Food Words Worth Savoring

As we head into holiday feasting,  a few choice food words from the Miriam Webster Dictionary from their top ten list of food words worth savoring: 

Ambrosial
extremely pleasing to the senses, especially of taste or smell 
comes from the Greek word for "immortality", ambrosia was the food of the Greek and Roman gods (nectar was their drink)

Gustatory
related to or associated with eating or the sense of taste
It's a late 17th century creation coined from gustare meaning taste. In the 20th century its no stranger to cooking magazines where it is paired with words like pleasure and delight.
Distantly related to gusto, more closely related to disgust.

Piquant
agreeably stimulating to the palate, especially: spicy
engagingly provocative; also: having a lively arch charm

Postprandial
occurring after a meal
Although the Latin prandium actually means "late breakfast," postprandial now refers to activities after a meal, especially those that aid digestion.


Borborygmus
intenstinal rumbling caused by moving gas
It is an onomatopoeic or imitative—it sounds like what it describes. 

About the Word:

Ambrosia comes from the Greek word for "immortality"; ambrosia was the food of the Greek and Roman gods (nectar was their drink).

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-food-words-worth-savoring/ambrosial.html#mRCDf7cr7JsAFqLT.99

1 : agreeably stimulating to the palate; especially: spicy

2 : engagingly provocative; also : having a lively arch charm
Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-food-words-worth-savoring/piquant.html#IdDkKz6IDEXpSV3q.99

Definition:

1 : agreeably stimulating to the palate; especially: spicy

2 : engagingly provocative; also : having a lively arch charm

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-food-words-worth-savoring/piquant.html#IdDkKz6IDEXpSV3q.99

Holiday Party Food

Our culture's love of technology is equaled by it's love of celebration.  Since the l970's these all-American predilections have come together in the food processing industry.  As we approach the holiday tables laden with high protein party food, let us be thankful, skeptical and consider the unintended consequences of love and health in the most recent World Cancer Research Fund review on processed meats and cancer.

Average American - Salty

Inspiration Green is a compendium of resources, links, databases and more information on all things eco. Researching our next landscape addressing salt, I came upon these fun lists

Top 10 Seriously Salty Foods in the Grocery Store (sodium content varies among brands)

1. Frozen TV dinners, 800 to 2,000-plus milligrams (mg) 

2. Frozen pizza, 2,645 mg

3. Pretzel rods, 1,350 mg

4. Canned chili, 1040 mg

5. Lunch meat, 150 mg per slice

6. Canned soup, 870 mg

7. Packaged macaroni and cheese, 533 mg

8. Flour tortilla, 450 mg

9. Canned vegetables, 250 mg

10. Breakfast cereal, 175 mg

compare with other comparable web listings: 

10. Snacks like potato chips, popcorn, and pretzels 

9. Meat dishes that are "mixed"

8. Pasta

7. Cheese

6. Cheeseburgers and sandwiches

5. Soups

4. Poultry products

3. Pizza

2. Luncheon meats

1. Bread and rolls

Foods containing or eaten with enriched bleach flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, water, sugar, and 2% or less of salt, potato flour, cultured wheat flour, yeast, distilled vinegar, dough conditioners, sorbitan monostearate, soy lecithin, milk and soy flour -- a.k.a. Wonderbread) seem to be a major player in sodium intake.

 US Dietary Guidelines (opaque)

differed from information at Center for Disease Control and their fact sheet.

A Cornucopia of Foodish Photography

Alison Zavos, of  the always fascinating Featureshoot blog has chosen images from ‘Fruitland’ a Group Show of Strange Fruit Photos, Opening at Photoville, Brooklyn.

Zavos notes, "Perhaps as a response or antidote to the labored and moody Dutch still life-inspired food photography that has been proliferating in galleries over the past decade, young photographers are now challenging themselves to take a regular piece of fruit and make it special, adding an array of strange, unique twists."

Athos Burez  Still Life III  16 x 20 in.  Archival Pigment Print

Athos Burez Sarah Ferri 16 x 20 in .Archival Pigment Print

Daniel Stier  The Nature Paradox  16 x 20 in.  Archival Pigment Print

Daniel Stier  The Nature Paradox  16 x 20 in.  Archival Pigment Print

Aron Filkey & Mate Moro  HappyFew No. 9  15 x 20 in.  Archival Pigment Print

Food Porn

This work reminds us of the Chicago Imagists, an interesting mashup.

Food Porn 

Food Porn

Food Porn

Consider Patrick Cudahy and Pig Business

May 29,1913

The Patrick Cudahy meatpacking plant, which traces its history in the Milwaukee area to the 19th century, may soon be owned by the Chinese.

The plant is part of a proposed $4.72 billion deal that would be the biggest purchase ever of a U.S. company by interests in China. The deal calls for Patrick Cudahy's parent company, Smithfield Foods, to be purchased by Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., the majority shareholder in China's largest meat processor.

The proposal led to some perplexed reactions about the prospect of Sweet Applewood Smoked Bacon soon being owned by a company in one of the last bastions of Communism on the globe, a country that brought the world cheap labor and outsourced jobs.

"I think there are people who will say this is 100% horrible. I think there are some who will say it's a great thing — it's an opportunity for U.S. agriculture to get U.S. products into the hands of Chinese consumers," said Jeff Sindelar, an associate professor who researches the global meat industry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "And then I think there is a larger segment of people right now who aren't really sure."

