When it comes to the term “Culinary Arts”, what comes to mind? Is it food? Is it cooking? Is it more than just those two? To me, the term culinary art may sound crazy, but it’s creating art with food. To better understand, you can create delicious dishes that not only taste good but looks amazing as well.   

Now, many may think, “That’s not what culinary means”. “The definition of culinary is…”. Yes, but I have a pretty good reason for my answer.  

About sometime last year, I would say late spring, I was relaxing and decided to watch some Netflix. I wanted to watch something different other than the usual, so I went to the search bar and typed in “food”. A list of shows related to food had popped up, and as I skimmed over the titles something had grabbed my attention. The name of the show was called “Chefs Table”. I clicked the show, read the summary, and immediately started watching.   

The show starts out playing Italian music and skimming over the city of Modena, Italy. You then hear a male voice start to speak, it’s Chef Massimo. He begins to give the background of his life story, where he’s from, how he met his wife, and then his culinary career. I won’t go into details on everything he had done and accomplished but one thing I will share is what changed my whole definition of “culinary arts”.  

One busy night at Massimo’s restaurant “Osteria Francescana”, they were about to send out desserts. Chef Massimo’s Lemon Tart was on the table for its finishing touches before going out to the guests. It was at that moment when every server’s worst nightmare occurred, dropped food. The server and Massimo both looking at the tart, shattered into pieces. In the servers’ eyes it was a disaster, in Massimo’s eyes it was pure perfection. From this day forth Massimo’s tart is famously known as, “Oops, I Dropped the Lemon Tart”.  

Now from that one episode of Chef’s Table, I was blown away. What turned out to be a disaster for one person, turned to be a masterpiece to another. That pretty much blew my mind. Who said that food has to be plated a certain way? Who said things had to be any certain way, to begin with? What makes culinary art an “art”, is the fact that no matter how something is cooked or prepared, it is all interpreted differently by someone else. Food has an endless way of being expressed, one just has to be open-minded to each ingredient.   

Call me corny but I see it like this. The plate is your canvas, the food is your paint, and your tools/hands are your brushes. There are endless ways foods can be cooked and plated, there is no right or wrong answer to what “true” art really is.  

When I am at work, I am responsible for technically two stations in one. One side is all 7 hand-tossed salads alongside 7+ other cold appetizers. To many others, it’s the get a ticket, read it, prepare it, and put it in the window. Yes, rare cases when I’m getting butt-handed to me, but no that’s not the case. As I am preparing the customers’ food, I’m reading the guests’ requests. I am also putting myself in the guests’ shoes to somehow figure out their tastebuds and why they pair certain ingredients with other flavors.   

A lot of the things I do maybe kind of crazy, but I find doing this pretty cool. I want to find out what you like and how I can put a spin on it. Art is an expression of the human imagination. What comes to your mind as “good food”, I want to take that and create a new masterpiece with it. Who said what we created is wrong or right? Food is supposed to be fun, exciting, and enjoyable.