Kathryn Lewis takes a look at how our plates are becoming frames for our foodie conquests
There was a time when food solely served a nutritional purpose; food equalled calories, calories equalled energy and that was it. Yet now, in our land of plenty, food can be indulgent, food can be fashionable and now it appears in many ways that food can be art.
Just take a look at Instagram. The photo sharing platform is saturated with pictures of food. From images of restaurant dishes to our own kitchen conquests, we’re sharing what we eat with the social world and we’re doing so in an ever more artistic manner. It’s not simply a question of selecting the correct filter; it’s the perfect angle, light and placement of the items, everything is considered in order to produce the most attractive framing of the meal. Cutlery, plates and table settings also come into the equation. With table-ware styles coming in and out of fashion as quickly as clothes these days, what it’s being served on and around appears to be as important as the food itself.
Our obsession with documenting our food indulgences on social media in ever more imaginative ways is no doubt inspired by the expanding food photography industry. Pick up any cookbook nowadays and the first thing you’ll be drawn to are the large, colourful pictures accompanying the recipes. The same holds true for food and drink magazines, consumed with more and more pictures and fewer words. Take something like Bon Appetite Magazine for instance; at first glance you could be flicking through a photography magazine but dotted between the pictures are recipes and articles. However, with strikingly beautiful images, these pictures definitely have place, even if we just want to pick up the magazines to dribble over them.
But, how is our new found perspective of food as an artistic form actually affecting our eating habits? Yes, we may all be eating our meals a little cooler due to the time taken to picture it in the perfect light, but that’s our own fault. What we should really be questioning is whether our dining out experiences are changing. Omitting the days gone by when mum cut sandwiches into exciting shapes, the creative presentation of food really started in fine dining restaurants. With a pea foam here, a bed of rockets there and a de-constructed apple pie to follow; although these fancy terms may seem alluring, when presentation is key it can often mean style over substance. Do we really want or need all these extras on our plates? Garnishing our meat with micro herbs and decorating our cakes with flowers may look great, but sometimes these little additions can leave a sour taste, especially when selected purely for aesthetics.
There are still a great deal of venues in Cardiff which excel in presentation and still come up trumps when the quality is considered. With The Potted Pig, The Clink and Bully’s Restaurant to name a few. Therefore, food as art shouldn’t be viewed as a negative concept. Okay, some may say it’s pretentious, a meal will taste the same in whatever form it reaches the table but why not make food beautiful if it’s not going to be at the taste’s expense? We really do eat with our eyes, and the more attractive a meal looks, the more appealing it will be to eat. Living in such an image obsessed world, it was only a matter of time before it caught up with the basic necessities. However, unlike our bodies, food doesn’t have feelings, so why not give it a bit of a nip here and a tuck there to make it pretty?
