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I disagree. I believe this actually puts food farther away from the common man, more esoteric than it really has to. Food is fundamentally different from the ar
by jckt 13y ago
I disagree. I believe this actually puts food farther away from the common man, more esoteric than it really has to. Food is fundamentally different from the arts you mentioned. Some people may facetiously say that they can't live without visual arts, or music. To say you cannot live without food -- that is a true statement. Programming, painting, writing -- we only started doing these things relatively recently in terms of our full history, and were some near-extinction event to happen in the future (distant, but an absolute certainty), it is possible we may stop doing them in the future. But we will always be eating and drinking.
I can tell you that food can indeed be "recorded, transmitted, and reproduced" -- we do it by doing the cooking ourselves, learning from recipes and our imagination. Why should food be so hard? That it's considered an extraordinary feat to cook a wonderful dinner? Why should it be on par with painting a painting or writing a book? I assure you that if you ask any honest cook or chef, they will tell you that cooking isn't difficult. Their job is fucking hard, but the cooking itself? As simple as arts can go.
The upper limit of cooking has, admittedly, increased. This is a recent phenomenon. In the future, this may become easier as certain technologies become democratised, and the avant-garde again becomes the status quo. We saw this with Escoffier, Bocuse. We will see it again with Adria. A competent home cook will not miss out on the food of any great restaurant (bar the cutting edge, maybe?) as long as he/she is willing to learn a few tricks (with the restaurant book craze, there are no more secrets) and pay a bit more for groceries (thanks, globalisation).
I hope I don't sound too hostile. I didn't downvote you either (hah, don't even have the choice to). I just think that you're looking at food from too academic a viewpoint -- too high up. That's not to say that food cannot reach greater heights. But not in the way you predict or wish it to.
Of course, I do hope you visit more great restaurants. Having worked in the back of house of said restaurants, I do want your business! The experience of a restaurant transcends its food, and the unique whole package is of course, not replicable anywhere but in that restaurant. Would there be "restaurant media"? I don't know -- restaurant documentaries don't cut it, maybe the VR headsets we were promised a decade ago would be the solution?
Somehow I think that actually going to the restaurant is, in the end, the only way to do it.
(Whether or not the concept of restaurant will survive into the far future is another debate)
- mark371 13y ago> Food is fundamentally different from the arts you mentioned. Some people may facetiously say that they can't live without visual arts, or music. To say you cannot live without food -- that is a true statement. I fail to see the difference. Nutrition is a solved problem. Just drink soylent. So we are left to talk about the art side of food - taste, smell, feel, touch, look. Artistic composition of ingredients to create a pleasurable meal. > A competent home cook will not miss out on the food of any great restaurant (bar the cutting edge, maybe?) as long as he/she is willing to learn a few tricks (with the restaurant book craze, there are no more secrets) and pay a bit more for groceries (thanks, globalisation). But it's hard to reproduce food from recipe. We need: - better frozen/packaged foods - detailed recipes - food 3d printers?
- jckt 13y ago> I fail to see the difference The difference is that food, by and large, is not even an art. And I'm saying that as someone who cooks professionally and looks up to the greatest chefs of all time. If you are not developing new dishes or pushing the edge of your cuisine, what you're doing is not really an art. People have to stop perpetuating the myth that food is this black box that just happens. It only serves to make some chefs richer and dumbs down the rest of us. > Nutrition is a solved problem. Just drink soylent. You're trolling right? Nutrition is not a solved problem. That's like saying medicine or human biology is a solved problem. We still don't know a lot of things -- what we need, what we want, what we should avoid. And I'm sorry to break it to you but Soylent is not a solution. Might be in the future, but drink it full-time in its current state? Not exactly nutritious. > But it's hard to reproduce food from recipe. I realise that not everyone is a good cook. But to be honest, practice goes a long way. You might think those few hours of your time are wasted, but I really think otherwise. We spend orders of magnitude more time reading, IMing, working. Spend one whole weekend cooking. I guarantee you'll be a much better cook. And it's a skill that will last you forever. It's also tasty. > - better frozen/packaged foods What's wrong with fresh food? (Not living in the USA, but fresh food is plentiful where I live). Even then, what's wrong with your frozen chicken breast? Cook it well, and it will beat out the offerings of most average restaurants. > - detailed recipes How detailed do you want them? I can recommend a few books if you want. Youtube helps too. > - food 3d printers! I actually don't know why you want this. Like, are you trying to replicate restaurant food with them? No restaurant I've heard of uses them. PS: Throwaway account? You seem to be familiar with how to post on HN, yet your account was created only 10 minutes ago