Plating Food. On the Pictorial Arrangement of Cuisine on the Plate: Aesthetic Practice of Cookery
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Plating Food
On the Pictorial Arrangement of Cuisine on the Plate
Nicolaj van der Meulen
Referring to a plate as a picture is not necessarily par for the course. It
makes sense though, if one assumes that the food arranged on the plate
has a display function, or if it represents something, and refers to some-
thing more than just itself. What is intended with what I eat, and how
is it prepared? What memories and associations does the dish trigger at
the moment it is presented? Given the way it was produced, fermented,
and put together, in what historical, cultural or transcultural context is it
embedded? Whether fast food, slow food, fusion or Haute cuisine: In the
way it is chosen and arranged, the food on the plate reveals a certain under-
standing of culture. It makes statements about aspects such as authenticity
and historicity, globalization and regionality, about enjoyment, sustain-
ability and health. It is possible that the representation of food refers to a
certain cultural concept or to a particular social discourse, as the plate now
makes visible as food what was previously a commodity. The commodi-
ties are released from their production and manufacturing context. The
picture on the plate, no matter how naturally it is arranged, is no longer
nature, agriculture, or sustenance, but food to be enjoyed, presented to
me on a plate to be sampled. The plate, astonishingly consistent in terms
of its basic design for at least 4,000–5,000 years now, is at the beginning
of a cultivation process, which allocates me a portion of the communi-
ty's (tribe's) limited supply of sustenance. Even today, the food arranged
"for me" makes for the magnetic attraction of the plate's appearance. It
is frequently given to me by somebody. It is a "gift". The shoulder of the
plate forms the framework marking the dierence between nature/suste-
nance and culture/food, so as thereby to make one aware of a quite specific
cultural concept. The base of the plate, no matter how shallow, raises the
arranged food from the table and at this particular moment makes it an
event for me.
Over the past 20 years, visual and pictorial studies have addressed in
detail the philosophical, religious, iconic, epistemic and anthropological
dimensions of pictures and their impact. The philosophical, creative, polit-
ical, social, and communicative characteristics of pictures and their sig-
nificance for creative or architectural drafts was also discussed. To date,
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however, there has been no long-term discourse on the iconic characteris-
tics of food and how it is arranged on plates.
"Plating" describes both the preparation and presentation of food on
a plate. The primary intention of plating is a visual or sensual attraction,
though as a cultural concept it entails far more. If plating is characterized
as a certain form of picture, the fact that the look of the plate is highly
unstable presents a particular diculty and is also linked to other sensual
experiences such as the sense of touch and smell. If I taste what is on the
plate it would appear to be no longer a picture, if I just see it, it appears not
to correspond to its actual intention. Although some cooks make drawings
when creating their recipes, artistic or creative practices do not appear to be
explicitly used in the arranging of food on plates. Top-flight chefs' artificial
plate arrangements in particular combine aesthetic, cultural, culinary and
scientific knowledge, which is expressed in the plate's look. The arrange-
ments on the plate have to stand a visual but also a taste test. They have
to be meaningful not just at the very first moment but during the entire
process of consuming the food.
Myt hological s P ecul ation
and a n thr oPological fic t i o n
Several years ago Richard Wrangham highlighted the evolutionary signifi-
cance of cooking meat over a fire, and in doing so triggered a broad discus-
sion of the relationship between cooking and the history of mankind.
Cooking, in particular of meat but also of root bulbs, created nutrition with
a greater energy value and requiring less physical eort. In terms of energy,
the reduced strain on the digestive tract could be used to build up the brain,
he stated. As such, the rapid increase in the size of Homo erectus and
its predecessors approx. 1.6 million years ago went hand in hand with the
controlled use of fire for cooking. Put in simpler terms: Cooking, especially
of meat over an open fire, first lays the foundations for the evolutionary
conditions for the development of the human brain. Fire, cooking, eating
are the fundamentals of human incarnation.
Although from an anthropological point of view it was argued that the
systematic use of fire for cooking is at most 200,000 to 800,000 years
old, and as such far younger than the decisive evolutionary stages in the
development of the human brain, and that the close pairing of meat and
fire defined early man's menu too rigidly, "Catching Fire" had a wide social
impact. Michael Pollan followed on from this and associated a return to
1 | Wrangham: 2009.
