Profs & Pints San Francisco: A History of Food as Holiday Art

Profs and Pints San Francisco presents: “A History of Food as Holiday Art” on the centuries-old relationship between feasts for our palates and feasts for our eyes with Carolyn Tillie founder of Bay Area Food Historians and former adjunct professor of art history at several California community colleges.

If you are looking for culinary inspiration this holiday season come journey back in time to long before the first Thanksgiving to explore the millennia-old relationship between what people eat and what they use to make art.

We’ll start with the first evidence of food-related art in the form of decorated ostrich eggs dating back 73000 years and found by archaeologists in South Africa. You’ll learn how the carving of gourds and squashes dates back 10000 years in East Asia and South America how various vegetables were the first sources of dyes and how saffron was used for coloring long before it was used for seasoning.

From there we’ll talk about ancient uses of egg-based paint the elaborate centuries-old Japanese food garnishing art known as Mukimono and the birth in the 1500s of an Oaxacan radish-carving festival that still takes place today. 

You’ll learn how the tables set for kings varied tremendously by historical period with the late 1400s ushering in a long period of “show food” featuring elaborate tablescapes made with carved meats and cheeses and sculptures formed from sugar and butter.

We’ll trace gingerbread back to ancient Greece examine the Victorian era rise of the elaborate wedding cake chart the rise of marzipan sculptures and consider the evolution over the centuries of beloved Scandinavian Christmas cookies featuring decorative patterns. Returning to the present we’ll examine how chocolate is being used to make sculptures that tower over any foil-wrapped Santa Claus.

You’ll leave eager to incorporate what you learned into your planning of your holiday decorations and meals. (Tickets available only online. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17 or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5:30 and the talk begins at 6:30. Parking available nearby at the Mason O'Farrell garage.)

Image: Marzipan candy in a store window in Florence Italy. (Photo by Frank Kovalchek / Creative Commons.)

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