ARCHIVE: October 2009

FOOD AND DESIGN from the book Food. Design and Culture

October 27, 2009, 6:15 p.m.

While it may be overstating the case to say that cooks are designers of food, there are distinct parallels between cooking and design. As Stephen Bayley points out in his book “Taste” (1991): ‘Because cooking involves the conception into a pleasing whole... this makes it similar to design’. And just as the products we design are more than tools created in response to certain physical needs, so food is required to do so much more than simply fill our bellies. In the same way that we design products for comfort, aesthetic pleasure and emotional fulfilment, so we apply design to food not just in response to our physical hunger, but also to feed our senses. (page 23)

The increasingly rapid pace of technological and scientific change in the late twentieth century means that, as we approach the next millennium, there are even more opportunities for the path of design and food to cross. Special foods need to be developed for our modern times – foods for space travel, low-calorie food and meal-replacement liquid diets, high-performance foods for athletes, McDonald’s burgers that are uniform in all the 79 countries in which they are sold, intravenous drips. (page 24)
In a world in which we are often defined by our tastes as by our professions, the food we choose to eat, the way we decorate our kitchens and dining rooms, and the restaurants we choose to eat at all speak volumes about how we see ourselves. Indeed, it is no coincidence that today’s interest in food goes hand-in-hand with an increased awareness in style and design... Food in increasingly being used as an expression of self. (page 26)

Indeed, here is another parallel between food and design. Just as design, when considered superficially, can be too easily dismissed as mere style over content, the same can be said of food. A true appreciation of design encompasses an understanding of its history, its ability to change the look of our world and how we interact with it, of technological progress and creative achievement, of our understanding of ourselves and our environment. Food represents who we are, our culture and society; it feeds our senses and our emotions; it binds us together and gives us an understanding of our place in the world and of our relationship to other people. (page 33)

Catterall, C. (Ed.). (1999). Food. Design and culture. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Why Some Chefs Are More Designers Than Artists

October 23, 2009, 9:28 p.m.

Very often chefs are called Artists. Never chefs are referred to as designers. Following is the explanation of design and art’s meaning to demonstrate why some chefs, those interested in food research and in expanding the boundaries of cooking, are designers and not artists.

Design is utilitarian in a way that art is not. Design is the how of a thing: how to order the parts, how to serve the client's interests, how to convey the information. Art, on the other hand, is its own end. It isn't utilitarian. It subordinates ordinary usefulness to its own purposes. Food has to respond to client’s interests, it has to convey information or experiences as precisely as possible to evoke the same emotions on customers, and it is utilitarian. It’s function is to evoke a certain memory, a particular emotion or stimulate a particular sense. The chef decides the aim of the eating experience, and designs food that accomplish that function.

The artist usually has an end in mind, something as mundane as a portrait or landscape, but at the outset, all the options are available without precondition. Artists generally have assumed that the work is a product of their mind and spirit first, and only secondarily serves the intent of the customer. The designer typically begins with more than a plate or an ingredient from which anything may emerge. Many of the components may already exist, such as the main aim for the outcome, specific tools, techniques, and even the basic ingredients. The designer's role is to envision how these various aspects should come together in a tangible thing and to bring aesthetic sensibility, taste, and technical skills to bear on the production of food.

Art strives to achieve beauty, which is truth, which is a noble thing more enduring that life itself. In this century art has emphasized moral purpose and visionary truthfulness. Art is judged in terms of beauty and truth, of insight and revelation. Utility doesn't fit this mindset. Practical success is not the hallmark of art. Design is judged another way: "Beauty is as beauty does." Does the design serve the product? Does it accomplish an end? Ultimately, a design must fulfill its primary aim of amazing or persuading or entertaining, and no amount of craftsmanship display will substitute for its failure to do so. If food fails to satisfy the customer, in terms of sensory engagement and eating experience, the design fails.

It is also said that art sends a different message to everyone, and design sends the same message to everyone. When the aim is to send a different message to everyone, when different reactions are exactly what the chef wants, is it art or design? If chefs design food to accomplish a specific purpose, he is behaving as a designer, even if the purpose is to evoke different reactions? A chef’s creation always has a purpose, that’s what makes him a designer.

Some definitions say that designers mostly follow instructions and artists always create something unique. Does a designer never create a completely unique product? Is creativity a peculiarity of artists only? Isn’t creativity the most important tool to create anything unique? Designers and artists both follow their instinct, both have and use emotions and souls, both have talent and skills, both interpret and understand, both inspire and motivate. Artists create for the sake of creating, designers create to give people new experiences