Food aesthetics- Say cheese!

 

Food aesthetics- Say cheese!

Exotic food, glamourized food, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich- we see all kinds of food everywhere and anytime. It is in our public spaces, our private spaces, on the internet. Heck you probably saw a picture of food when you opened your Instagram app today. And while we engage with food differently, and attach different meanings to food, one thing is universal: food speaks to an internal part of all human beings.

We place so much attention on food, so much that it is almost as if we are obsessed with it. Of course, it deserves all the attention it gets. It is, after all, essential for human survival. But the irony is that we don’t treat it as such. We are more concerned with the aesthetics of food, rather than how satisfying it is. I’m pretty sure almost everyone reading this blog post has, at some point, sacrificed a hot plate and endured cold food just to get the perfect photo for an Instagram story.

Don’t get me wrong. As a 22-year-old (privileged) female, I, too, am guilty of this. Now, I might argue that I have been influenced to post my food and keep up with the trends (this is not an attack on influencers), but I have for sure placed my pizza slice in perfect proximity to my wine glass, to show my followers how aesthetically pleasing my dinner is.

The question I am left with is: why do we do this? Why do we expect anything more from food than for it to simply satisfy our hunger? Why do we objectify food and treat it as a commodity when it should be treated as a common resource?

Our obsession with objectifying food is exacerbated to the point where we have even coined the term “foodie”. A foodie is a person who has an avid interest in food, and who, in my opinion promotes overindulgence in food and further places unrealistic pressure on food to be aesthetically pleasing. Again, I am not judging anyone. There are many sides to this story. In the Japanese culture, a lot of thought goes into the presentation of food to the extent that people’s value is determined by how well they present their food.

The presentation of food goes hand in hand with the photography of food. But there is just something about it – specifically, posting photos of food on social media – that doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t exactly know if it is guilt or if it is my subconscious that makes me feel like sharing photos of my food is an invasion of privacy and “lets people in” too much. Someone else might disagree. My psychologist friends would jump in here and say I have attachment issues, but that’s not the point of this blog post.

I just find it strange how we can objectify food, while there are millions of people who do not have access to nutritious food. Statistics shows that in 2017 6.8 million South Africans experienced hunger. But this is not a strange phenomenon to us. We see this as we stop at the traffic light on our way home from brunch. Don’t get me wrong…I am not implying that we shouldn’t indulge in delicious food. Nor am I trying to make you feel guilty for being in a privileged position. I am simply sharing my thoughts on food objectification while my perfect, already-photographed latte gets cold.