2 | Gibbons: 2007.
3 | Organ, C./Nunn, C. L. et al. (2012): Phylogenetic rate shifts in feeding time
during the evolution of Homo, in: PNAS, 108/35, http://www.pnas.org/content/
108/35/14555.full?sid=95c4876b-9870-4259-888f-24a6179be4fc, last ac-
cessed Jan. 31, 2017; McBroom, P. (1999): Meat-eating was essential for human
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older cooking techniques with fostering a greater awareness of the "real"
significance of them. As a result among other things old cooking tech-
niques, such as cooking on open fires and gained in popularity again. As
"nose to tail", "root to leaf" or "local food" a new take on nutrition became
popular that not only set itself o from its predecessors (molecular cuisine,
nouvelle cuisine), but in an era of digitized, globalized and critical living
conditions held out the prospect of, to adapt the phrase by Theodor W.
Adorno, a "right life in the wrong one".
From the point of view of the "Culinary Turn", Wrangham's theory
about the birth of mankind from the spirit of cooking is interesting in
that it reveals that not only are there indications of crucial processes in
the development of mankind in specific concepts of cooking and eating,
but they were also driven by them. In terms of cultural history "Catching
Fire" can also be seen as a rereading of the myth of Prometheus. As is
well known, according to Hesiod ("Works and Days", Book II) and in later
versions, Zeus refused mankind fire and proclaimed: "They shall have
their meat! But I refuse them fire! They will have to eat their meat raw".
Thereupon, Prometheus brought fire (back) to the people secretly in the
form of a fennel stalk (narthex). Unlike the myth, which are things that
"never happened, but always are" , Wrangham makes the plot a fact in the
history of mankind. Just as the myth has the character of necessity, and
states why things had to turn out that way (even if we will never know why),
"Catching Fire" also gives the cooking of meat over fire the character of
necessity. In doing so Wrangham narrows down the diversity of the food as
well as the cooking techniques. However, it is something dierent to say:
"We all have to eat, but we don't eat everything we could." That is because
it is about preferences, the possibility of making a choice, and culinary
diversity, which plays a significant role at least in a plate's appearance. That
provides a culinary oering that aims to win one over to a specific con-
ception of nutrition: "Dishes are… pictures, cooking is creating a world
concept (Weltentwurf)."
A model such as the artist Dieter Froelich sketches, which approves of
culinary enjoyment and associated diversity, could also oer new perspec-
evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet, in: News Release ,
6/14/ 99, http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6- 14- 19 99a.
html, last accessed Jan. 31, 2017.
4 | Pollan: 2013, p. 27.
5 | Ekstedt: 2016; Katz: 2012.
6 | In ancient times the core of fennel stalks, whose embers lasted for several
hours, even days, was used to transport fire.
7 | Thomas Sedlacek quoting Sallust in Sedlacek, T. (2013): Economics of Good
and Evil. The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street, Oxford,
p. 108.
8 | Froelich: 2012, p. 11.
9 | Ibid.
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tives from an anthropological point of view. The culinary triangle Claude
Lévi-Strauss introduced in 1964, which mapped food in "raw", "cooked",
and "rotten", and which also inspired Wrangham's "Catching Fire", cannot
then be thought of as a model of a linear development from nature (raw) to
culture (cooked), in order to rule out decay as a corruption process.
Fig. 1: Proposed advance of Lévi-Strauss' "triangle culinaire" for the allocation of
plate imager y (Vilgis, further developed by NvdM and Isabel Lina Christen)
The culinary triangle provides a model for a more complex, cross-cultural
matrix, in which the relationship between nature and culture is changeable
depending of the cooking and decay process. Through the basic division of
food into raw (cr u) , cooked (cuit) and rotten (pour r i) , and the refinement of
this model by Thomas A. Vilgis into 'raw', 'cooked' and 'fermented', thus
dierentiating between the content, not only cultural and culinary forms,
but also specific forms of plate imagery can be allocated. An elaborated
version of the culinary triangle could also be a starting point for describing
the components of a plate beyond their mere name and associate them
with culinary and cooking dimensions.
