Book review - Kitchen culture: re-inventing kitchen design by Johnny Grey, Jacqui Small, 2004

Johnny Grey`s book on kitchen design talks about the underling and unseen elements of the functional and visible elements of the kitchen, all from the practical perspective of someone who has been designing kitchens for over 20 years both in Europe and the US.

The book is divided in five sections
1. Kitchen culture: reinventing kitchen space - section on the culture behind the creation of this central space in any home and any civilization
2. The core of kitchen design and 3. Communicating between space and people, presenting 13. study cases of kitchens from the client wish to the final results
4. Kitchen works: design analysis and 5. Whole environment: architectural opportunities presenting in a systematized way benchmarks and measurements to be taken into account.

The book ends kind of suddenly, lacking a wrap up and conclusions section.
I found three remarkable things about the book:

• Those parts of the study cases where we are presented with solutions that take into account ideas and wishes expressed by the clients, the conditions offered by the space itself and the designer/engineer expertise

• The part presenting heights and distances, ideal positioning and order of furniture for the supreme kitchen taking into account both cooking efficiency and also socializing opportunities

• The shift in kitchen use: it is not a secluded laboratory, though it can easily become one, but a space for gatherings and social interactions.

These are not just smart looking kitchens. For the author comfort is defined by two standards: ``psychological and body support (…) Body support is achieved through using high quality materials, good design, thinking and careful execution. Customs and original designs works in the best way of achieving this. ``

Dedicated work area and soft design are two of the Johnny Grey trademark kitchens. Dedicated work area is pretty much self explanatory: it is a piece of furniture built so that it can serve one task well: perfect chopping board or perfect sink. Soft geometry is the use of curved shapes complementing how the human body moves in and around space.

The photographs, color drawings and layouts of the kitchens studied do a great job of both selling the kitchens as well as helping one understand, trough atmosphere shots and close up of details, what the look and, most important, feel of these ``one of a kind`` spaces is.

The book ends suddenly leaving the reader coveting for of a final chapter or some conclusive words of wisdom.

Let's have a bite! Making (some) sense of the performing food concept

The goal of this article is to take a first bite from the performing food concept. After some talks, books, videos and blog articles, basically after beating about the performing food phenomena it's finally time to dig in (while it's still hot). What came out is a matrix that puts in relation and can encompass any kind of PF (PF stands for performing food). This matrix, at least for now, does not solve bigger issues such as why is PF important or what does PF produce but it is important because it validates a specific performance or food type as being part of this PF continuum and puts in in relation to other performances or food types.

The food - performance – performing food matrix
This first attempt to formalize the performing food phenomena bases itself on a performing food matrix. Basically the goal of this approach is to present how varied in shape the performing food manifestations are and also to put in relation or proximity some of these.

The matrix I am talking about is a Cartesian xyz system that supports tracking and determining qualities of food performances on three axes:

• performance,
• food
• and the connection degree between food and performance

on three especially alloted separate value scales, graded from one to five.

On the food axis one means just referring to food, two means serving food (no cooking involved) and five means creating a dish with nutritional value, healthy, tasty, pleasing to the eye, all using professional means

1. Referring to food
2. Just serving
3. Paring and serving
4. Paring simple treatment and mixing and serving
5. Paring, heat treatment, mixing and serving

On the performing axis one means misinterpreting something as performance and five would means deliberately creating a representation for a specific purpose (esthetic, commercial, entertaining, religious, educational etc) professionally using an array of instruments (light, sound, tone, props, words, movement, music, sound effects, stage scenery etc.)

1. Nonmatrix performance: acting performed onstage which do not involve role playing
2. Symbolized matrix performing onstage actions which the spectator recognizes as belonging to a character, even dough the performer continues to behave as herself
3. Received acting onstage behavior in which the performer makes no attempt to impersonate a character, but it is nonetheless viewed as part of the situation of a scene. Extras practice received acting.
4. Simple acting when a performer simulates the speech and behavior of a character
5. Complex acting when the performer’s entire physical mental and emotional capabilities are involved in the portrayal of a character. (Schechner: 2006, p 175 -176)

On the ``Connection between food and performance axis`` the lowest connection degree stands for accidental, unintended paring of food and performance where the two evolve independent of each other while as five stands for a strong interconnection between food and performance where food is used at the same time both as an ingredient but also as an expression instrument.

