything, then it is nothing”. It obviously present author’s idea about food is not art.

 

Deresiwicz ‘s opinion is quite different from Elizabeth Telfer’s opinion. Telfer’s artivle “Food as Art” shows that the food is art, and people have aesthetic reactions to many natural things, like man-made, beautiful landscape. That is to say, man-made food might be attractive to people with a lot of emotion. She clarifies some specific points, for example, she believe “as with the other examples of aesthetic reaction, we can distinguish liking the taste and smell of food from approving of it instrumentally on the grounds that it is nourishing, fashionable or produced by politically respectable regimes”, she seems enjoys food by different taste and flavors, actually like Deresiewicz, Deresiewicz do admit that the curry might be better if it cooked with other things. Therefore, I would like to say that food somehow is art, if you consider the difference between tastes, flavors, different styles of cooking, and different appreciation.

 

However, based on two author’s points of view, there are still many differences. The argument of food is art is becoming more obvious. As for Telfer, she says “Both an original recipe and an actual dish (a particular performance of a recipe, as it were) are works of art if they are regarded aesthetically” (Page 17). This statement brings me back to the previous one, that is people have aesthetic reaction to great food, including specific and beautiful appliances (plates, spoons, bowls, etc). Although Deresiwicz does agree that food somehow can be art, he do not think that food is art as a whole. He mentioned that “It is spiritual, said another correspondent—a problematic term, but one that points in the right direction. Art addresses the soul”. Basically, he argues that food is not emotional, it does not have soul and it is not sensitive enough. Moreover, he admits that food has something related to culture. I just want to say, as a Chinese, I tasted a lot of food from different area in China. They all taste differently due to different development in the history and movement in different area. Actually, many different type of food in the world are combined by two or more other kind of food. It seems interesting that there are hundreds of thousands of food type in the world that cannot be counted.

 

In my point of view, I do not think Telfer and Deresiwicz are in opposite view totally; however, I would like to say that they may think of each other’s article and even appreciate each other. They consider “Is food art?” in different perspective. Telfer focus more on the food themselves, like dishes, tastes, flavors, etc. But what Deresiwicz consider is about the internal meaning or inherent meaning of he food, like culture, soul, emotion, intelligence, etc. I think Deresiwicz may start to think about the external meaning of the food, he may start to think about the craft of food, also, he may start to think the aesthetic reaction from people. Those points of view are totally new to Deresiwicz and I think it may help a lot to expand the imagination and analysis of the food. As for Telfer, she can develop her idea by paying attention to think more internal of the food in order to make her argument more persuasive and convinced.

 

Deresiewicz, W (2012). Soul Food-Why cooking isn’t art, The American Scholar. Retrieved from http://theamericanscholar.org/soul-food/#.U94Ef_ldWX0

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.