The Abilities
In this section we ascend to the mind of a designer and learn
about the abilities essential to crafting an aesthetically pleasing
meal. We will explore the chef’s role as a designer, empathizer,
and storyteller. We will learn how to interact with a diners
expectations to create an entertaining, meaningful, and
emotionally engaging meal. We will bring it all together by
exploring the aptitude of Symphony—the ability to synthesize
pieces into a complete, conceptually pleasing whole. Finally, we
will discuss the role of a chef to find balance within the entire
experience of a meal to create a pleasurable memory that a diner
may draw on for a lifetime.
Design
In the design section, we will cover both the basics of
construction and presentation of food. We will also explore
various methods for arriving at an aesthetically pleasing finished
product.
“Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology,
cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that
the world didn’t know it was missing.”
—Paola Antonelli
“Design in its simplest form is the activity of creating solutions.”
—Frank Nuovo
“Heskett’s terms—Design is a combination of utility and
significance. A graphic designer must whip up a brochure that is
easy to read. That’s utility. But at its most effective, her idea
must transmit ideas or emotions that the words themselves
cannot convey. That’s significance.”
Essential Elements of Design
 Alignment
 “Building Blocks”
 Composition
o Rule of Threes
 Color
o Painting
 Contrast
 Deconstruction
 Evenness
 Innovation
 Layering
 Refinement
 Repetition
 Overhead
o Designing from an “overhead” view with basic shapes
as guides.
o Example—plate as a circle.Steak as rectangle. Peach
as small circle.
 Perspective
 Proximity
 Proportion
 Significance
 Style
 Texture
 Utility
 Volume
 Weight
Story
“Narrative imagining—story—is the fundamental instrument of
thought.
—Mark Turner, The Literary Mind
“Stories capture the context, capture the emotions… Stories are
important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact
package, information, knowledge, context, and emotion.
—Don Norman, Things That Make Us Smart
“Story—context enriched by emotion”
“Stories contain and convey knowledge by enabling us to
imagine new perspectives and new worlds.”
Story, when told through the progression of a meal, plays
a role in distinguishing and giving meaning to the entire
experience.
(Absorb, interpret, and respond to stories).
“The Composer”
 Audience
“Fried things are highly popular at any celebration: they add a
piquant variety to the menu; the are nice to look at … and can be
eaten with fingers, which is always pleasing to the ladies.”
—Find in Meditations on Trancendental Gastronomy or
Molecular Gastronomy, page 8
 Theme
 Outline
 Characters
 Context
 Repitition (as a function of powerful storytelling)
“[T]he enjoyment of the dish depended not just on the food but on the
things surrounding it. Fish and chips somehow tasted better outdoors,
in newspaper, with the smell of salt in the air and the keening of
seagulls in the ears. The perfect context added immeasurably to the
experience.”
—Heston Blumenthol, The Fat Duck Cookbook, page 121
 The Introduction, “Amuse Bouche”
“The idea is to serve something provocative, to coax the appetite,
to develop a tantalizing unrequited hunger, not to satiate it.”
—Frank Stitt, Chef, Highlands Bar and Grill, page 54
 Impact
“In order to achieve the balance we seek, we need to think about
the sensory impact of both the [food] and it’s prospective …
partner. ‘Impact’ refers to the weight and intensity of … food on
the palate.”
—Garret Oliver, The Brewmaster’s Table, page 49
 Climax
Empathy
“to understand what makes their fellow man or woman tick, to forge
relationships, and to care for others.”
—Whole New Mind, pg. 66
“Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position
and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in
other’s shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts. … It is
feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that
person. Empathy is a stunning act of imaginative derring-do, the
ultimate virtual reality—climbing into another’s mind to experience the
world from that person’s perspective.
“Since Empathy depends on the emotion and since emotion is conveyed
nonverbally, to enter another’s heart, [we] must begin the journey by
looking into [their] face.
—Whole New Mind, pg. 162
Comfort
Presence
Touch
Play
“Ample evidence points to the enormous benefits of laughter,
lightheartedness, games, and humor.”
—Whole New Mind, pg. 66
 Action
 Humour
 Mystery
 Suspense
 Surprise
 Repitition (as a function of playing)a
Meaning
“liberation … purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.”
—Whole New Mind, pg. 67
 Impact
 Interaction
 Metaphor
 Pleasure
“Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting
perfume.”
—Jean de Bufflers
 Significance
o Season
 Transcendence
 Memory, “The Catalogue”
o Metaphor Log “Whole New Mind, page 152”
Symphony
“By coordinating the stimulation available to each of our senses,
including everything from the colour of the walls to the ambient scent
and background music and the texture of the food we eat, wecan ensure
that we are stimulating the senses to deliver a truly multisensory boost
that will … enhance our well-being.”
—Charles Spence, The Secrets of the Senses
“One joy of entertaining is that you have the power to orchestrate
pleasure. In planning a menu, you get to consider an enormous range of
possibilities. Through your preferences—bound by seasonal availability,
time, and financial constraints—you choose a menu that builds like a
symphony with subtlety and surprises.”
—Frank Stitt, Chef, Highlands Bar and Grill 54
“Synthesis—seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries, and being able
to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole.”
—Whole New Mind, pg. 66
“Symphony—spotting trends, drawing connections, and discerning the
big picture.”
Activities. Inspiration Board
Balance
Perhaps begin by teaching with a ‘Balance’ from a household
toolbox.
Backwords
Free Mother Nature
Connecting Children and Nature
Expanding The Curriculum of Culinary School
“change from a strictly technical, Utilitarian approach to food
towards a balanced approach that includes both the technical and
the creative, artistic, and conceptual.”