* * * * *
                                        
                                   Food Porn
                                        
> I had come to Nitke's studio in midtown Manhattan, near the United Nations,
> to watch food television with her, and to compare the histories of sex porn
> and gastroporn. Nitke, fifty-four, dressed in black from T-shirt to
> Ferragamos, had set up a card table between the foot of her bed and a
> bookshelf, and ordered Mexican takeout. As we ate lunch she told me about
> her pending contract with HarperCollins for American Ecstasy, a coffee-
> table book of her porn-set stills, and I began to examine her library,
> which included copies of Leathersex, The Correct Sadist, and It's not About
> the Whip. “I know most of the authors,” she said. “It's a small world.”
> 
> For the past several weeks, Nitke had been running porn films side by side
> with Food Network shows, studying the parallels. She had also been
> analyzing the in-house ads, like a recent one for the network's “Chocolate
> Obsession Weekend,” which promised to “tantalize your tastebuds.” In this
> spot a gorgeous model pushes a chocolate strawberry past parted lips as she
> luxuriates in a bubblebath. The suds shot dissolves into Food network
> superstar Emeril Lagasse, who shakes his “Essence”—a trademarked blend of
> salt, paprika, black pepper, granulated garlic, and onion powder—into a pan
> of frothing pink goo. The camera moves into the frying pan and stays there.
> There's something very visceral about watching the food,” said Nitke. “It's
> very tissue-y. It's hard not to think of flesh when you're looking at these
> close-ups.”
> 

Via The Old New Thing [1], “Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the
Frontiers of Pornography [2]”

I've joked that The Food Network [3] is “food porn” (which sounds better than
“gastroporn” but that's me) but I never quite realized it was true! (you can
also read a transcript of an interview with the author of that piece
(PORNUCOPIA) [4], which goes into some more depth (pun unintended) on this
subject).

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/02/02/523172.aspx
[2] http://www.barbaranitke.com/harpersmag.html
[3] http://www.foodtv.com/
[4] http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_100705_porn.html

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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