Aesthetics of Food Porn by Uka Tooming
This paper explores the intersections between food pleasure responses and sexual pleasure responses as observed through visual mediums of art and expression. Namely, the author seeks to understand and deconstruct the meaning and impacts of “food porn”.
“Pleasures of eating are at the center of a plethora of human activities and passions” (p.127)
This quote is akin to ideas I explored in weeks prior, especially the idea of cooking as foreplay that was referenced in Sex by Angela Meah. How does pleasure act as a universal motivator? How does food act as a universal motivator, how about sex? How does the distinction between acts of survival and acts of pleasure effect our consumption?
“Since watching those pictures tends to involve pleasurable sensory arousal, the label “food porn” is often applied to them (FP in short).2 As actual pornography arouses sexual desire in a setting where the stimulus isn’t the “real thing” but its exaggerated image, so does FP seem to arouse food cravings where the stimulus itself is not the real thing but only its embellished representation.” (p.128)
“In the case of a moving image, the sexual analogy can also be accentuated by depicting the cooking process (chopping, kneading, and eating) in ways which stress its similarities with sexual activities. Some people who watch food videos might also watch them because of the person and not because of the food depicted.” (p.128)
“There are also interesting complex cases. For instance, mukbang, a type of video that is popular in South Korea, features people eating in front of camera, often eating food in huge quantities (Kim 2018).4 Since mukbang seems to serve a variety of functions for its viewers —to fend off loneliness, to simulate social eating, to learn how to avoid obesity, to admire the eater, etc.— it is difficult to say if it qualifies as food porn. In the latter case, the focus should be on the food that is depicted and on its arousing aspects. This aspect of the food may be quite irrelevant for viewers’ motivation to watch mukbang videos. Also, videos of eating challenges, a popular form of entertainment on the Internet, although depicting food, focus their viewers’ attention to the capacities and reactions of the eater and not necessarily on the appeal of the food itself.” (p.128)
There are both obvious and not-so-obvious connections between these online food challenges and human sexuality, the most glaring one being the comparisons to porn the paper is mostly looking for. These videos demonstrate uncontrolled and unrealistic acts of consumption, glorified and fetishized acts of human nature taken to extremes. Under the first parallel we can also find ideas of voyeurism playing within both concepts, the subject of the video often at the mercy of the watchers who play live time judge and jury, also consuming in their own way. These trends make use of shock factors, overindulgence, and obscenity as means to keep the viewers engaged.
“In particular, I will argue that the characteristic pleasure that they get from FP is enabled by what I call “constructive gustatory imaginings”. By imagining flavors in response to seeing the visual properties in the image, people can take gustatory pleasure in watching FP images, and by constructing those imagined flavors, people can enjoy something that they might not even enjoy in real life.” (p.129)
“Attraction to food imagery is a broader human disposition than attraction to images of yarn or baseball, for instance. It has been suggested that people find looking at food, both real and imagined, naturally rewarding, which suggests that the “visual hunger” for food is an evolutionary adaptation (Spence et al. 2016, p. 54). The “food porn” therefore stands out among other “porn” categories on social media by being more than a mere object of niche interest.” (p.131)
Within these sections, Tooming makes arguments for separating food porn from other so-called internet “porns” in the same category of satisfying non-sexual imagery. The reasoning used here and throughout this section is that the stimulation and physical reaction to food porn imagery mirrors that of porn in the more stereotypical sence, and I would argue that the reaction to recreate or seek out those same satisfactions are stronger in the realm of either of these two concepts than that of their peers.
“Like actual pornography, FP can be characterized as obscene and even disgusting, but also as titillating and arousing. For instance, there is something obscene about pictures that depict excessively fatty and sugary foods, such as multiple greasy hamburgers or pizzas, laid on top of one another, just as there is something obscene about the depictions of explicit sex acts.” (p.131)
I’m really glad we came back to this, how do feelings of disgust, gross-outs, and other similar feelings and reactions play into this parallel? How does obscenity, surrealism, novelty, etc, fit into this intersection? Disgust is not usually an emotion one would like to associate with sex, yet we have a social feeling of disgust toward sex that fits this example perfectly.
“Since flavor perception is multisensory, in that it involves both taste and olfaction and often incorporates information from other modalities as well (Small and Prescott 2005; Prescott 2015; Velasco et al.2018), it is not just the taste of food that is simulated but its flavor. Imaginings of food consumption can thus simulate multisensory flavor experiences.” (p.135)
“Think now of a person who comes to know that the food that she enjoys watching in an image is actually inedible. Does this knowledge inhibit her from taking pleasure in the image? Although it might affect some viewers, I do not think that one’s pleasure is necessarily ruined by it.” (p.138)
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
While studying Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel I am studying specifically chapter 12 December, however, this book as a whole is an amazing example of food and expression of many kinds. Throughout the novel, Esquivel covers themes of love, sex, grief, celebration, generational trauma, and more through the lens of magical realism, and is one of my most highly recommended reads for food studies students. While I will not be covering this specific section for my Spring 24 ILC, I would be ashamed of myself if I did not give an honorable mention to an early chapter of the book in which Tita cooks with such passion her little sister is overcome with lust while eating and runs away with a soldier.
Chapter 12, December, is the final chapter of the novel (which is split into twelve chapters, covering twelve months Jan-Dec but over many years) and it is where we get the plot climax we have been building to. It begins with Tita (main character) making preparations for a wedding which we learn to be the wedding between Esperanza (technically Titas niece but more like her daughter) and her lover Alex. The wedding was protested by Esperanza’s mother (Titas sister) who was married to Tita’s childhood sweetheart Pedro before she died from mysterious digestive issues. Pedro and Tita have been in love for many years, but due to her statute within her own family, Tita’s mother forced her sister on Pedro in her place, building years of resentment and entrapment that Tita has only escaped due to the death of both her mother and sister.
