What I vomited at people today in crit and a brand new set of eyes.

Target:
Single, inner-city dwellers. Generally better off students/young professionals. Proximity of take outs. Time spent cooking is seen as wasted time/too much effort. Want to replicate home cooked foods for comfort. Perceived as time short yet watch copious amounts of TV and internet.

Nostalgia of home-cooked. Like mom’s comfort food type thing.

Vision:
1> Encouraging people to cook at home with “real” food—a product of nature, not science and industry. Whole foods. Rejection of pre-made throw in oven type things.

2> Encourage people to see food as food, and not as the sum of their nutrients. Reductionist way of thinking of foods. Nutritionism. Dismiss the ideology that we should all be eating by the nutrients—unexamined assumption. We feel we need scientists and marketers to tell us what to eat.

Food is so much more than bodily health. Ignore other things like pleasure, sociality, identity. French paradox? Hinges on dualism. Evil and saviour nutrients. Waging war against ___ whatever is in this decade.

Cooking doesn’t have to be perfect,

Where to?
Create a brand targeted to young professionals? Spice, butter, eggs, farmers market, knives (knives are kinda a one off thing.)

Introduce brand to target through unconventional marketing ways. Engaging through senses, touch, smell, play & emotion (nostalgia)—offline marketing. Reflect upon the qualities of cooking that living vicariously does not do.

Sustained behavioural change through social & private validation. Gamification of progress to feel a sense of achievement.  Placing storytelling in the hands of customers.

Survey results:

People like to be validated by cooking for others, showing off to others, self satisfaction in making.

People that rarely (1-2) cooked at home, enjoyed eating and hated cooking.  Young (18-24).
Rated their skills in the kitchen as very low.
Really, really enjoyed talking about what they ate to others, watched lots of Food TV (often while eating takeaways) and Instagrammed their food.

“Stress about food”. “Hate cooking, don’t cook. I eat out, I get fed.”

All said home-cooked food was superior, negative views on processed food citing health, untasty, uncool, but sometimes the only way. 

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New Eyes

Brooke asked me what I wanted to do. I had no idea. That's the problem.

So what would I like to do? Play with food.

I was talking to some post-grad students today, who were super helpful. Apparently there are talks of Massey self-promotion through an edible art show/banquet thing that will be a performance piece type delio.

They also pointed me in the direction of some spacial kids who play a lot with food. 

To look at this weekend:

• Sam Trubridge (Massey Tutor)
• Frith Armstrong (her final year project was temporal feast)
• Caitlin Le Harivel
• Marije Vogelszang (I love her)

Also, to look into more art culinary performances. 

Concepts I am interested in looking at in relation to food:

• Emotion evoked
• Mood and choice. "I'm feeling __________". Look into Candy Chang.
• Nostalgia/associations with foods.
• Living vicariously. Replacement of eating good food with just sight. Replacement of conversation with text. We are short changing experiences.
• Conversation over coffee. Most common words/topics spoken about?
• Language and food. Combining words on food to alter perception—psychology.
• Colour and food appeal. Sight and food relation. B/W food photography?
• Collaborative cooking? Having a person start a dish, some other throw something in, and finish. Like making a soup and every one brings something to add to the pot type dealio.

I think what I'd want is people to be aware that food is much more than sustenance and bodily health (which it appears the media has reduced it to). I want to bring back the priority of simple pleasure in experiencing foods. Reconnecting and being thankful, and stop mindlessly consuming.

I personally really enjoy the taste of plain courgettes and bok choy. The ability to focus on the tastes of each thing appears to be a rarity.

I'm infinitely interested in emotions, memory, and sensory perception.

More note to self blah blahs:

• Between us—looking into the connection of cutlery, food type and people. Brooke mentioned about people eating sushi with a fork, and the taboos. We got given cutlery for our bowl of chips at Prefab Cafe today. When do we use fingers and forks? Why does it matter? Etiquette.
• Watch what you eat—develop a consciousness to eating, not for bodily health per se (overheard man talking about how he had to change due to heart attack and woman was talking about weight) but for the fact we have food, and the food is good, and is to be enjoyed and not endured. Negative perceptions towards veges?
• Finding an onion wrapped in Easter Egg wrapper in the Botanical Gardens. Expectation and slight disappointment. Perception of wrapping and contents? Perhaps link back to processed food? Deconstruct packaged food.
• A quick count at Prefab @ 2:30pm, Friday—most people came in twos or threes. Very rarely was the group more than 4.
• Nutritional calculator? We are overthinking it.

Yup. Sleep.