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However we reconstruct the origins of the human diet, not much imagina-
tion is needed to suppose that cooking preceded the plate, while the plate
preceded the image of the plate. The more we move towards complex or
reflected plate images, the more social and aesthetic dimensions come into
play alongside the precision of culinary aspects. Systematic cooking presup-
poses cooking utensils. Wrangham emphasizes that some animals, for
example shellfish, supply the vessel they are cooked in, so to speak, them-
selves naturally and that from there it is only a short step to cooking recep-
tacles. However, this process must have taken place in long, slow steps.
The very first pottery is probably 26,000 years old and as such was around
15,000 years ahead of the start of animal husbandry and agriculture.
Fig. 2: Roman Plate: Roman Imperial Period (27 BC – 284 AD),
Museum Frankenthal, Germany
The historical developments from the bowl to individual plates and their
relationship to trays for cutting up meals, to ritual oering plates and
to joint plates have not yet been traced. One can assume, though, that
shallow plates for individuals enabled social changes in terms of the rela-
tionship between individual and community, as well as culinary changes
in terms of the type, structure, and number of foodstus. Furthermore,
the shallow plate most probably developed from the bowl and, as opposed
to the latter, made it easier to cut up and eat food, and arrange it sepa-
rately on a plate. An approx. 5,000-year old shallow bowl in the Metro -
politan Museum in New York indicates an early morphological relation-
10 | Gremillion: 2011, p. 66.
11 | Wrangham: 2009, p. 124.
12 | See Price, T. D./Bar-Yosef, O. (2011): The Origins of Ag riculture: Ne w Data, New
Ideas: An Introduction to Supplement 4, in: Current Anthropology 52, pp. 163–74.
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ship between bowl and plate. There is an approx. 2,000-year old shallow
plate made of molded clay in the Erkenbert Museum in Frankenthal near
Mannheim, Germany. Not least of all it reveals how the standardized
circular shape of the plate stems from the craft of turning and the circular
movements of the hand.
In comparison with eating, little study has been conducted on the sig-
nificance of the plate and plating in terms of cultural history. Art historical
studies allow few conclusions, as their mostly iconological or social history
thrust makes them little suited to illustrating the aesthetic design condi-
tions for plates themselves and their relationship to cooking techniques.
According to initial studies, complex arrangements on plates go back to
a development in the modern era. Though plates and arrangements on
plates have been in use since Antiquity and were employed, for example,
for the cena (lunch) in Ancient Rome, for the "banchetto", and for the multi-
course feast (convivium ), the separate accumulation of food in a receptacle
or on a plate prevailed. Not until the 17th and 18th century and the associ-
ated first steps towards "Haute cuisine" as there any striking change in the
appearance of plates. The patissier and chef Marie-Antoine Carême, who
also dabbled in architectural theory, apparently assumed a key role in the
development of complex plate arrangements and their spread. Following
Antoine Beauvilliers' major work L'Art du cuisinier (1814), in 1828 Carême
published L'Art de la cuisine française, which together with works such as Le
Pâtissier pittoresque (1828), created illustrative associations between archi-
tectural constructiveness and food arrangements.
The historically decisive change can be traced to 1960s and 1970s
nouvelle cu isine, on which Paul Bocuse was a major influence. A single plate
gained in significance over a composition of plates based on a "still life". The
closer links developing at the same time between Japanese (Shizuo Tsuji)
and French chefs (Alain Chapel, Paul Bocuse) was of relevance for the
arrangement on the plate. Inspired among other things by the traditional
Japanese meal 'kaiseki', simplicity, seasonality and plate arrangement had
since the early 1970s been basic criteria of French nouvelle cuisine, and
precise plating an important part of cooking.
With subsequent avant-gardes such as "molecular" (since approx. 1990,
Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adrià) and "Nova Regio" cuisine (since approx.
2003, Stefan Wiesner and René Redzepi), the appearance of the plate has
gone in dierent directions, though a scientific basis involving an aesthetic
practice of cooking and plating is fundamental to both.
