Food porn
Encyclopedia
Food porn is a glamourised
spectacular visual presentation of cooking
or eating
in advertisements, infomercial
s, cooking shows or other visual media, foods boasting a high fat and calorie content, exotic dishes that arouse a desire to eat or the glorification of food as a substitute for sex. Food porn often takes the form of food photography
and styling that presents food provocatively, in a similar way to glamour photography
or pornographic photography.
In the United Kingdom
, food porn is usually acknowledged as advertisements where food is presented in an 'arousing' manner, for example; with water dripping from it in order to imitate a woman with bodily fluids dripping from her loins. The term appears to have been coined by the feminist critic Rosalind Coward
in her 1984 book Female Desire in which she writes: "Cooking food and presenting it beautifully is an act of servitude. It is a way of expressing affection through a gift... That we should aspire to produce perfectly finished and presented food is a symbol of a willing and enjoyable participation in servicing others. Food pornography exactly sustains these meanings relating to the preparation of food. The kinds of picture used always repress the process of production of a meal. They are always beautifully lit, often touched up." (p. 103)
In the United States, food porn is a term applied when "food manufacturers are capitalising on a backlash against low-calorie and diet foods by marketing treats that boast a high fat content and good artery-clogging potential". The origin of the term was attributed to the Center for Science in the Public Interest
which began publishing a regular column called "Right Stuff vs. Food Porn" for its Nutrition Action Healthletter in January 1998.
Another possible meaning is referring to the attractiveness and presentation style of some cooking show hosts, such as Nigella Lawson
. Lawson has become renowned for her flirtatious manner of presentation, and the perceived overt sexuality of her presentation style has led to her being labelled by several commentators as the "queen of food porn".
s relating to food
, where it is a term for photography and writing about food that is done in a decadent and borderline erotic style. A number of LiveJournal
communities exist for food porn, often geared towards more specific audiences or types of food porn.
Apart from deliberately sensual photography and description, the practice of simply posting photos for the target community to "lust" after is common in various internet subcultures
that have a focus on food. For example, aficionados of specific culinary styles, such as vegan or Japanese cuisine
, will share, admire, discuss, and draw inspiration from the photos (in keeping with the pornography metaphor, these preferences can be likened to niches or fetishes
). The term food porn receives mostly tongue-in-cheek usage in these groups due to the lack of any truly sexual/erotic bent in the discussion (and actual pornography arguably does not inspire discussion as a primary response); it is a way for culinary hobbyists to poke good-natured fun at themselves.
Less well-known is the popularity of food porn amongst eating-disordered bloggers. Most often, the porn features items considered off-limits, such as fast food and desserts; the responses include disgust, determination, longing, and satisfaction (often to the puzzlement of non eating-disordered persons), as though seeing the photos is a consequence-free substitute for actually eating the foods pictured. Others take pride in being able to view tempting foods and not give in; in a related vein, among bulimic users, the food porn is often preceded with a "binge trigger warning" for the benefit of those wishing to avoid any temptation that might kick-start a binge-purge cycle. On the internet, these images often exist alongside thinspiration images on pro-ana
and other sites and online eating disorder communities.
s or a poor nutrition
al choice, but nevertheless extremely enjoyable. In this way, it is synonymous with junk food
. Fast food
and sweets
are primary examples of junk food. This usage is favoured, and perhaps coined, by the Center for Science in the Public Interest
.
The film 9½ Weeks
started a (mostly short-lived) fad of incorporating food into erotic play. This was spoofed in Hot Shots!
See also wet and messy fetishism
.
The title of the 1999 film American Pie
refers to a scene in the film in which the lead character is caught masturbating with an apple pie after previously being told that third base
feels "like warm apple pie".
The 2006 film Idiocracy
, which portrays a dystopia
n society in which the entire world population has low intelligence, features a scene where a man watches a pornographic television program that shows a woman cutting a steak
with a fork and knife using her feet.
