On Art And Artifice In Culinary Pursuits

Recently, I have been reacquainting myself with John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, a series of interlinking short stories that the author uses to discuss many of the characteristics of story telling, language, narrative and art in general.  The book does a masterful job of asking readers why it is we place so much trust in narrators of stories when we know that they are merely another creation of the mind of the author who we would view as fallible if we knew anything about their life. The book is a critique of the writing process and literature itself.

Additionally, Barth's book asks the deeper question: what is art?  (a question I have explored in conversation with several friends).  I believe that Barth would argue that art and artifice share the same root but only in the way chimps and humans share the same ancestor.  Both words have evolved separately in different directions which have muddied what the common meanings of the words are with the classical definitions.  But, that art and artifice have the pedigree to perform the function of differentiation. 

Art (as a word) was brought to the English language by the French who derived it from the Latin nominative form of artem which is ars meaning: practical skill; a business craft.  Both Latin words are derived from the root ar meaning: fit together; join.  The English used the word art to mean: skill as a result of learning or practice and used it to describe the work of artisans such as those who worked with stained glass.  Today, however, we seem to apply this to any creation we view as outside our own abilities or skills.  If we see a painting of flowers that is beyond our abilities as painters we tend to say "that's so artistic, the painter is such an artist."  But, if I, as a painter, was to make a painting that critics raved about and declared it a "a modern, contemporary commentary on traditional mores meant to question our ideas of human existence, blah, blah, blah" and everyone agrees this is the finest example of art in the history of the medium; and then someone recreates hundreds of copies, indistinguishable from the original and sells them for more than I made off my original, and you buy one and hang it in your living room, do you own a work of art from an artist?

By the traditional sense of the word I would have to concede that you do and they are.  However, academics in fine art wished to separate skillful craftsman from imaginative artists and needed a definition of the word which harkens back to the Latin ar and came up with this meaning: "those which appeal to the mind and the imagination" (fitting together in imaginative ways), I would argue a new word is needed to differentiate between my original and the very skillful reproductions.  This word I will use is not meant, in any way, to suggest a lack of esthetic appeal or talent, only a differentiation in the purpose for which the thing is created.  The word I use, and which Barth alludes to, is: artifice.

Arifice is a word that, also, came to the English from the French via the Latin.  In Middle French the meaning was: "skill; cunning" which, used as a noun, became " workmanship, anything made by craft or skill" but which has, today, come to mean: "device, trick".   This is unfortunate because the root of the word is a more useful and descriptive meaning: ars which we've discussed and facere "do"; doing craftsmanship.  This gives recognition to the talents of the artisan without stripping them of their due, while still distinguishing between the fine art definition of art: a creation of the mind and imagination.

I don't expect Messrs. Merriam and Webster to reconsider the definitions of these words on my say but, in future I will distinguish between them by referring to art: refitting one's environment, appealing to the mind and imagination for the purpose of creativity.  And artifice: the making of anything by skill or craft for the sole purpose of industry.  One does not need skill to create art and one does not need creativity to create artifice and there is no rule that says art can not be profitable but, its main purpose should not be profit.  Possessing both skill and imagination, however, would elevate an artistic creation.

So, what  has this to do with food and wine.  Well, it seems impossible, today, to read reviews of restaurants and wines without someone referring to the food or wine as art.  I take exception to the use of the word, as I hope I have made clear, not because I believe there is a lack of talent, but only because it lacks accountability for the creative process and the purpose for the thing's creation.  I will be the first to admit that there is a lot of talent that goes into conceiving and executing a dish in a restaurant, and striking the right balance between taste and presentation is a skill I admire with some envy. 

But, in most restaurants today, cooks and chefs are simply reworking a series of recipes and techniques that have been the staple of the restaurant business for several decades now.  Escoffier, as Adam Gopnik pointed out, invented the whole premise of fine dining today:

Escoffier's  formula for food was, in essence, the same as Jasper Johns's formula for Dada art: take something; do something to it; then do something else to it. It was cooking that rested, above all, on the idea of the master sauce: a lump of protein was cooked in a pan, and what was left behind [...] was deglazed with wine and stock, ornamented with butter or cream, and then poured back over the lump of protein.

 Add to that a chef's approach to plating, which is simply a series of tried and tested ways of piling food on a plate in aesthetically appealing ways (skill, cunning, craft), and you have today's haute cuisine with tiny portions on oversize plates re-imagined in innumerable ways.

I once heard Anthony Bourdain suggest that "there are very few artists" amongst professional chefs.  I believe he said it in a manner meant to provoke, as is Bourdain's way.  I have no such motivation when I suggest that he is correct.  But, does this mean that we should not be in awe of the new generation of cooks and chefs and even foodies opening new and exciting restaurants that eschew the Escoffier model for a return to regional cuisine that celebrates instead the peasant dishes developed over centuries.  These restauranteurs, such as Morin and McMillan at Joe Beef in Montreal, are stripping their food of the artifice (in the contemporary definition of device or trick) and creating cuisine that is about flavour, tradition and sustainability.  After all, for millenia food was meant to nourish and sustain, both the body and the environment, out of necessity rather than fashion.
 
The presentation of this food and the interaction amongst the patrons and cooks (especially in venues that have taken to communal tables)  is helping to reconnect diners to the culture of food.  This participatory approach to dining is, in itself, an artistic endeavor where the mere act of dining becomes artistic expression through interactions between cooks and guests with a new experience with every seating; while the food itself may be artifice, the experience becomes an art. 

In addition, the movement known as "molecular gastronomy" - though not by its practitioners - is another exciting new trend that might offer a glimpse at true culinary art.  The manipulation of food to resemble anything but food provides the diner with a multi-sensory experience and a chance at a new way to taste and experience familiar foods.  But, to be clear, this only applies to those who are attempting new experiences and, in my opinion anyway, excludes those who attempt to perfect the way food is cooked.  Heston Blumenthal is an amazing cook but, in his efforts to perfect dishes he loses the very essence of what art is, namely an interaction between the artist's take on a subject and the patrons' response to it; a kind of manipulation of the senses by providing the unexpected.

In the area of wine and beer, I believe there is even less art being practiced as the processes become more bogged down in science and tradition and technique all focused on attaining a certain "standard" for a grape rather than an unexpected experience.  It is true that every wine maker and brewer is presenting consumers with their own take on a style or grape but, is there any new method or technique that hasn't already been attempted; is anyone trying to shock drinkers for the sake of amusement or bemusement alone.  Merely fiddling with the proportions and "cooking" times does not, again in my opinion, constitute art.  A skill? A craft? Absolutely.  But, the artists were the inventors of wine and beer that found the ways to turn fermenting, rotting fruit into a cultural icon and in most cases they did it with an eye on enjoying the product more than the potential sales.

And to me this is where the culinary arts have to concede:  no winery, brewery or restaurant is creating art solely for the sake of its creation; every bottle is filled and dish served in the hope of turning a profit - and usually a quite hefty one at that.   That is not to criticize, who amongst us isn't looking to find an enjoyable way to make a buck?  But this is the realm of artifice, in my definition, and we should enjoy it for what it is and admire the skill and talents used without feeling badly about calling it by its rightful name: craftsmanship!