“Cameras hate brown food.”
I can’t believe my eyes.
I am in awe of food writers who appear on the pages of famous publications, print and otherwise. I come to the table (pun intended), feeling justifiably inferior, inexperienced and under-informed, and in a state of total respect for these people, who have spent years and years cultivating their expertise and who have been justly rewarded with their bylines. They eat, they drink, they traipse across cities, oceans, continents in search of a purity of “their opinion” (not an oxymoron), have sampled the world’s great cuisines and plates of the most accomplished of chefs, and, tried and true, they have been honored as such by the powers who seek out their expertise, insight, palate and impeccable sensibilities. In fact, I dream of being so lucky as to qualify to do such a thing in my next, or next, next life.
Today, though, I got a little confused if not disillusioned……… but, I confess to being in the amateur-reader category, in addition to the other foibles and frailties noted above. And, I wondered aloud to myself how much instantaneous push-back he was going to get from a lot of powers in the world of chef-dom.
This came about after I finished taking 100 or so pictures of one blessed hydrangea blossom and went on blah, blah, blahhing about it on my earlier blog post. Then, I finally got into the shower and sat down to read today’s NYT Dining Section. I felt I couldn’t let this go by without a few comments, being the amateur blogger/photographer/food-obsessed-nut that I am.
Perhaps, I can only wonder, did the point(s) of this column get lost in translation?
Statements in Pete Wells’ column today – and my own reaction:
- referring to “camera cuisine”: “in its purest form, it is both exquisitely photogenic and peculiarly bland and lifeless.” this simply isn’t true – one doesn’t necessarily follow the other – who hasn’t had extraordinarily appealing-looking food that tasted extraordinary
- “it isn’t cooking, it’s plating” – artful plating is an extension of cooking and the creative process, has existed forever; it’s taught to us in culinary school; we’re graded on it
- “But, cameras hate brown food.” – my camera doesn’t hate brown food as shown above; and anyway, what about chocolate? the camera surely does not hate chocolate
- “Many serious chefs would never stoop to trying to get a dish to go viral.” there is a curious connotation to this statement; the use of the word stoop here implies a negative connotation to a chef who wishes for, if not encourages positive “visual” publicity; in this day and age of the fiercest of competition, I think chefs need positive exposure to survive; if media = business, they need media; I see the best New York chefs publishing their own pictures
- “It took years for nouvelle cuisine to book passage across the Atlantic.” – he seems to imply this is positive and it getting here quicker would have been a negative; I don’t see this unless he’s implying that time was well spent in developing nouvelle cuisine before it crossed the ocean; yes we are a “try and dispose of” culture – but not limited to our tastes in food, how we perceive, enjoy and learn from them
- “but many others routinely assemble plates with a visual aesthetic meant to incite the admiration of cooks, critics, and awards judges around the world.” well now, we know from whence this comes, don’t we? just saying….
- “now the picture itself is the story”. well, not if you expect to sell and have your customer return a next time and, use his “word of mouth” that other, if not, snail-mail-equivalent venue for positive press
- Mr. Wells quotes David Sax, “It’s become a visual medium. We’re eating with our eyes first”. I don’t believe this is a new concept – it’s at least as old as I am (0ld).
Further, speaking as a pastry school grad and unabashed photographer myself:
- if his major objection pertains to the restaurant kitchen – and that in this setting and considering the mission of kitchens such as this, it’s not a good idea to hold food expressly for the purposes of taking pictures of it – I’ll agree with that.
- if his point is to say that taking pictures of food in a restaurant incessantly and annoyingly, to others at your or other tables, is a problem, I’ll agree with that
- if his point is that food staging and, as he notes, kitchen design for purposes of promotion can be overdone, well ok, but staging in any visual business can be overdone – just ask any fashion model you know; food is a visual business – I don’t think there’s any denying this
- if his point is that the newly expanded “element” of photographing food right before serving has in cases become an obstacle to serving food at the pinnacle of its “‘perfection”, well, I’ll agree with that; food served late in whatever context is poor for business
- food photography in all of its genrés of media brings with it the risk of not-so-hot photographs, I’ll admit to taking some myself, but what act of art doesn’t have its bad days?
- don’t chefs and creative people have the right to style their plates as they see fit? I think there might just be quite a few very famous chefs who take exception to the tone and intent of this column
- food photography is the ultimate inspirer for every level of cook, chef, artist, eater
- have we not been eating with our eyes “first” forever? the visual appeal and aroma of food are what draw us in and attract; it’s as basic as the procession of the senses themselves;
- trends in food are and have always been fast and fickle – ask any restauranteur, baker
- considering the money being made in cookbook publishing, albeit as most other print media languishes, I’d say food photography has been a good thing for the food business overall – growth and survival are good
- speaking personally, food photographs inspire me daily to try new ideas, food and flavor combinations; they are the driving essence of creativity for me and I work from the premise that one good plate inspires another
- the internet, cellphones, social media has yes, opened up the world to hacks and amateurs, such as myself, and yet, I have used all of this technology to learn and expand my own horizons, and while to some, this may be inappropriate to the point of perhaps embarrassment, I believe that wherever creativity is inspired, it’s all good – for, when you stop learning and growing, you’re dead; and one man’s experiment today could be another man’s dinner tomorrow – that’s just one person’s opinion
- yes, the structure which once governed publicity has been all but dissolved, in some cases for good, in some for bad with some people’s careers and livelihoods being torn and tattered, but this crosses all lines of business and does not pertain just to the food business; furthermore, the use of cameras in restaurants is not a new phenomenon – they have been there to commemorate occasions more traditional than the arrival of the plates to the table, i.e., birthdays, weddings, engagements, proposals, promotions, etc.; nowadays, your precision-composed plate can and is the occasion, and so there is an omnipresent pressure to make it as appealing as possible
- and, finally, adding insult to injury, a new term in born – food porn – the worst connotation of the sweat, blood and genius of those tireless inhabitants of the kitchen
I guess, I just am not sure what Mr. Wells’ intended message was supposed to be. Those points I posed above and said I agreed with are what I perceive he may have been saying – but, I’m not quite sure – I’m deciphering. If his overall point is that the constant media world we live in from dawn to dusk can at times be irritating and interferes with the pleasures of creating and enjoying food, well then, I would have to agree. However, I find there to be little we can do to turn back the clock……….. That train has left the station…….
This column left me wondering if I should go back to taking pictures of my flowers, maybe hang up my apron for a little bit, or more pointedly, ditch the camera so as not to be an irritant? But, knowing what I know in my heart about the power of a good photograph, and it’s power to inspire, and in the case of restauranteurs, to sell, I’m guessing not.
Bottom line, I think the point of this column did indeed get lost in translation. Just perhaps it was a commentary on trends in society in general and not in reference to the world of serious food lovers. IDK. Season change and so do I, I guess.