Food As An Art Analysis

I find an interesting article on the internet which also talks about the hot debate whether the food should be viewed as art or not. The author Susan Smillie begins her article with a brief introduction of a piece of news which involves a wonder chef, Ferran Adria. The chef was invited to Documenta, the five-yearly German art show by the festivals director Roger
Buergel as one of only two Spaniards. Then the debate was raised that whether Ferran Adria should be invited or not and even whether the food could be viewed as a kind of art or not.
The author puts out her own idea that the answer should be positive. She simply explains her personal view on what is art to further illustrate her attitude towards the issue that food should be viewed …show more content…
Susan’s point of view is similar to what we have learnt about in the reading wrote by
Telfer. They reach in agreement that food should be viewed as a kind of art. One clear similarity is that they both pay attention to the reflection of the people who have received the meal. Susan pointed out that if one person is moved by the food, then the food is art. Telfer talks about the aesthetic reaction which food could give rise to.
Another similar point they have both mentioned is the mind or intention of the cooks. Of course, they explained this kind of point in different aspects. According to Telfer, “a thing intended or used wholly or largely for aesthetic consideration” could be viewed as art. (Telfer
19) That is, if the food is primarily made out of aesthetic consideration, then it is art. He then explains the distinction between the artist and craftsman or technician to illustrate that cook is artist because they are creative in making recipes. Those cooks who make meals following the existing recipes are also creative artist because the recipes are vague which need their own interpretation. Susan views this in another aspect. She mentioned a typical and …show more content…
That is “until people go to a restaurant to think about death, cooking won’t be art” (Smillie 2007), which is said by Jones who claimed that food could never be art because chefs cook to please the customers. Susan beats back by saying that many top chefs actually do not have a lot of room for caring about their customer’s opinions. They do care about what customers think about as same as any artistic director or actors and so on care about the theatre critics. However, it seems that few people argued that those directors or actors are not artist at all. Then cooks should not be questioned too. Therefore, this can not be a powerful reason why food could not be viewed as