From the Series
Anelde Greeff is the content director of both the Eat In and Eat Out magazines in SA. The ultimate Eat In reader, she loves shopping for food and discovering new markets, stores and products even more than she does cooking. We asked her if the purpose of eating design is only to manage weight and biological health concerns?
Eating design is not just about engineering the right diet to suit your bodily needs and goals. It’s much like clothing and furniture design. You could ask the same question there, but phrased differently: Is the purpose of clothing design just to protect your body against the elements? Is the purpose of furniture design only to make sure you have a place to sit or lie down? Clearly not.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a bit of a hedonist, or perhaps it’s because I enjoy shopping and cooking, and the other processes associated with food, but to my mind, unlike clothing or furniture design, eating design is even less about the final product, and even more about the act associated with it.
Eating design is about tailoring the act of eating – the verb – and not just the food. It’s considering and planning the physical, emotional, environmental and psychological dimensions of this simple deed. It takes into account the way in which we experience eating in a particular moment, but also the experiences and memories that we connect with it. And if it is done successfully, it makes us remember gatherings and communities long after we’ve forgotten the actual food.
