Food Porn

Who would have suspected I would succumb? Searching for sites that showed luscious curves, moistly exposed. Artistically displayed against a background meant to enhance their wares. Food porn. A field I was only vaguely aware of until I began connecting, social-media wise.

Did you know what a big deal it is? I mean, all of us foodies have heard about “food stylists”, those guys/gals who stage food for magazine shoots. Sure. And the rumor is it isn’t even food. Just painted plastic meant to look like food. But I never believed that. Like Santa, magazine food is real food. How could they fool an amateur like me?

But “food porn” is the term all over the foodie sites referring to the sinfully richly displayed recipes my virtual friends are making. And they enter these photos in contests and send them off to magazines for publication. Who knew?

Typing “food porn” into Google yielded 19, 900, 000 hits! Wikipedia offers a definition. “Food Porn Daily” (at http://bit.ly/1w7ftl) is a site telling you everything you need to know about it. And the pictures. OMG! Stop licking your screen!

A quote on their site from The New Yorker says it best: “The point is to get very close to what you are filming, so close that you can see an ingredient’s ‘pores’ (You should believe the dish is in your living room), which then triggers some kind of Neanderthal reflex. If you’re flicking from channel to channel and come upon food that has been shot in this way, you will be hardwired as a human being to stop, look, and bring it back to your cave.”

Well, we all do know that this is one area of food in which I have little interest in pursuing—except as a voyeur. There is something delightful about coming across a photo of Oreo Smash in its blue bowl that makes we want to bite into my computer screen. (Visit Amy’s “Very Culinary” blog at http://bit.ly/19jPGA and scroll down.) That is one beautiful picture.

Or happen upon Recipe Girl’s Fudgy Caramel Brownies (at her blog http://bit.ly/EU6pg) and tell me you didn’t almost stick out your tongue to catch a drip of that caramel.

Do you think you could get your family to eat green chips? Take a look at the Crispy Kale Chips (at Laura’s Best Recipes at http://bit.ly/10KDoy) and tell me you don’t think they look tempting.

Or Ethan Adeland’s “Tastes Better with Friends” (http://bit.ly/a5NbMI) Potato Leek Soup photographed in a snow bank and his astounding Cherry Snowball cookies from his grandmother’s cookbook. Yum, yum!

And Reader, these are merely a few of the food porn opportunities that await. You’ll be bringing a fork and spoon to your computer once you discover food porn sites. And telling people that you, a highly respectable parent/teacher/crossing guard/librarian/contractor/file clerk, are into porn—well the look they’ll give you will just be the cherry on the top of your delight!