13 | http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547264, access: 14.02.
2017.
14 | Bendiner: 2004.
15 | Schareika: 2008.
16 | See Trubek: 2000; Spang: 2001; Spence/Piqueras-Fiszman: 2014a.
17 | See Tsuji: 1972; Murata: 2006.
18 | See Halligan: 1990; Yang: 2011.
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Whereas molecular cuisine's discursive and semantic references apply
implicitly to complex (non-standardized) architecture and to post-modern,
heterogeneous structures, Nova Regio refers implicitly to current political,
aesthetic, and social discourses on nature, countryside, and agriculture.
The quoting of nature that no longer is nature, a solemn gesture by means
of blatant instances of movement and color, the gentle irony of the details,
the Mannerist exaggeration of contours and the playing with the question
of what it is are signatures of a post-modern aesthetic that associates molec-
ular cuisine with postmodernist cinema and architecture.
Fig. 3: Heston Blumenthal:
Macerated Strawberries,
with Black Olive and
Leather Purée, and
Pistachio Scrambled Egg
Fig. 4: René Redzepi:
Little Forest on a Plate
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When, on the other hand, Rene Redzepi says "we wanted to have a complete
little forest on a plate", his reference model is nature or landscape, which
on the plate is modelled to form an intact micro-landscape, and at a time
when in many places landscape is experienced as fragmented: "Landscape
fragmentation is the result of transforming large habitat patches into
smaller, more isolated fragments of habitat." On the plate a landscape
thought to have been long since lost is modelled and is opened to gustatory
experience. Molecular cuisine constructs the way the plate looks, whereas
a Nova Regio plate tends to be modelled.
desid e r at u M : t ransdisc iPlinary a PProac he s
Over the past few years applied research studies, in particular relating to
experimental psychology, addressed the influence of shape, feel, color,
weight, size and orientation of plates and vessels. These studies led to
a far clearer focus on the influence of specific plate arrangements on our
eating behavior. Experimental psychology also drew attention to the fact
that the generally neglected element of the plate has a deciding influence
on what we eat and how we perceive the taste of food. More recent studies
point to the lack of close cooperation between experimental psychology
and aesthetics/visual culture with a view to the better assessment of plating
criteria. The fact that putting food on or in a vessel (plate, dish, tray, board,
bowl) is fundamental not only for western cultures is one of the interesting
results of experimental psychology. As such one can conclude that apart
from pure functionality, plating enables an examination, appreciation,
and increase in enjoyment of the food. Elsewhere, surveys revealed that a
rising diagonal arrangement on consumers' plates tended to be perceived
as positive and attractive. As much as findings such as these provide
interesting information about standardized eating behavior, they say just
as little about the criteria according to which aesthetic innovation and a
wealth of diversity occur on plates, and what influence cultural discourse
has on the appearance of plates. Neither is ultimately based on consumer
behavior alone, but also on aesthetic criteria, cooking techniques, the food
elected, and social discourse.
19 | https://www.splendidtable.org/story/chef-rene-redzepi-of-noma-we-want
ed-to-have-a-complete-little-forest-on-a-plate, last accessed Feb. 1, 2017; Land-
scape fr agmentation in Europe, Join t EEA-FOEN report, EEA Repor t No 2/2011, p. 9.
20 | See Piqueras-Fiszman/Spence: 2012a/2012b; Piqueras-Fiszman/Harrar/
Alcaide et al.: 2011; Harrar/Piquera s-Fiszman/Spenc e: 2011; Levitsk y/Youn: 2004;
Marchiori/Corneille/Klein: 2012; Michel et al. 2015; Spence/Michel et al.: 2015.
21 | Spence/Piqueras-Fiszman: 2014a, p. 115.
22 | Spence: 2016.
23 | Spence/Piqueras-Fiszman: 2014a.
24 | Michel et al.: 2015.
