Oooh ooh game designer with opinions here! A key difference between the cases is about process vs. outcome. For the piano player and the aikido practitioner, process and outcome are directly linked - when I talk about this in the context of games, I describe this as "you play to play, not to have played." But for food, you are operating as a designer rather than a player. You are trying to create a joyful artifact. You could, of course, move food into the prior case by saying "cook in a joyful manner," but in that case I think you would see the same patterns as with piano and aikido. What do you think?
I totally see how process and outcome are more directly linked in aikido, at least from the perspective of human beings moving in space. There is no medium between a martial artist and their partner, so the process and the outcome are directly transmitted.
But with food and music, there is a medium, the food, or the piano, through which intention is communicated. The piano player and the cook might both play to play, but perhaps this overlooks the nature of the music/performance as an artifact, in the same way that the meal is an artifact.
And there's also a question that I think I articulated very poorly and which your designer/player framing captures. Is the cook really primarily a designer, or does the cook-as-player matter? Does the composer matter more than the performer?
That said, I think you're right about "cook in a joyful manner" being likely to elicit a more similar reaction, though I have no basis for this guess other than experience.
And by the way, I think you have changed the argument by changing the emotion. If you ask a pianist to play joyfully, and then more joyfully, the "more" will likely not have the same direction (i.e. some will play even faster, some even "brighter" a.k.a. more high notes struck quickly, some with more expansiveness. Ferocity has a narrower meaning to us (a roaring lion) than joy.
I believe you that there is something different about food, but I wonder whether there is also something different about joy. (Or, per Jess's comment, at least joy as an experience.) The idea of "more joy" is difficult for me to imagine somehow. You could imagine someone laughing, but dialing that up to eleven might seem manic, nightmarish, or insincere. What is joy? Is it whimsy? Indulgence? Relief? How much joy is too much, e.g. when does joy become something else? I could imagine a meal that is brightly colored and surprising, but more so might be garish or obnoxious. If I was to draw joy as a function I would imagine an upside down parabola rather than a line, compared to a quantity like "ferocity."
It also often strikes me that food is a fairly focused, or low bandwidth, medium. You cannot plan a meal that has the same abstract complexity as, say, a performance of Hamlet.
I think I disagree about the ability to make conceptually complex meals; I just think it is unusual for us to think about food in that way. I once hosted elite Chinese academics with whom I had been working for a long time. We'd shared many meals, formal and casual, in China. So, when they came to my home in the U.S., I wanted to do something interesting that revealed my own cultural background. So, I chose to do traditional Jewish food in the structure of a formal Chinese banquet. Considering analogous ingredients, colors, forms and also, Chinese taste preferences made the meal design and execution quite complex and also, abstract in its cross-cultural implications.
I think your example is terrific, but I also wonder if it's dependent on a deep relationship between cook and diner. It's the equivalent of a long and complex inside joke, told through the medium of several meals. I'm delighted that we can do this kind of thing, but I'm unsure we can easily generalize this into "broadcast" terms. This might be why so many restaurants try to explain their food and intentions in such detail.
I've never thought about emotions as having arcs of progression, or shapes. Though perhaps we get at this when we talk about stages of grief, or anger.
I don't know if I think there's something different about food either. I think this conversation went somewhere unexpected, which is why I wrote about it. =)
Oooh ooh game designer with opinions here! A key difference between the cases is about process vs. outcome. For the piano player and the aikido practitioner, process and outcome are directly linked - when I talk about this in the context of games, I describe this as "you play to play, not to have played." But for food, you are operating as a designer rather than a player. You are trying to create a joyful artifact. You could, of course, move food into the prior case by saying "cook in a joyful manner," but in that case I think you would see the same patterns as with piano and aikido. What do you think?
Ooooooooo! Thank you for this perspective!
I totally see how process and outcome are more directly linked in aikido, at least from the perspective of human beings moving in space. There is no medium between a martial artist and their partner, so the process and the outcome are directly transmitted.
But with food and music, there is a medium, the food, or the piano, through which intention is communicated. The piano player and the cook might both play to play, but perhaps this overlooks the nature of the music/performance as an artifact, in the same way that the meal is an artifact.
And there's also a question that I think I articulated very poorly and which your designer/player framing captures. Is the cook really primarily a designer, or does the cook-as-player matter? Does the composer matter more than the performer?
That said, I think you're right about "cook in a joyful manner" being likely to elicit a more similar reaction, though I have no basis for this guess other than experience.
And by the way, I think you have changed the argument by changing the emotion. If you ask a pianist to play joyfully, and then more joyfully, the "more" will likely not have the same direction (i.e. some will play even faster, some even "brighter" a.k.a. more high notes struck quickly, some with more expansiveness. Ferocity has a narrower meaning to us (a roaring lion) than joy.
I believe you that there is something different about food, but I wonder whether there is also something different about joy. (Or, per Jess's comment, at least joy as an experience.) The idea of "more joy" is difficult for me to imagine somehow. You could imagine someone laughing, but dialing that up to eleven might seem manic, nightmarish, or insincere. What is joy? Is it whimsy? Indulgence? Relief? How much joy is too much, e.g. when does joy become something else? I could imagine a meal that is brightly colored and surprising, but more so might be garish or obnoxious. If I was to draw joy as a function I would imagine an upside down parabola rather than a line, compared to a quantity like "ferocity."
It also often strikes me that food is a fairly focused, or low bandwidth, medium. You cannot plan a meal that has the same abstract complexity as, say, a performance of Hamlet.
I think I disagree about the ability to make conceptually complex meals; I just think it is unusual for us to think about food in that way. I once hosted elite Chinese academics with whom I had been working for a long time. We'd shared many meals, formal and casual, in China. So, when they came to my home in the U.S., I wanted to do something interesting that revealed my own cultural background. So, I chose to do traditional Jewish food in the structure of a formal Chinese banquet. Considering analogous ingredients, colors, forms and also, Chinese taste preferences made the meal design and execution quite complex and also, abstract in its cross-cultural implications.
Jan, thanks for your thoughts!
I think your example is terrific, but I also wonder if it's dependent on a deep relationship between cook and diner. It's the equivalent of a long and complex inside joke, told through the medium of several meals. I'm delighted that we can do this kind of thing, but I'm unsure we can easily generalize this into "broadcast" terms. This might be why so many restaurants try to explain their food and intentions in such detail.
I've never thought about emotions as having arcs of progression, or shapes. Though perhaps we get at this when we talk about stages of grief, or anger.
I don't know if I think there's something different about food either. I think this conversation went somewhere unexpected, which is why I wrote about it. =)