X-Rated Food for Thought Debate’s Emily Wilton looks at #Foodporn - what’s the hype? We’ve all drooled over a video that's popped up on our timeline in between scrolling, whether it’s cookie pizzas or a unique food truck delicacy. If you were to type "food porn" into your Instagram search bar, it would come back with about 271 million posts about cakes, pizzas, monster shakes and more. It was Dr Michael F. Jacobson who first created the expression ‘food porn’ back in the `80s in an attempt to criticise certain foods. But it’s now a cultural term of sorts, used to describe and share tasty images of food across TV, magazines and the internet. Researcher and curator Andrew Weislogel has explored 500 years of paintings depicting food at Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in New York. The results showed high-class meals present in nearly every image, contradicting the actual availability of food that many had access to across these different periods. Food has oftentimes been used to reflect
wealth within society, appealing towards an aesthetic appearance rather than one of taste. This shows that images of food have always been shared around the world, whether it’s historical artwork or modern-day social media. The over-commercialisation of food has only increased this interest, with its bright colours, flashy labels and pristine images. Designer Kunel Gaur, created a project in 2019 on a social media platform to see if reverting well-known products to simplistic, monochromatic designs would affect their influence on consumers. It’s with the classic red Coke can or the bright yellow of a McDonald's sign that we can begin to unconsciously associate the products with certain colours. It is this connection that continues to promote these products that line stores. It’s the ‘bread and butter’ of advertising.
of cooking shows, magazines and food blogs. It shows a whole new level of possibility and endless ways food can be constructed. In the Apicius, a collection of ancient Roman recipes dating back to 1 AD, the line, “We eat first with our eyes” was discovered and it couldn’t be truer. With the constant trend of food images circulating the web, people are always wanting to know what others are eating and where they can find it. Food can be recognised within communities, creating connections around the world as it brings people of all backgrounds together. It creates a foundation where our ‘social status quo’ is formed, crafted by our communication to one another, whether it’s online or in reality. This mass glorification of food is changing how we enjoy and interact with food of all types and it’s raising plenty of food for thought, that's for sure.
Food has grown to become a real source of entertainment, with the introduction
11