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In the above-mentioned studies, multi-sensory aspects, in other words
the interplay between sight, touch, smell and hearing were not taken into
consideration. Other more recent studies examine plating from the point
of view of chefs and cooking practice. In this context plating is regarded as
central, although the quality of the menu cannot be reduced to its appear-
ance, and experienced chefs can assess the freshness of the produce, quality
of the taste, and the cooking technique without touching the food. Con-
tradictions such as these show that the criteria for plate imagery cannot be
determined by application-oriented studies alone, but require dialog with
the natural sciences, aesthetics, and visual culture. The last two disciplines
lack scientific as well as culinary knowledge, making a trans-disciplinary
perspective necessary for more accurate findings
No matter how delightful it may be, the appearance of a plate retains its
attract ive character for a short time only. It is unstable. We can ask ourselves
when the appearance of a plate is finished: as soon as it has completed the
long process from the initial idea and the drawing up of the recipe, to the
cooking stage and ultimately the plating, or only when a guest has assimi-
lated what is on the plate? The moment of direc t encounter or touch bet ween
guest and plate is preceded by a process of constant rapprochement, which
on the part of the guest is associated with a growing expectation, while the
cooked food assumes its most stable form at the moment of plating before
being chewed to pulp in the guest's mouth. Even before becoming visible
the smell of the food has laid a track. However, the appearance of the plate
is not or not only designed to be just seen, but at the moment it becomes
visible triggers a longing that leads to tasting and eating. This is one of
the punchlines of the plate's appearance, namely that though it is made
to be beholden it is only in the act of being tasted and assimilated that it
becomes complete. The appearance of the plate is procedural. It culminates
during the course of its deconstruction. With the guest sitting in front of
the plate its appearance is soon split into an assimilated, chewed pulp, and
a trace the person eating the food leaves behind on the plate. The trace of
food is legible as a "surviving presence of remains", which subsequently
says something about the type of food on the plate and its consumption. No
one trace resembles another. A plate's contents that have been assimilated
remain an image. Like any trace, it requires interpretation. For this reason
it is not enough to read the plate's appearance from the point of view of
plating (and the preceding recipe), but also from the trace it leaves that has
to be interpreted.
25 | See Fernandez, P./Aurouze, B./Guastavino, C. (2015): Plating in gastronomic
restaurants: A qualitative exploration of chefs' perception, in: Menu, Journal of
Food and Hospitality Research, 4, pp. 16.
26 | See Derrida: 1997; Kogge/Krämer/Gruber: 2007.
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Fig. 5, 6 and 7:
Tanja Grandits: Fillet of deer,
ginger, quinoa, red cabbage,
blackberry pickle and pea
blossom, 2016 (Appearance
of plate and trace on plate)
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The plate displayed here by Tanja Grandits (Restaurant Stucki, Basel/
CH) comprises three basic components: deer, quinoa, red cabbage. In
addition to which there are smaller elements that extend the aroma
complex, such as blackberry pickle and ginger. The way the components
are arranged on the plate allows several combinations or what Vilgis terms
"projections" on it. The plate's appearance can be said to be coherent, if
gustatory and visual elements produce an overall picture. Bu how do the
gustatory and the visual really reference each other, as they do not really
develop in each other? It would be worthwhile interweaving formal aes-
thetic qualities such as deep/shallow, architectural/organic, concentrated/
dispersed with gustatory qualities sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami in a
joint and "thick" (Cliord Geertz) description. Not in the sense of homoge-
nization, but development of the visual through taste. The taste component
is not only built into the appearance of the plate, the taste helps shape the
appearance. Here, the three parts into which what is on the plate are fre-
quently divided are concentrated or as one. The separation of the elements
and the associated opening of the triad would produce an open form and a
completely dierent picture, and also increase the complexity, as the guest
is confronted with higher requirements in terms of the combination of
the elements. Tanja Grandits' plate comes with ways of finding one's way
round the plate, for example by the overlapping of quinoa and red cabbage,
or by positioning red cabbage and fillet of deer close together. At the same
time though the guest is advised to combine several, at least two elements
in his mouth at the same time.
