Is food art?

"What is art?"

According Leo Tolstoy’s definition from his essay of the same name in 1896, it is a relationship, a form of discourse.

It is an expression, through various media, of one man’s emotion in an attempt to join “another or others to himself in one and the same feeling.”

By critical theory, art can be defined by its medium, its creator, its contemporary history and its audience. By all definitions of elaborate family feasts, homemade first dates and thoughtfully plated six-course menus, food is art.

But William Deresiewicz, essayist and critic, expresses doubt in his Oct. 26 opinion piece for the New York Times, “A Matter of Taste.”

In his rejection of food as art, he acknowledges the redefinition of culture surrounding food and cooking, the reorganization of social hierarchy; a new knowledge set to be religiously valued by those “in the know,” an entirely revolutionary scene of buying local, expressing creativity more eloquently than your neighbor and rebelling against classical technique.

Deresiewicz brings an insightful argument to an already crowded and creaking table. “[Foodism] is a badge of membership in the higher classes, an ideal example of ... conspicuous consumption.”

We’d all be fools to deny that we can bake for bragging’s sake or tuck into a chocolate-something topped with gold flake just to say we did.

We arrive in France and send back photos of buttery croissants, sipping authentic champagne while we’re at it.

But what theater-lover does not also boast at intermission? What rock band could survive the modern age without head-banging Instagramers?

We do this not to one-up, really, but to share. No one can experience everything with everyone, all the time, and all we know to do is communicate our joy.

“A good risotto is a fine thing, but it isn’t going to give you insight into other people, allow you to see the world in a new way, or force you to take an inventory of your soul.”

Deresiewicz, I have to ask: Have you ever seen “Ratatouille”?

A good risotto will absolutely give me insight into the person who made it, whether in their technique, their choice of cheese and vegetables and herbs or if they’ve truly mastered that trademark creaminess.

A good risotto can give me, and my stomach, rose-colored glasses for hours on end. A good risotto adds to the inventory of my soul. It becomes me, I interact with it more profoundly than I did with the Mona Lisa, and I won’t have you ruining that art for the sake of generic definitions.

“It has become a matter of local and national pride, while maintaining, as culture did in the old days, a sense of deference toward the European centers and traditions...”

In food’s extreme progression from classical French preparation – butter, the five mother sauces and chicken stock as the building blocks of everything – our nation has thrived.

Not only in the ever-controversial foams and pasta-less raviolis of molecular gastronomy, but in the Cajun and Creole progeny of a truly French South. We took Italian inspiration from what is now pizza, stacked it higher in a thicker pan and smacked an “AMERICUH” stamp on it, but deep dish is ours.

Though we’ve run out of physical frontier in which to stretch our legs, we claim new territory in our persistent rebellion against classical cuisine.

But maybe we should leave Mexican food alone.