Making food look pretty - the art of 'plating' for mere mortals
"Thoughtful presentation leads to a more enjoyable meal. So should we learn to make similar efforts at home – particularly when feeding small children?" Dale Berning Sawa -The Guardian
This post probably risks being a plug for Coles Magazine - their Christmas edition is out, and as I flicked through it I was struck by how much of it was focussed on what the food looked like. Well it is Christmas, and so we are probably trying to be fancier than we might otherwise be. And there were some really good simple ideas in there - and at least one over the top fancy one too.
I'm not a member of Instagram, but I gather this is where the action is if you want to know how to make food look good. People are constantly photographing what they are eating - whether out in a restaurant or at home - and posting it on Instagram. And the web is also full of tips on how to make food look good. So I'm not going to give you any here.
Besides who am I to lecture on this particular subject because I have to say that I'm not that good at it. What I do never looks like the picture - and these days, whether in magazines or recipe books we generally get a picture of what things should look like. They make it look so simple, those television chefs - a flick of the wrist and you have perfection on a plate. Mind you I am getting better and sticking to the simple things. Colour, I have learnt, is a prime thing to focus on - like the strawberry salsa with the haloumi that I have written about before and which, served on a white plate, looks pretty good. White plates are a good background for most things, though paler things look better on dark things like pieces of slate, wood, or just a darker plate.
Why do we care? For indeed we do. They have done scientific studies on this is the UK - finding that people will pay almost twice as much for the same thing if it has been skilfully arranged to look good. Like the soup shown above I guess. It's the same thing on the right and the left, and I doubt that the garnish on the right would change the taste enormously. A little perhaps - fresh herbs always add a subtle something I think - as does a swirl of cream, but the basic soup would still be the overriding taste. But I'm betting you could charge twice as much for the one on the right. Plus you would be more tempted to eat it. And it's so easily done. Even I might manage that.
"Care for appearance also shows that you have pride in what you’ve made and that you have taken the trouble to try to attract and entice the people you’re making it for. This is a given when you are entertaining but all the more important when it is for the people you've already got!" Frog Hollow Farm
So true. And I found a few articles that particularly drew attention to the importance of making food attractive to children, who are notoriously fussy eaters. Although in my own experience it was the teenagers that were fussier than the children. Small children anyway. Magazines and websites are full of 'fun' ideas as to how to make a lunchbox attractive - here is just one example:
But honestly how many busy mums have time in the morning to do something like this? Especially if they are poor, uneducated and have lots of children. Would all that effort entice your children to eat the food in their lunchbox I wonder? I used to be a primary school teacher, and I remember one mum in particular who would prepare totally delicious looking rolls and sandwiches which were frequently left uneaten. But there are certainly lots of aids out there today to help with the decoration. Pastry cutters of every conceivable shape and size, stamps to stamp emojis into things like bread and fruit, fancy cutters, spiralizers. Plus the fancy lunch boxes to put them in. Not to mention the fancy pre-made foods that are already packaged. I wonder if the children are eating any better than they were in my mummy days. I have to say that my granddaughters seem to - but then they have a creative and very caring mum who has the time. But I did see one comment that a mum found the best way to get here child to eat something, was not to give it to her, but to eat it herself. Then the child would want it. I have my doubts about that approach too though.
And we get complacent don't we? When I was first married, not only did I keep trying new dishes out on my husband but I also tried in my feeble way to make the food we were eating look good - even if it was only sausages and baked beans. I would arrange it all on a serving plate, rather than dump it on each plate as it came. I guess I still don't dump stuff on individual plates - preferring to put it in the middle of the table for people - mostly just my husband - to help themselves. I justify it as making sure that people get the quantity they want. And it seems easier to make one dish look good than lots of plates. But on a daily basis I don't pay a huge amount of attention to making it look good - I assume the food looks good anyway. Which is not always true. The soup shows that just a sprinkle of herbs can make a huge amount of difference.
But back to Coles Magazine. Here are a few of the things that caught my eye:
Top left - it's just a dip and some wraps cut into shapes with those pastry cutters and baked in the oven after having been brushed with oil and paprika - or not, or another spice. Even easier is the baked camembert with cherries, baked with it, and honey and rosemary sprinkled on top. Serve with toast. Broccolini wrapped in prosciutto and barbecued. And the well-known caprese salad of tomatoes, basil and bocconcini - this time arranged differently with some canned cannelloni beans as well.
Then how about this fruit platter - you could do this in lunch boxes too. The red things on the bottom are rectangular slices of watermelon. Topped with various fruits and mint - spiraliser, pastry cutters ... So very simple.
Or how about a different way of doing a pavlova. If you can make meringue that is. I can't, but I could buy little meringues and make a ring like this one. The real thing though is how the fruit is sliced thinly and arranged on top. Bet that wouldn't work for me. It was mangoes and I can never slice them elegantly.
The piéce de résistance though were these cupcakes made to look like those snow things that you shake and the snow comes down. There were two pages of instruction on how to do this that involved balloons coated with gelatine. There is no way that I would attempt this, but if you're just a tiny bit mad go for it. This one is for the cup cake queens I think. The magazine is online or available at your local Coles if you want to give it a go.
These little Christmassy tarts looked simpler:
It should be noticed that I am not talking about the top end of food preparation here. I am talking about a magazine which is directed at 'ordinary' people who shop in Coles supermarkets and use their products. Whilst that might include some real gourmets, it most probably doesn't include the uber rich - they have people to do these things for them - but it does include you and me and also the urban poor. I would imagine if you are really rural - like way out in the bush, then you don't go to Coles - though you can access their magazine online. The point is that it is aimed at very, very ordinary people, some of whom do not have a lot of money - or time - to spare. I wonder who actually makes use of the ideas within their pages. There are many more than those shown here. Do they make nice platters of fruit like the one above? It's dead easy and really not that expensive if you stick to what's in season.
Arranging your food artfully, and making it pretty is not a modern phenomenon. The rich at least have always made elaborate and fancy food a feature of their banquets and a means of showing off their wealth. These days one way of showing off wealth is the 'less is more' mantra - in which small plates of exquisitely arranged and decorated food, is served at many course dinners. And if you buy magazines like these and watch Jamie, Nigella et al. on the television then you can do it too.
“Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, but do this, eat well. Bring the same consideration to the preparation of your food as you devote to your appearance. Let your dinner be a poem, like your dress.” Charles Pierre Monselet
I wish. And I'm not going to get into the way that food stylists work. That's a topic for another day.