Despite the roadblocks to Tita and Pedro’s relationship having been removed, Tita is engaged to John, a local doctor who took care of Tita throughout her family’s abuse. The beginning of the chapter highlights the love triangle within, as Tita struggles to light a fire and John takes it as a chance to gift her a box of matches and rub her hands lovingly in front of the fire.
“That afternoon, when Tita was trying to light the oven, she couldn’t find any matches anywhere. John, always gallant, had quickly offered to help her. But that wasn’t all! After lighting the fire, he had presented Tita with the box of matches, taking her hands in his. What business did he have giving Tita that kind of ridiculous gift? It was just a pretext for John to stroke Tita’s hands in front of Pedro. John thought he was so civilized– he’d teach him what a man does when he really loves a woman. Grabbing his jacket, he got ready to go look for John so he could smash his face in.” (p.231)
It is here that I once again saw a connection to the idea of cooking as foreplay, or as a way to mirror foreplay, especially as they highlight Pedro as an onlooker, and the violence that nearly stems from his jealousy. The idea of lighting the fire also leads itself for metaphor, especially due to the forced nature of the spark between Tita and John, the assistance needed to keep it alive, and the one-sided effort John puts in to maintain it.
Another moment worth noting is from the memories Tita shares with the reader about fighting with her sister and the wife of her lover, Rosaura. Whilst an agreement is mostly reached for amicable living them when the girl’s overbearing mother passes, disagreements surrounding the education and freedoms of Rosaura and Pedros daughter, Esperanza, combined with the obvious love and attraction between Tita and Pedro, drive the household over the edge. When Esperanza falls in love with her later husband, Alex, Pedro and Tita stand together to support the relationship, whilst Rosaura fights tooth and nail for her daughter to be forced to follow the same path as Tita was forced on, to remain single and be her mothers caretaker until such time that she, her mother, passed away. It is mere days after this argument that Rosaura passes away.
“They were attracted from the moment they met. When Esperanza told Tita that when she felt Alex’s eyes on her body, she felt like dough being plunged into hot oil, Tita knew that Alex and Esperanza would be bound together forever.” (p.238)
Throughout the book Esquivel makes use of the physical sensation of heat and spice to represent love and passion, and this is my favorite line from that category of metaphor. Dough plunged into boiling oil puffs, floats, and sizzles yet it does so in a smoother, calmer, less fire and brimstone manner than many things you would drop in a fryer. While I think this is due to the low water content I am not a food scientist, and I can only speculate on the metaphorical and symbolic reasoning for the use of dough in the descriptor, which most likely comes from the more common association with dough and the body. She is also stating that when she is perceived through a lense of passionate love or lust, she feels like a consumable, she feels edible and sweet. Whilst the idea of being consumable is much easier to associate with the negative treatment of one’s body and self, this instance feels both tender and deeply erotic.
Finally, we get to the ending of the book, the climax if you would. Now alone in their home for the first time, Tita and Pedro finally get to have the physical and sexual connection they have craved for over 20 years. During sex, Pedro is overcome by passion and dies, leaving Tita with the feeling that the fire inside her will never again be lit. She chews on candles thinking of memories they shares, until Pedro reappears in front of her as she burns from within. They hold each other once more as their passion burns down the ranch.
“She began to eat the candles out of the box one by one. As she chewed each candle she pressed her eyes shut and tried to reproduce the most moving memories of her and Pedro. The first time she saw him, the first time their hands touched, the first bouquet or roses, the first kiss, the first caress, the first time they made love. In this She was successful; when the candle she chewed made contact with the torrid images she evoked, the candle began to burn. Little by little her vision began to brighten until the tunnel again appeared before her eyes. There at its entrance was the luminous figure of Pedro was waiting for her. Tita did not hesitate. She let herself go to the encounter, and they wrapped each other in a long embrace; again experiencing an amorous climax, they left together for the lost Eden. Never again would they be apart.” (p.245)
Corn Grinding Song by Wendy Rose, from The Half-Breef Chronicles and Other Poems, sourced from Through the Kitchen Window edited by Arlene Voski Avakian.
“My heart is asleep
in the peace of pollen,
in a wide purity
in the yellow squash.“
What is peaceful about the pollen? What is pure about the squash? Is it in the pollen’s gentle movements or the squash’s suggestive shape? Does the soft touch of the pollen or the curves of a squash remind us of femininity, or sexuality?
“My hands dream
of gathering honey
from heavy-breasted women
going into the mountain
with Hoonaw dreams.“
What is it about the woman being heavy-breasted that changes the way one finds or consumes the honey? Being heavy-breasted is often associated with fertility and breastfeeding, but also with a level of sexuality and scandalous societal ideas.
“My hips, butterfly-lifted,
crowd with children,
dip and flow with the sun,
roll from the granite like salt.”
This poem is not highly erotic or raunchy, it has a tone that drips with descriptors that could align with a highly sexual poem. When put into context as a song for grinding corn as the title suggests, I wonder if this writing is meant to highlight and praise fertility and in collaboration, sexuality, as both a means of substance and person-to-person consumption. Fertility and procreation is a hot topic in humanities and in agriculture studies, the two not only have incredible overlap on a metaphorical level, but food and reproductive health are incredibly intertwined on both a biological and political level.