So this was the post where in this place right here you would normally be seeing a massive pile of food magazines all fanned out nice and arty because this post was supposed to be about our food porn collection and not our actual porn collection because, boy, if you know how expensive that stuff is you know you’re buying it for keeps; but seeing as our camera is broken and I’m sick of using the dodgy webcam let’s all just use our imaginations and pretend there is a picture as described above, right here.
Nice.
So as I was saying. The food porn. It has to stop.
Worse, I think, what has to stop is the delusion that when I purchase said magazines I will diligently, and with love, cut out all the recipes that I think we will like
(but I’m sure only about 20% will get eaten thanks to Riley’s food fussiness)
and then paste these into a ring-bound exercise book, which is broken up into 6 individual cooking areas or ‘themes.’ Then, once tried, these recipes will be rated on taste and ease and any which fail to live up to expectations will be pasted over once the next wave of food magazines hit the stores.
It is ridiculous.
It’s gone past what was once a moderately interesting exercise because, people, here is the kicker: I loathe cooking. Or something pretty close to loathing. So once I bought them as perhaps a way to ease myself into the occupation. Because surely if they look that nice in the picture then I could also get the same result? Yes?
This air-brushed, food-art, industry shouldn’t surprise me. I mean models have makeup artists and stylists. Food also has specialists behind the scenes who know that a piece of cheese on a Big Mac ad mightn’t necessarily be cheese at all in the shot, but a piece of plastic because it hold it’s shape and colour better.
And so what makes me frustrated with myself is that I buy into that, just I daily struggle against absorbing all that other fakery in fashion magazines which are plastered across our supermarkets – right next to the food magazines.
Consume, consume, consume we do; first with our eyes, then with the help of our wallets, then with our mouths. I’m not implying there is an absolute link between our taking over as the world’s fattest nation and the fact we buy 11 million food magazines a year* but I wonder if some of us should – like me – wonder why the hell we’re picking up yet another magazine when our nanna’s and great-aunt’s old-faithfuls are tucked away in our cupboard and are still the first ones we crack open when we’re deciding what to cook this week. (At least, this is what I do.)
Because my head is swimming now with so many souffle recipes and flavour combinations I need to stop and remind myself that I have never made a souffle and I’m not planning on starting anytime soon.
To sum: I think I need to stop buying the magazines.
And I need to tell Adam to stop doing the same. *ahem*