The color modulation brown, red, violet, through to black conveys great
painterly coherence with appealing warm hues. The proximity of pink pea
blossom and blackberry to the guest reduces the dominance of the meat on
the plate. To a certain degree the taste modulation breaks up the color unity
with a broad spectrum of nuances ranging from sweet (meat, red cabbage,
quinoa) to sour (blackberry pickle, ginger, red cabbage). Visual and gus-
tatory modulation do not blend here. In other words: Though taste and
aromas are part and parcel of the plate's contents, the latter do not develop
them on an equal basis. We often experience the taste through the contents
and from there describe dierences and relationships between taste and
contents. The food moves from the contents to the taste and melds with
the texture.
Like an abstract picture by Kandinsky, which can be viewed several
ways, the plate's appearance shows very accurately that interaction between
guest and plate can be very dierent. The question of whether one prefers
to taste components combined or experience them in isolation is pivotal
in terms of whether to a certain degree they are "pulled apart" or kept
together. The trace on a plate that has been eaten clean reveals whether
the emphasis was on isolated or combined consumption of the compo-
nents.
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scale P atterns ( to g e th e r w i t h t ho M aS a. V il g iS)
At molecular level, dimensions of taste and smell that are relevant for
aesthetic perception (and as such for plating) become tangible but often
cannot be described linguistically. A hypothetical scale enables aesthetic
and physiological, as well as taste and visual dimensions of perception to
relate to one another.
Fig. 8: Hypothetical model of the physiological and aesthetic perception of plate
imagery (Vilgis, further developed by NvdM and Isabel Lina Christen)
The perception and consumption of the plate's contents can be thought of
in terms of length scales. Taste and aroma, which are perceived by means
of taste receptors on the tongue and olfactory cells in the nose reference
atomistic scales. Ions and aromatic substances interact with corresponding
proteins on the tongue and olfactory bulb. These senses are triggered
directly by readings on the scale of typically 1 nanometer. Preparation
techniques used in classic as well as avant-garde cuisine take eect in the
length scale between 10 and 100 nanometers.
Tactile receptors on the tongue are in a position to detect the smallest of
dierences, for example in the flow behavior of liquids or in the breakage
behavior of crispy elements. The texture, sequence, and superstructure of
proteins, carbohydrates, the distribution of fat and water, all of which are
present in raw and cooked foodstus, range from micrometers to macro-
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scopic measurements, which even now aect the form and shape of the
elements on the plate. As opposed to nano- and microstructures, they are
already visible.
Plating, serving techniques and the visual styling of a plate are now
decisive. Nobody would think of serving two liquids (sauces, juices, etc.)
close to each other on a plate if they had identically low viscosities. They
would mix their individual aroma in an uncontrolled fashion. Plating is for
this reason not only motivated by aesthetic and sensory intentions, but also
pre-defined by the physical and chemical parameters of enjoyment: taste,
aroma and texture.
According to theory, the meta-scale begins on the length scales. There
impressions are touched on that relate to sensual perception. In addition,
light, the room, and acoustics eect the plate imager y. The two levels, phys-
iological perception and aesthetic perception become clear. At the meta-
level the whole external impression is recorded, before the plate and its
sensory content is noticed. This involves the room, its acoustics, noise,
music, voices, lighting, colors, architecture, and interior design.
Fig. 9: Guestroom, Plate, mouth in relation to the perception levels (NvdM, Isabel
Lina Christen)
The way the plate is styled is perceived at table. The style of cuisine can
be recognized at first sight, the dierence between classic and avant-
garde cuisine is obvious. Chefs' dierent ideas become visible. In each
case, elements and components are served dierently according to colors,
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textures, food groups, flavor aspects, and temperature. In terms of smell
the first "scent blends" can now be perceived. The mixture of aromas that
make up the fleeting fragrances defines the basic direction.
After evaluating the meta-scales of the plate's appearance, the guests
devote themselves to the sensory aspects in their mouth. In their brain
these, together with all the impressions of the meta-scales, are put together
to form the "flavor".
liveline ss and t h e P l at e 's a PPe arance
Lots of people have experienced this: If the host, room, plate's appearance
and food come together perfectly, the experience becomes an aesthetic one,
which with regard to concentration, power, and sustainability otherwise
only occurs this way in art. The arranged plate then has the character of a
"gift " because it is never to do with me alone. The arranged plate is more
than something that can be just settled up by means of payment, as apart
from the eating aspect it creates a surplus of meaning. The gift goes back
to a gesture of giving, which is not countered with money, but with certain
customs and rituals. Acceptance of the gift, the contents of the plate, is
answered with thanks, trust, commitment, and a sense of community. It
creates feelings such as enjoyment, satisfaction, warmth, and happiness.
