Monday, November 05, 2007

the law of conservation of mental energy

yeah, i just made that up but hear me out...

i think that mental energy (like real energy) cannot be created or destroyed...

if that's true then it stands to reason that you only have a finite amount of mental energy you can put into a thing and thus the more you put into image the less that's left over for substance...

no where have i seen this more plainly demonstrated than with food... i was at a company function on friday and it was a fancy-pants sort of affair complete with fancy-pants food... you know the kinds - small portions with things drizzled on the plate in order to make it look like a work of art... i've encountered food like this before and never has it ever been great food... ok food, reasonable food, but never great, never anything to write home about... i enjoy bbq's more than i enjoy this type of food...

i don't know where the practice of dressing up food came from but i'm certain it's entirely misguided... we've all learned over the years what good food looks like and we've come to associate that appearance with the taste of the food so that good food just naturally looks good to us... making the food look like art visually indicates that the attention of the cook/chef was not 100% on the flavour of the food and that always seems to result in food that tastes less good than it could...

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