Food Culture
Images: Courtesy of Mark Weinberg
By Glen Nelson
Chef José Andrés, three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian efforts involving food, wrote in Vegetables Unleashed: A Cookbook, “Food is not just fuel! Food is history, culture, politics, art. It is nourishment for the soul. If I sound excited and maybe a little emotional, that’s because I am. The simple fact of life is that we will be eating two or three meals a day every day until we die. We should all be experts at eating.”
Regarding food in the culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although obedience to the Word of Wisdom is a key driver of a Latter-day Saint’s identity, I am unaware of any food historian or scholar who has claimed that there exists a Mormon cuisine in the way that there is a Buddhist or Kurdish cuisine or Northern Italian or Peruvian cuisine. I am unsure how far to extend this line of inquiry, however. Does every culture create a cuisine, and can a culture exist without a food culture unique to it? What do those questions suggest about us? We lack a culinary point of view, funeral potatoes and green Jell-O, notwithstanding. No sin in that, of course. Still, it is a bit surprising. Here is a culture that thinks constantly about what it is not partaking in food, drink, and drug. Throughout the world, the limits that members place upon themselves at the table separate them and sometimes alienate them from their neighbors and friends. Not drinking, not smoking, rejecting caffeinated teas and coffee—things that the rest of the world can’t seem to function without—are prominent in our outward-facing reputation, our individual lifestyles, and our sense of self.
The culture might have developed differently regarding food. Its theology of quasi-vegetarianism (“[meat]…only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine,” for example) might have become a more powerful identifier as well as a propulsive and generative force in the kitchen. Consider the ways a regional cuisine is shaped over time by its tools, climates, and accessible ingredients and then think of the early Saints in the West: a population that was as concentrated regarding geography and its local food as the world’s regional cuisines. For any and all of those reasons, there very well could have emerged a Mormon cuisine. A global church now, perhaps that opportunity has passed.
What we do have is a culture that loves food, perhaps in part as a reaction against its inability to be connoisseurs of wine, liquors, cigars, and other such categories. If it doesn’t embrace tea, coffee, and craft beers, some LDS people make up for it with herbal tea, hot chocolate, and craft sodas. Food influencers abound, too. There are LDS chefs, farmers, and restaurateurs. There are LDS food writers, publishers of cookbooks, commercial photographers who specialize in food imagery, and entrepreneurs who start food businesses in their home kitchens before opening their own shops and even founding corporate food empires. There are LDS food experts on TV teaching how to cook and judging competitions of cooking, just as there are LDS cooks who are competitors and winners of those media competitions.
New Cookbooks
In the last three months, a flurry of cookbooks by LDS chefs, food photography by LDS photographers using LDS food stylists, produced by LDS publishers (sometimes all four at once) have appeared in the nation’s bookshops. Pull up a seat to the table and get a taste, just in time for the holidays.
Tara Bench spent years as a Food Editor at Martha Stewart Living magazine and Food Director at Ladies’ Home Journal magazine before writing her first cookbook, using her brand name, Tara Teaspoon, Live Life Deliciously (Shadow Mountain) in 2020. Her new cookbook, Delicious Gatherings: Recipes to Celebrate Together (Shadow Mountain) appeared in September 2022, with photography by Ty Mecham and styling by Veronica Olson (additional LDS artists in New York). When asked what kind of feedback she gets from readers, Tara writes to me, “One of my favorite things to hear is that someone's child, even as young as four years old, will request something from one of my cookbooks. Their parents will comply and make the recipe, and the family ends up having a new favorite dish they can enjoy together. Food can be that connector for young and old, family and friends. This resonates with people I talk to, and I've had many share with me notable moments when a Tara Teaspoon recipe has brought joy to their home, uplifted a sad friend, won a family cooking contest, or been a meal-showstopper they were proud of. These emotions around food, and gathering around food are real, they can be replicated, and they can be enjoyed with others.”
On the other side of the country, Luisa Perkins is a novelist in Southern California. The title of her cookbook, Comfortably Yum (self-published, 2nd edition, September 2022), is a pun on the Pink Floyd song, “Comfortably Numb.” The revised and expanded edition doubled the size of the original. When I asked her to describe the relationship between writing a novel and writing a cookbook, she replied, “The connection is stories. Food tells a story. It gathers and unites people in the same way that stories do. A recipe can tell a story of tradition, innovation, family, or adventure—or all of the above. Instead of pairing foods with wines, my cookbook pairs foods with music, another way of storytelling. When we slow down and make time for stories in whatever form, life is infinitely richer.”
A common thread in all of these books is generosity. The writers are sharing something about which they feel passionately, with the express desire that the reader/home cook duplicate the joy of cooking, eating, and gathering for themselves. The books are also documents of their lives. They spring from the writers’ experiences cooking with their parents and grandparents, their travels in the world, their creativity and invention, and their curiosities about the changing tastes of the public.