But what is it that makes a perfect meal such an intensive experience, and
what significance does the appearance of the plate play in this?
My hypothesis is that the aesthetic experience of eating tells us some-
thing about aesthetic experience in general and that eating (at least in
the way described above) assumes a paradigmatic role in this context. A
phenomenological view of aesthetic experience and the enargeia/evidentia
discussion conducted a good ten years ago in the field of cultural studies
and visual culture oer an important starting point in terms of under-
standing. Enargeia suggests that the rhetoric of illustration, be it written or
visual, cannot make do without a moment of liveliness running from the
aesthetic object in the direction of the person perceiving it. The intended
impact of enargeia is animation.
With regard to food and the appearance of the plate, this intended
impact has a ver y concrete thrust, not just b ecause one is hardly able to resist
the attractiveness of a perfect meal, which can be experienced through
smell, look, and taste, but also because the moment of the metaphorical
being touched takes on a concrete, physiological side through the impact of
27 | Mauss: [1923/24] 1990.
28 | Waldenfels: 2008.
29 | Campe, R. (1997): Vor Augen-Stellen. Über den Rahmen rhetorische Bildge-
bung, in: Neumann, G. (ed.): Poststruktur alismus. Herausforderungen der Literatur-
wissenschaft, Stuttgart/Weimar, pp. 208–225; Belting, H. (2001): Bildanthropo-
logie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft, München; Boehm: 2003; Bredekamp, H.
(2007 ): Theorie des Bildakts , Frankfurt/M.
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Nicolaj van der Meulen: Plating Food 249
enargeia during eating. The transformation of goods into enjoyable dishes,
which makes a statement about a certain understanding of nature, com-
munity etc., leads at a metabolic level to an energy reserve provided for the
person, which literally has an animation dimension which, however, goes
beyond just usable energy. As such there is a literal and a metaphorical
dimension, to touching and being touched through eating. The metaphor-
ical dimension is often seen too little, because at the theoretical level is
predominantly related to the satisfaction of primary needs.
Even if there are initial signs of being touched through food by the
smell and sight of it, the pivotal moment is when it disappears from our
field of vision and touches our tongue: "The object of taste is a form of the
tangible;… for no more is it so with touch", Aristotle writes ("De Anima",
Book II, 10). Tasting always also has a tactile dimension. This too is given
little attention in the current discourse about the aesthetics of eating. But
is it touching or being touched? And if it is both, do both occur at the same
time? Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls the associated criss-crossing of subject
and object a "chiasm" and describes it as a "reversible" interrelation. The
example that Merleau-Ponty gives is touching one's own hands: "If my left
hand can touch my right hand, while it palpates the tangibles, can touch it
touching, can turn its palpation back upon it, why, when touching the hand
of another, would I not touch in it the same power to espouse the things
that I have touched in my own?"
When I touch one of my hands with the other, I cannot at one and the
same time feel my hand is the one that is touching and being touched. And
the fact that simultaneously experiencing something as subject and object
is not possible also applies to other senses. I cannot, for example, observe
myself as subject and object at the same time. There is no coincidence of
sight and visibility, of touching and touchable, but only a reversible inter-
relation or criss-crossing. Although this is no dierent in the case of ten-
tative tasting, the transition from seeing the food to tentative tasting can
be described as the maximum convergence point of that reversible chiasm
of touching and touchable, of tasting and tasted. Because directly beyond
this perception the non-simultaneity of the perception of subject and object
disappears, as in metabolism the object is assimilated in the subject. The
phrase "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" is a reminder of
this. It states why like no other field of perception, tasting as enjoyment is
associated with the possibility of bridging the hiatus and here is paradig-
matic for what is known as aesthetic experience.
30 | Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968): The Visible and the Invisible , Evanstin, p. 141.
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