Phagomania: The Food, The Bad and The Ugly
We've all taken (and tweeted) a picture of a good meal, but one blog is dedicated to the art of the bad food photo. We take a trip back to the past to find out why there was so much jelly going around
Time to point and laugh at the past, as in Kim Webb of San Antonio, Texas, this column has found a kindred spirit. Collecting various old cookbooks and recipe cards, her Bad and Ugly of Retro Food blog has been showcasing the wonders of both awful photography and questionable food palettes of the 60s and 70s to the world.
Set up by Kim to counter the current engrossment with perfectly and tastefully shot food photography, detracting from what the food should really be about – eating. And the internet agreed, it seemed.
Kim didn’t expect the level of popularity the site reached. “If someone told me it has the potential to reach over 100K views when I first started,” she explains, “ I wouldn't have believed it.”
What we don’t believe is the amount of mayonnaise and cold, leftover vegetables we used to go through. Even lobster. Lobster? Smother it in mayonnaise. Rack of lamb? Cake it in jelly and serve it with some boiled eggs. In the world of bad food photography there's nothing a sprig of parsley, mayonnaise and soft lighting won’t sort out, a motto that seems to have escaped us over the years.
So why do the photos strike a chord? Kim thinks she knows why: “I think it triggers nostalgia in a lot of people. There are those who remember eating it, cooking it, smelling it, etc.
"For the younger people, it's a morbid fascination that food wasn't always beautiful and perfectly packaged. Who nowadays can imagine slicing into a jellied tongue or eating bologna with a cherry glaze sauce?” Indeed.
You won’t find trending, Instagrammed jellied tongue on your '15 minute recipe from celebrity chef du jour' app, but today's image filters might have made a big difference to the pictures.
Kim says: "With today's skills and equipment, the same gelatin mold from 1971 could possibly look edible. There wasn't as much doctoring of the photographs. What I saw in those cookbooks is probably what it would look like if I tried to cook it.”
It is that honesty that makes us even more glad we are not subjecting ourselves to these culinary monstrosities. But really, look at that radish garnish. If you do try that next time they’re to hand, be sure to take a photo.