The great essayist Tom Wolfe wrote a long piece more than twenty years ago titled ” The Painted Word”. In that essay he posited that modern art had become so abstract that it could not be appreciated or understood without an accompanying text. A red dot on a black background could be a drunken cyclops, a thermonuclear explosion or the omniscient watchfulness of Big Brother. Without the commentary the painting cannot be understood.
I fear we may have reached the same level of obtuseness with our food. Kevin Pang, a food guy for the Trib writes last Thursday: ” At Edgewater’s Jin Thai, chef Jin Roong-seang has engineered a feat of structural marvel. She takes minced chicken, bean thread noodles ,cabbage and carrots, and stuffs the filling into a deboned chicken wing (with tip still attached). It’s then deep fried in a light, tempura-style batter and served alongside a cross between sriracha and mae ploy.”
Or you can go to Chop Suey No. 1 on Chicago Avenue and get 6 wings for $4.99 and dunk them yellow or red stuff. Food is not art.Food is not science. Food is food.