1. No connection what so ever
2. Connected in meaning but running in parallel
3. Some of the actions are common for performing and cooking
4. Almost all actions are common for cooking and performing

The matrix would than look like this:





The study subjects
Varying in function, a performance using and referring to food aims to:

• entertain
• make something that is beautiful
• mark or change identity
• make or foster a community
• heal
• teach, persuade or convince
• deal with the sacred and / or the demonic (SCh p 46)

One of the things that I have understood in setting up this initial research is that it is best to refer to a specific and as precise as possible subject in order to be able to analyze it. Basically you have to refer to a performance in particular and not a certain type of food, or performance food, in general such as ``TV cooking shows``. From an analysis point of view it's not even wroth to refer to ``Jamie Oliver’s type of TV cooking show``. The study subjects can be performances (with one resulting dish or not) created by an author on a certain date. (For now at least because if you travel through a system long enough you undertaken it's shape and functions and you can describe it more general terms. So later some theory about performing food could emerge or about a certain type of performing food)

I have chosen ten types of performing food that I thought would, first and foremost, prove how diverse the field of P-ingF is:

• TV cooking shows
• Flair bar tending
• Latte art
• Religious rites (Theophagy)
• Social rites – birthday cake
• Gueridon service
• Social rites - entertaining guests
• Performance piece
• Social rites – the Russian podaccha
• Performance piece

All of these performances were firstly investigated from different perspectives to create a performing food certificate. The perspectives that the performances are consider under refer to both structure and function. About all this in one of my next posts.

Book review - Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows by Kathleen Collins, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009

People are hungry for food and entertainment and a TV cooking show aims at satisfying both. Just as the title promises, this book investigates the evolution of cooking shows along side the changes in American main stream mentality. A great deal of research is called upon in the investigation of over 80 years of cooking shows starting from the radio to the cooking TV niche of today. The cooking TV show industry was not always and industry and the entertainment aspect was not a sine qua non since the very beginning: ``As the role of food changed from mere necessity to a means of self-expression, the nature of cooking shows has shifted from didactic to entertaining``.

One important shift in the evolution of TV cooking shows has been the apparition of personalities which lead to these shows developing social and esthetic values. Aunt Sammy, a fictional character played in different stated by different personalities, can be traced as the beginning of cooking shows personas back in the days when radio was the ultimate communication technology in mass media. She delivered recipes and nutritional information to housewives and still managed to squeeze in some jokes or to talk about how she put aside a Peach Dainty recipe for the visit of Queen Mary of Romania. Besides informational content regarding ingredients or recipes these shows were meant to publicized and sell certain brands. From those corny beginnings to Martha Stewart is a long way.



From the performing food perspective James Beard, host of a TV show in the 40`s, is one of the most important characters in the TV cooking show industry. Firstly due to the fact that people who knew him personally remembered that as an actor – wanted a lot to play classic opera - he was a bit stiff and awkward on camera while off camera he had a great personality. So he was aware he was acting / entertaining. Secondly because, just as pointed out also by the author of the book ``For Beard serving food was always more than just a matter of sustenance or proper nutrition: it was as performance. «Put on a show! » he wrote. ``. For an aspiring actor to be a host on a cooking show was a great situation: ``At least a chance to cook and act at the same time`` Beard said. I find remarkable the intentionality of the acting for teaching other people how to cook. Unlike for instance Julia Child who was greatly entertaining but not intended to create a persona for herself on the show.

Some of these great TV food stars were lacking main stream features when they came about and would probably not catch the interest of producers and audience connoisseurs and marketers. Some did not manage to do this back in their days or were not convinced themselves and despite this lack of trust made TV and culture history. Besides how they did it is also important what they did with they cooking show: demystified French cuisine, introduces oriental food, reintroduces unhealthy but tasty foods, talked about cooking as entertaining instead of having fun, repositioned the profession of cooking chefs etc.
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All in all a great book. A great deal of research goes in this investigation of almost a century of mass media cooking shows starting from the radio to the TV shows of today. So all the shifts and turns of the particular TV industry reflecting changes in the mentality are well backed up and substantiated. The book itself makes for an amusing and fascinating read. The author is a mature woman endowed with a great sense of humor, vital to almost all personalities who made a great contribution to cuisine and, what’s more important for the performing good cause, with knowledge of the performing arts.