Emilie Baltz, Food Designer: Why What We Eat Defines Our Behavior

Emilie Baltz, author of L.O.V.E Foodbook, believes that how people eat defines how they behave. Speaking at PSFK CONFERENCE 2013, Baltz described working on the L.O.V.E Foodbook, a project designed to explore and provoke what the definition of food really is. Behind this is a belief that food is not simply an expression of a single ingredient, but rather a multiplicity of ecosystems coming together encompassing history, feelings, psychology and physicality. In order to explore these concepts, Baltz utilized her design skill set to expand the vocabulary of food in a visual storybook.

Particularly, her talk focused on the much-discussed topic of food as aphrodisiac. Baltz interviewed top chefs around the world and challenged them to sum of the concept of love in a single dish, which she then captured in photographic detail. For example Chicago-based chef Richard Farina defined love as discovery, and prepared a dish of vegan ingredients strewn over a log, challenging the eater to delicately search and discover the distinct ingredients for themselves.

With the L.O.V.E Foodbook, Baltz demonstrates that food is not simply a calorie, but rather an experience, and a tangible feeling that we take in with every bite.

L.O.V.E Foodbook

Image Credit – Catalina Kulczar