Home › Forums › Kosher Products › Beautiful Food is Pointless
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April 1, 2011 2:17 pm at 2:17 pm #596067His Royal HighnessMember
What is the point of making beautiful food? Obviously food should be delicious and tasty, but it is such a chavel to waste time to beautify food, when the moment the eater puts it into his mouth he will crush it to morsels of crumbs anyways.
April 1, 2011 2:26 pm at 2:26 pm #772271YW Moderator-80MemberHashem makes our food beautiful !
a luscious apple colored brightly red with complex streaks of pink wrapped in a waterproof wrapper, a beautiful aroma, and a complex mixture of tastes, sweetness, tartness, acidity, all balanced together for a gourmet experience, a texture not too hard and not too soft, the juices packed into little packets so as to not all spill out at the first bite.
why does He do it. so what if an apple was grey?
Hashem beautifies our food for all our senses, sight, smell, and taste, to bring us the most enjoyment possible.
and to demonstrate to us his kindness and his wonders.
April 1, 2011 2:28 pm at 2:28 pm #772272His Royal HighnessMemberThanks for that beautiful food for thought.
April 1, 2011 2:30 pm at 2:30 pm #772273YW Moderator-80Memberyoure welcome
take your time to digest the idea.
April 1, 2011 2:34 pm at 2:34 pm #772274WolfishMusingsParticipantWhat is the point of making beautiful food? Obviously food should be delicious and tasty, but it is such a chavel to waste time to beautify food, when the moment the eater puts it into his mouth he will crush it to morsels of crumbs anyways.
Talk to any competent restaurateur. They will tell you that the visual presentation is almost as important as the taste.
The Wolf
April 1, 2011 2:36 pm at 2:36 pm #772275SJSinNYCMemberLOL @ digest Mod-80.
Sight is one of your senses. It enhances the food experience. I prefer the beauty of the food not outdo the taste of the food, but that’s a different story.
April 1, 2011 2:37 pm at 2:37 pm #772276always hereParticipantMod/His Royal Highness~ are you having a split-personality moment?! just wondering… ;-D
April 1, 2011 2:44 pm at 2:44 pm #772277His Royal HighnessMemberThe problem often arises when the food looks heavenly but tastes unappetizing.
April 1, 2011 3:05 pm at 3:05 pm #772278WolfishMusingsParticipantThe problem often arises when the food looks heavenly but tastes unappetizing.
I didn’t say the taste was unimportant. I said the visual presentation was almost as important as the taste.
Would you eat something that looked like it was chewed up, even if it was delicious? Even if you would, can you understand that most people would not?
The Wolf
April 1, 2011 3:17 pm at 3:17 pm #772279EzratHashemMemberWe take so much for granted. If we could slow down the pace and realize what a nes it is to open ones eyes in the morning- imagine if you couldn’t; sit up–imagine if you couldn’t; find yourself in a sheltered place safe from imminent danger–imagine if you weren’t; etc. then maybe we could learn to enjoy the apple as well.
April 1, 2011 3:22 pm at 3:22 pm #772280always hereParticipantso poignant, EzratHashem
April 1, 2011 3:33 pm at 3:33 pm #772281YW Moderator-80MemberThe problem often arises when the food looks heavenly but tastes unappetizing.
as SJ also said
i suppose thats true
kind of makes the experience disappointing
April 1, 2011 3:39 pm at 3:39 pm #772282EzratHashemMemberThanks for the vote, always here.
April 1, 2011 3:39 pm at 3:39 pm #772283aries2756ParticipantThe beauty in the presentation is as important as the taste because it makes you want to eat the food and it gives the food the sense of importance that it deserves. Food needs to be valued for its necessity and its quality. It needs to be praised and it needs to be blessed. It needs to be appreciated and it needs to be savored and not wolfed down and forgotten. Maybe if we all realized that we need to value every bite and eat slowly to appreciate it, we would eat to live instead of live to eat.
April 1, 2011 3:50 pm at 3:50 pm #772284ShrekParticipantfood should taste good, & look nice. If it’s good for you, that’s certainly a plus. I like good food as much as the next person, but does it seem like food has become an obsession in our community lately? Store A has the best cholent, Store B has the best sushi, OH? you ate at Restaurant C? Was it as good as Restaurant D? I hear the food is really something else at Restaurant E! And the kiddush in shul F! Not to be missed, especially since they switched to Caterer G! and on and on.
What is that all about? Food as recreation?
April 1, 2011 3:59 pm at 3:59 pm #772285His Royal HighnessMemberIt beats drugs as recreation.
April 1, 2011 5:58 pm at 5:58 pm #772286bptParticipantThe yardstick I like to use is: prep time should not exceed eating time. if it takes an hour to decorate a cake (figure a 10 serving cake) and only 5 minutes to eat, that’s too much time spent on looks alone.
I would gladly skip the cream and icing, and focus on the cake itself.
On the other end of the food chain, soup made from scratch will take about 20 minutes to make (figure the same 10 servings) will still take about 5 minutes to eat a serving, but the “potchke” time was mininmal.
Like many things, its the toichen vs. fluff battle. Toichen’s value is intrinsinc; fluff’s value is just that.
April 1, 2011 6:06 pm at 6:06 pm #772287SacrilegeMemberbpt
Do you only eat sammiches?
April 1, 2011 8:15 pm at 8:15 pm #772288bptParticipantHardly. But to spend time separating / whipping egg whites, folding them into a batter, so it gets to be a extra 3cm tall?
Forget it.
April 1, 2011 8:30 pm at 8:30 pm #772289wanderingchanaParticipantHere’s your slop. Takes like chicken. Enjoy.
April 1, 2011 9:11 pm at 9:11 pm #772290mewhoParticipantpresentation is very important
April 3, 2011 2:09 am at 2:09 am #772291brotherofursParticipantyeah but i can see what your saying saying sometimes nobody eats some food at a party i guess because it’s “too pretty to eat” which is sad 🙁
May 30, 2011 10:44 pm at 10:44 pm #772292YbAMMemberTurnus Rufus once asked Rabbi Akiva, “Whose works are better? Those of G-d or those of man?”
Rabbi Akiva answered, “Those of man are better.”
Turnus Rufus asked, “Can you make anything better than heaven and earth?”
Akiva said, “Don’t give me examples that are beyond human capability. Let’s talk about something men can do!”
Turnus Rufus asked, “Why do you circumcise yourselves?” Rabbi Akiva sais, “I knew you would ask me about brit milah, and for that reason I told you the works of men are greater than those of G-d.”
Rabbi Akiva then showed two things to Turnus Rufus: stalks of wheat and and a beautiful bread baked by his wife. Rabbi Akiva asked Turnus Rufus, “These are from G-d, and this is from man, which is greater?”
We humans are partners with haShem. He creates things which we cannot and we complete them. This means making food beautiful is fulfilling our part of that partnership and fully appreciating what we are given. As with everything we do, balance is important. But there are many parts of the process of making beautiful food that offer an opportunity to ivdu es haShem b’simcha. The preparation is an avodah for the preparer. The enjoyment of the beauty is an avodah for the eater. When we make a bracha on beautiful food, we can have special kavana.
Never miss a chance to find ways to appreciate this world that we’ve been given to care for. Make everything you can beautiful because only humans can take the raw materials of this world and make them into kallim of beauty for avodat haShem.
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