Given a continued fascination with the daikon, I recently made a recipe from Food and Wine magazine, which involved two hours of cooking and two minutes of eating. It was at this moment that I began to question my commitment to gourmet food. Or at least, preparing it for myself after yet another 10pm dinner, and purple, beet stained hands.

The inspiration this time was two-fold. First, I’d never tried anything like it, and “the new” is enticing. Secondly, the recipe itself was inspired by an artist and likened to a paintbrush. The photograph was probably what did it. It looked gorgeous!

People like to joke about food porn. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the phrase, but I can certainly understand it as fetish. Food photography has become a real art form and for some of us, looking at it is fodder for goose bumps. It’s a symbol of passion. Sometimes it feels as though the photograph is more important than the food itself.

New York design consultants at Fork & Design have mastered the art of food photography. In fact, artist and photographer, Emilie Baltz, one of the principals at Fork & Design, has taken it to another level with her Gourmet Junk Food. Considering my personal quest for eating only real food, I have to admit that I cringe when viewing these images thinking of the fruit roll-up and Reese’s peanut butter cup ingredients. Still, it turns out you can make just about anything beautiful given a good eye for design. After all, it’s all about the photography.

Image: Emilie Baltz

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