Si Foster’s journey to writing a cookbook, A Bountiful Kitchen (self-published, October 2022) is slightly different. Foster was born in Japan, the daughter of farmers, and she came to cooking somewhat late, as a college student in the United States. A young mother, for a hobby, she started a recipe club, then began a catering company, started a blog about her cooking, gained an avid following, collaborated with other women and their digital businesses, and ultimately decided to bring it all together—including her own photographs of food and lifestyle—in a beautifully-illustrated, 368-page book. Foster writes about a connection between food and her religious belief, “I’ve also had the unique opportunity to use ABD’s social platforms to share messages and interact with thousands of women across the world about faith and food from our little kitchen in Mallorca, Spain, while [my husband] Grant and I served as missionaries for our church.”
No cookbook today is a mere gathering of recipes. They often spring from lifestyle brands with strong visual identities. Further, they seek to engage the readers with texts and images that inspire, entertain, and educate. Writing a cookbook is as laborious as any non-fiction volume, but nearly all commercially-published cookbooks now place a high value on imagery that accompanies the text. It’s no surprise that LDS photographers, food stylists, and graphic designers are noteworthy collaborators with publishers in the cookbook industry.
King Arthur Baking Company was established in Boston in the year 1790. When they decided to create a new cookbook, The King Arthur Baking School: Lessons and Recipes for Every Baker (Countryman Press, October 2022), they tapped commercial photographer Mark Weinberg, who is LDS. He describes what the job was like for him: “This book was King Arthur Baking's first cookbook with this many photographs and their first cookbook printed with all color images. This was a little intimidating but at the same time it was a great opportunity to be able to truly make the images my own without having to match images or a style from other books. I photographed this book on a couple different shoots—11 days in July 2021 and 3 additional days in January 2022. Making sure the light, color temperature, and style were consistent throughout the shoot was always on my mind. The book wasn’t fully designed when I did the photography, so our team didn't know which images would be next to each other. Once the layout was finalized, I was able to retouch the images so that photographs next to each other on the same page matched color temperature and exposure. In total, I shot over 13,000 images for this book, and the final book has a couple hundred images in it. Most of the book was photographed in the King Arthur Baking photo studio, but we did spend one day on the King Arthur campus at the baking school and bakery. It was inspiring to work with so many expert bakers and food stylists. I learned so much, which is one of the main reasons I love photographing cookbooks—I feel like I got a 14-day baking masterclass!” On the exact same day that the King Arthur cookbook arrived on the shelves, Weinberg’s photographs for another cookbook were published, Savory Baking: Recipes for Breakfast, Dinner, and Everything in Between (Harvest, October 2022).
Cookbooks are commercial products, but that does not mean they are not artful. Another LDS photographer is James Ransom, who created the images for a cookbook, Food52 Simply Genius: Recipes for Beginners, Busy Cooks & Curious People (Ten Speed Press, September 2022). I asked him how he views the process for shooting his own fine art images versus commercial images. He writes, “I approach fine art and commercial photography similarly, using the same techniques. When I'm shooting food for a cookbook, I work with a team of stylists and an art director to execute someone else's vision. The images must be beautiful and instructional, so the reader will understand how to interpret the recipe. When I create work for myself, the process is more experimental. I might start with one idea but end up in a completely different place. The image is imperfect and raw, but the vision is my own.”
I asked photographer Ty Mecham, who shot the images for Tara Teaspoon’s two cookbooks, how he knows when he has the perfect shot. He replied, “That’s a great question, Glen. There are many hands that go into making a cookbook, but the core decision-makers on the photographs are Tara, who makes and styles the food for each recipe, Veronica Olson, the props stylist, who pulls backgrounds, surfaces, linens, dinnerware, etc., and me. I work on the lighting, the focus, and camera angle. We all work on the composition together while also doing our individual parts. When all the elements come together and the image really sings, we know we have the shot. Often we get to that place but still have minor tweaking. When there are no more adjustments to be made, we save the image and plan for the next one. I’ve worked with this same team on both of Tara’s cookbooks, and I have to say it’s really an honor to be part of such big projects with these incredibly talented women. I also get to try all of Tara’s recipes as we shoot them, and they are honestly so delicious. I’m not sure how I’m this lucky. I get to shoot and then eat delicious food for work!”
I have a collection of cookbooks. You probably do, too. Of mine, the most beautiful books are by the great American chef, Thomas Keller. On the dedication page of Bouchon (Artisan, 2004), Keller wrote this about the graphic designer of his books, “In memory of Cliff Morgan: Cliff Morgan was a talented designer and great friend, a member of our extended family, whose influential designs are ubiquitous through the French Laundry, Bouchon, and Per Se. He died unexpectedly at the age of forty-one as we were producing this book. The entire team misses him more than we can say.” I honor Cliff’s memory, too. A spectacular graphic designer every bit on par with a four-star chef, he was also my friend and an LDS bishop in Brooklyn.
LDS cooks, writers, photographers, stylists, designers, and publishers are contributing to the way we eat and live. This is the time of year that people come together for the holidays…and eat. I am reminded of a comment by Chef Michael Chiarello, “What keeps me motivated is not the food itself but all the bonds and memories the food represents.” This holiday season, may your table be spread with good food, shared with people you love, and be the spring of new and fond food memories.