Unstructured Food Sculpture

I've long been fascinated with ephemeral art. I'm also fascinated by the thin but blurry line that divides mere kitsch from true art.

I think that amusing food sculptures provide a neat intersection between these two interests of mine.

Steve, Don't Eat It!

I have, in my time, eaten a few exotic things. I have had chicken feet and frogs legs, snake, crickets and have even supped of the delicacy called Bird's Nest Soup (now with genuine swallow spittle). Never the less, there are people in this world who make my culinary adventures seem about as daring as putting hot sauce on a California roll.

Steve, Don't Eat It! is a semi-regular feature of The Sneeze. The eponymous Steve dares to eat things that most people would only call food for lack of a better categorization. His efforts include everything from pickled pork rinds to Beggin' Strips (in the form factor of a Beggin', lettuce and tomato sandwich). He then provides a pithy review of the experience with such comments as

Not unlike Michael Jackson, these harmless soybeans had undergone some kind of hideous transformation. They were now a freakish version of their former selves. (Which, coincidentally, should also be kept away from your children.)

Be forewarned that Steve's descriptive skills are such that you may well find yourself experiencing sympathetic nausea.

Unstructured Comparisons

Food advertising is an art. I'm sure we've all heard how, when photographing cereal, they'll dot the flakes with Elmer's glue, along with all sorts of similar tricks. Well, someone took this observation to the next level and decided to do comparative photos of food ad copy and the actual food that you get from fast food joints.



The one caveat that I would make is that some of the difference is due to the differences between professional lightning and natural light. That said, the results are certainly interesting.

Breakfast

Breakfast is the taste of warmth,
The smooth melody of flavors
That recapitulates spring as we wake
From our nightly hibernations,

Or so it once was,

But now breakfast
Has become a shrunken
And anemic thing.

It is cup of coffee
And maybe a donut
Or a bagel

Eaten with half awareness
As you’re driving to work
Too pressed for time
To even have a bowl of cereal.

It is a casualty of the world,
Ceremoniously resurrected
On holidays and special occasions
But dead, nine-tenths of the year round.

It is, ultimately, another relic
Of a recently demised era
Where the clock didn’'t march
Quite so fast.

The Sacrifice

It's Thanksgiving here in The States. In honor of this day, I offer you this repeat. I hope that you enjoy it and, if you are one of the celebrants, may your turkeys be juicy and your stuffing moist.

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The Sacrifice

A bloated thing
Blistered and blundering
To its sacrifice

Long hairs wicking
The scent of kerosene
Through wide nostrils

The shick-shick
Of long knives
Carve the air

Fallen to its knees
Waiting for the blade
Neck raised high

Fires Burning as
The priests exchange
Blood for rain

Lileks and Dislileks

Most amature web enthusiasts would be thrilled to have a site as cool as The Gallery of Regrettable Food, which is a repository of truly awful recipie book excerpts from the 50's, 60's and 70's coupled with some very sharp commentary. The Gallery, however, is merely one annex of The Institute of Official Cheer which is, in turn, merely a wing of Lileks.com. It is the sort of site that you can lose hours of time to with narry a regret.

The Institute's mission (such that it is) is to take an ironic look at the pop culture of days gone by. Although we live in a word where everyone is trying their hand at nostalgic irony, few aspire the competence and wit of James Lileks.

In addition to the Gallery of Regrettable Food, I particularly enjoy his send up of Little Big Book comics, his observations of the curiously misogynistic art of Art Frahm, and The Orphanage of Cast of Mascots, where he looks at little known and long defunct advertising mascots.