Glamour (presentation)
Glamour originally was a magical-occult spell cast on somebody to make them believe that something or somebody was attractive. In the late 19th century terminology a non magical item used to help create a more attractive appearance gradually became 'a glamour'...
spectacular visual presentation of cooking
Cooking
Cooking is the process of preparing food by use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training...
or eating
Eating
Eating is the ingestion of food to provide for all organisms their nutritional needs, particularly for energy and growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter,...
in advertisements, infomercial
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
s, cooking shows or other visual media, foods boasting a high fat and calorie content, exotic dishes that arouse a desire to eat or the glorification of food as a substitute for sex. Food porn often takes the form of food photography
Food photography
Food photography is a still life specialization of commercial photography, aimed at producing attractive photographs of food for use in advertisements, packaging, menus or cookbooks...
and styling that presents food provocatively, in a similar way to glamour photography
Glamour photography
Glamour photography is a genre of photography whereby the subjects, usually female, are portrayed in a romantic or sexually alluring way. The subjects may be fully clothed or seminude, but glamour photography stops short of deliberately arousing the viewer and being pornographic photography.Glamour...
or pornographic photography.
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, food porn is usually acknowledged as advertisements where food is presented in an 'arousing' manner, for example; with water dripping from it in order to imitate a woman with bodily fluids dripping from her loins. The term appears to have been coined by the feminist critic Rosalind Coward
Rosalind Coward
Rosalind Coward is a British academic, journalist and writer.She has been a columnist for The Guardian from 1992 and was previously a regular contributor to The Observer and Marxism Today. She wrote a regular column for The Guardians Comment pages between 1995 and 2004...
in her 1984 book Female Desire in which she writes: "Cooking food and presenting it beautifully is an act of servitude. It is a way of expressing affection through a gift... That we should aspire to produce perfectly finished and presented food is a symbol of a willing and enjoyable participation in servicing others. Food pornography exactly sustains these meanings relating to the preparation of food. The kinds of picture used always repress the process of production of a meal. They are always beautifully lit, often touched up." (p. 103)
In the United States, food porn is a term applied when "food manufacturers are capitalising on a backlash against low-calorie and diet foods by marketing treats that boast a high fat content and good artery-clogging potential". The origin of the term was attributed to the Center for Science in the Public Interest
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Center for Science in the Public Interest is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit watchdog and consumer advocacy group focusing on nutritional education and awareness.-History and funding:...
which began publishing a regular column called "Right Stuff vs. Food Porn" for its Nutrition Action Healthletter in January 1998.
In popular culture
Jim Lahey, owner and executive baker/chef at Sullivan Street Bakery and Co. Restaurant, was one of the first chefs to bring the term to the culinary scene on his website launched in 1996.Another possible meaning is referring to the attractiveness and presentation style of some cooking show hosts, such as Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. Lawson is the daughter of Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Vanessa Salmon, whose family owned the J. Lyons and Co. empire...
. Lawson has become renowned for her flirtatious manner of presentation, and the perceived overt sexuality of her presentation style has led to her being labelled by several commentators as the "queen of food porn".
Blogging
Food porn has become particularly prevalent in blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s relating to food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
, where it is a term for photography and writing about food that is done in a decadent and borderline erotic style. A number of LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
communities exist for food porn, often geared towards more specific audiences or types of food porn.
Apart from deliberately sensual photography and description, the practice of simply posting photos for the target community to "lust" after is common in various internet subcultures
Cyberculture
Cyberculture is the culture that has emerged, or is emerging, from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment and business. It is also the study of various social phenomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of network communication, such as online communities,...
that have a focus on food. For example, aficionados of specific culinary styles, such as vegan or Japanese cuisine
Japanese cuisine
Japanese cuisine has developed over the centuries as a result of many political and social changes throughout Japan. The cuisine eventually changed with the advent of the Medieval age which ushered in a shedding of elitism with the age of shogun rule...
, will share, admire, discuss, and draw inspiration from the photos (in keeping with the pornography metaphor, these preferences can be likened to niches or fetishes
Fetishism
A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others...
). The term food porn receives mostly tongue-in-cheek usage in these groups due to the lack of any truly sexual/erotic bent in the discussion (and actual pornography arguably does not inspire discussion as a primary response); it is a way for culinary hobbyists to poke good-natured fun at themselves.