Read more from Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/business/chinese-company-to-buy-parent-company-of-patrick-cudahy-b9921633z1.html#ixzz2jJtMZmtR 

The impact of industrial food production on our planet is discused in the four minute interview film Pig Business.  A more poetical view of the dilemma of the place in the wheel of life may be seen in this short exerpt from the 2011 film, Samsara.

Corn has a Big Impact on the Land

Research for Cornscape  revealed the imbalance between nutritional advantages and depletion of the fertility of the land. How best to present this dilemma in our image?

Environmental Impact calculates depletion factors of the midwestern agriculturally corn-centric states. Consider the real cost of a box of flakes…and so many more foods.

Commercially grown corn. The data here comes from the University of Nebraska and reflects the averages for the Midwest United States. It should not come as a surprise that the most important resources for growing corn is land, water, fuel and fertilizer. The electricity is used mostly for the irrigation systems, but also in planting, harvesting, etc.Some facts about corn: The yield is about 155 bushels of corn (56 pounds each) per acre, The irrigation, in average, covers the field with about 2 inches of water per growing season In addition to fertilizers, a significant amounts of lime are spread on the corn fields (about 212 kg/hectare) About 45% of corn kernel is carbon, obtained from the atmospheric CO2. We include this as a negative number for the release of carbon dioxide pollution (that is, as carbon sequestration).

PI - Pollution Index. Indication of the amount and severity of the pollution generated during the life cycle of an item. The higher number, the more pollution.

DI - Depletion Index. Indication of the amount of resources used during production and disposal of an item. The higher number, the more resources are used (and the less sustainable the product is).

EI - Entropy Index. - Indication of the amount of energy wasted during the life cycle of an item. The higher number, the more energy is wasted.

CEII - Composite Environmental Impact Index. Indication of the item's impact on the environment, taking into account the resources used and the pollution generated during production, use, and disposal of the item. The higher number, the higher impact.

study for Cornscape in Processed Views

study for Cornscape in Processed Views

study for Cornscape in Processed Views

Consumed: Nourishment and Indulgence

installation shot, Ponder Food as Love

CONSUMED Nourishment and Indulgence

Curated by Jacqueline Nathan with Marce Dupay and Wynn Perry. 

Willard Winkleman Gallery

Bowling Green State University

September 6 - October 9 2013

Food is unlike any other object of consumption because it is necessary for life, yet we have highly complex societal, cultural and individual relationships with it. The work in this exhibition considers some of the issues, attitudes and associations that food engenders and symbolizes. Artists included

Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta
Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr
Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman 
Sue Coe
Sayaka Ganz
Jeph Gurecka
Mary Ellen Johnson
Judith Klausner 

Katharine Kuharic
Monika Malewska
Portia Munson
Debra Priestly
Tara Sellios
Dennis Wojtkiewicz
April Wood
Events:

ArtTalk: Sue Coe  Friday, September 13th at 7 p.m., followed by a reception for the artists.  Coe is renowned as an animal rights activist and artist. She recently published Cruel.

ArtTalk: Cynthia Baron Sunday, September 15th at 3 p.m. (immediately before the first film).   Watch What You Eat: Food Documentaries and the Counter-Cuisine Movement by this BGSU professor and co-author of Appetites and Anxieties: Food, Film and the Politics of Representation (2013)

ArtTalk: Debra Priestly Monday, September 16th, at 5 p.m. Priestly''s prints and mixed media work often use canning jar images to indicate the preservation of African-American history.

Films included in the Sunday Munch series are: 

The Garden (2008): A group of mostly working class, Latino South Central farmers fought the good fight—and they''re still at it— for the basic human need to grow food. in this Academy Award nominated film.

Super Size Me (2004): A cult classic with Morgan Spurlock eating his way to bad health on a month''s worth of McDonalds.

Food, Inc.(2008) : The rock stars of the ethical eating movement —Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser— weigh in on all that is wrong in American''s industrialized food system.

Consumed Exhibition Poster

Food is the Future, Now and Then

Swedish Experimental Food Lab Erects Tiny Edible Cityscape
By Tim Maly from Wired Magazine

 

1984 edition preposterous today

Best of Show - Research at WI State Fair 2013

L's dream job, arrangements of winners in the Horticulture Building, showing off the culinary specimens to best advantage. 

Real and Unreal Food: Research at WI State Fair 2013

Inspiration Analytical and Physical: Biology Explored by Eran Gilat and Ellen Cantor

Erin Gilant

Erin Gilant

Erin Gilant

Eran Gilant's Life Science series  (above) are elegant, memento mori which juxtapose biological specimens with implements both domestic and quasi-scientific.  They are at once clinical, classical and sexualized. 

"My "Life Science” project situates biological tissue into relatively pleasant, sometimes artificial scenarios, contemplating issues of materialism, erotica and mortality, corresponding with the complicated and intriguing category of “Animal Reminder” in the visual arts."

Ellen Cantor's project, (below) Unorthodox Anatomy, has food as a human biological stand in…as spinal column, raw and sliced.  "For this series, I have created a visualization of what my spine looks like to me--not the real spine, but an unorthodox view of my anatomy. These photographs convey my feelings of living with a disability, the pain of aging and daily confrontation with my mortality." 

All work addresses the contradictions of biological beauty and function.

Ellen Cantor

Ellen Cantor

Ellen Cantor