Less well-known is the popularity of food porn amongst eating-disordered bloggers. Most often, the porn features items considered off-limits, such as fast food and desserts; the responses include disgust, determination, longing, and satisfaction (often to the puzzlement of non eating-disordered persons), as though seeing the photos is a consequence-free substitute for actually eating the foods pictured. Others take pride in being able to view tempting foods and not give in; in a related vein, among bulimic users, the food porn is often preceded with a "binge trigger warning" for the benefit of those wishing to avoid any temptation that might kick-start a binge-purge cycle. On the internet, these images often exist alongside thinspiration images on pro-ana
Pro-ana
Pro-ana refers to the promotion of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. It is often referred to simply as "ana" and is sometimes personified by anorexics as a girl named Ana. The lesser-used term pro-mia refers likewise to bulimia nervosa and is sometimes used interchangeably with...
and other sites and online eating disorder communities.
Food porn and junk food
The term is also sometimes used to refer to food that is very high in calorieCalorie
The calorie is a pre-SI metric unit of energy. It was first defined by Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a unit of heat, entering French and English dictionaries between 1841 and 1867. In most fields its use is archaic, having been replaced by the SI unit of energy, the joule...
s or a poor nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
al choice, but nevertheless extremely enjoyable. In this way, it is synonymous with junk food
Junk food
Junk food is an informal term applied to some foods that are perceived to have little or no nutritional value ; to products with nutritional value, but which also have ingredients considered unhealthy when regularly eaten; or to those considered unhealthy to consume at all...
. Fast food
Fast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...
and sweets
SweetS
was a Japanese idol group. Put together through auditions, the group debuted in 2003 on the avex trax label. Although the group met minor success, they disbanded after three years with the release of a final single in June 2006....
are primary examples of junk food. This usage is favoured, and perhaps coined, by the Center for Science in the Public Interest
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Center for Science in the Public Interest is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit watchdog and consumer advocacy group focusing on nutritional education and awareness.-History and funding:...
.
Actual pornography
The term may also refer to pornography in which sexual games are played with food items.The film 9½ Weeks
9½ Weeks
9½ Weeks is a 1986 erotic drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger. It is based on the novel of the same name by Elizabeth McNeill....
started a (mostly short-lived) fad of incorporating food into erotic play. This was spoofed in Hot Shots!
Hot Shots!
Hot Shots! is a 1991 comedy spoof film starring Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes, Valeria Golino, Lloyd Bridges, Kevin Dunn, Jon Cryer and Ryan Stiles . It was directed by Jim Abrahams, co-director of Airplane! , and was written by Abrahams and Pat Proft...
See also wet and messy fetishism
Wet and messy fetishism
Wet and messy fetish , is a form of sexual fetishism whereby a person becomes aroused when substances are deliberately and generously applied to the naked skin, predominantly the face, or to the clothes people are wearing...
.
The title of the 1999 film American Pie
American Pie (film)
American Pie is a 1999 teen comedy film written by Adam Herz. American Pie was the directorial film debut of brothers Paul and Chris Weitz, and the first film in the American Pie film series...
refers to a scene in the film in which the lead character is caught masturbating with an apple pie after previously being told that third base
Baseball metaphors for sex
In the culture of American adolescents, the game of baseball is often used as a euphemistic metaphor for the degree of sexual intimacy achieved in intimate encounters or relationships...
feels "like warm apple pie".
The 2006 film Idiocracy
Idiocracy
Idiocracy is a 2006 American film, a satirical science fiction comedy, directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews....
, which portrays a dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n society in which the entire world population has low intelligence, features a scene where a man watches a pornographic television program that shows a woman cutting a steak
Steak
A steak is a cut of meat . Most are cut perpendicular to the muscle fibers, improving the perceived tenderness of the meat. In North America, steaks are typically served grilled, pan-fried, or broiled. The more tender cuts from the loin and rib are cooked quickly, using dry heat, and served whole...
with a fork and knife using her feet.