Foodie Shows Reveal the Natural Human Reaching Toward a Standard of Perfection: How "Top Chef" is a Rebuke to the Strange Avoidance of Standards in Contemporary Visual Art

This thought came to me earlier this evening as I was eating some canned soup (If you eat canned soup, I recommend Progresso). Food shows like Top Chef (Bravo) and Iron Chef America (Food Network) and many others that are available now on cable networks demonstrate this very intriguing facet of life: even in the midst of a great variety of cultural experiences, underneath this we find it a naturally human thing to want to rate artistic endeavors on some kind of common scale from worse to better to best--from less to more valuable to the culture.

Cooking on a high level where artistry and great culinary talent and skill are on display, I would say, falls within the realm of artistic endeavors. Now, I'm not talking about a hot dog stand, but about cooking that aspires to deliver something culturally wonderful, ennobling, exhilarating--something excellent and valuable as a culinary production. Great chefs are artisans; this is integral to their vocation. And even though we acknowledge that high cooking is an art, it seems to me that the world of the culinary arts is the most subjective of all the arts. Truly, can it be said that a particular dish prepared by a particular chef is greater than all other dishes? No. But does this imply there are no standards by which we may assess a dish's level of perfection? No.

For example, imagine three chefs are making a dish using the same kind of fish--cod, let's say. And let's imagine that each of them makes a dish that is very different from the other two--different styles, different spices, different ingredients to complement the fish. And let's imagine they are in a competition and a panel of judges is tasting their dishes (such as on a show like Top Chef). Even though the dishes are very different, the very fact that they are being judged against each other and are ranked by the judges in order of excellence as first, second, and third, implies the obvious assumption that there are some common standards by which to judge them. The fish, for example, should be cooked properly. Undercooked or raw fish would be unacceptable. Likewise, overcooked fish would be unacceptable. The presentations on the plate are different, yet, they are expected to be appealing and attractive to the eye. The use of the ingredients is expected to complement the fish, not drown it out or clash with it. The way all the ingredients are prepared would be expected to display a high level of skill in using the knife and likewise in all the ways the ingredients were handled.

There are some expected standards of cooking that the judges would rightly expect to see in a great dish. Nobody expects the food of different chefs to taste just like each other. Yet, nobody seems to object to the idea that we can judge and rank different chefs in comparison to each other, even as they prepare different dishes and use different ingredients. Travel guides and web sites and newspapers have a variety of rating systems whereby they indicate the level of excellence of a particular dining establishment. Food critics are people whose profession is to taste food and critique it, judging it and rendering a final opinion as to the level of excellence of a particular dish or of a particular chef or restaurant.

So, there is a great (seemingly endless) diversity in culinary styles and in types of prepared food dishes--Italian, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Thai, French, Mexican, etc. There are regions within regions. There are chefs who specialize in certain regional foods and ethnic food customs, and yet each chef has his own particularly distinctive character as an individual chef. One French chef's food does not taste exactly like another French chef. Yet, we do not think it strange or impossible or unfair that we should compare different chefs and render a decision as to whose food is better. And this is as it should be. Of course we can judge different chefs and conclude who is best. Every travel guide giving the number of Michelin stars awarded to restaurants is a testimony to this.

How is it that we can do this? It is because, underneath the vast variety and differentiation among food styles and among chefs, there still remains a body of some common standards by which we judge the final results. Fish cooked properly has certain characteristics, no matter what sort of dish it is in. Food should not be over-seasoned (or under-seasoned). A gravy should not have lumps. Watch the judges make critical comments and render their final conclusions about various dishes on a competitive cooking show like Top Chef or Iron Chef America, and you will see there are common expectations even in the midst of the dizzying variety. And of course, the bottom line that is always present no matter what--the food should taste good!

Now, switch from the culinary arts to considering the visual arts--particularly contemporary art. All of a sudden, what we find obvious and natural and take for granted in the realm of food--that we can use common standards in judging widely varying food dishes in comparison to each other and that we may rank them in levels of excellence in respect of each other--we seem to completely forget and ignore when it comes to contemporary visual art. (Or, more accurately, this applies to "professional" art critics and other regular figures of the contemporary art world). Why do we do this?

If anything, it seems to me, judging food is even more subjective than is the endeavor of comparing visual artworks. And yet, the gurus of the contemporary art world try to insist there is really no common standard of artistic excellence. Art, so this view goes, should be whatever the artist wants it to be. Each artist's production is like it's own independent cultural world, sealed off from the rest of reality, especially from the rest of the art world--especially that art which hails from the past.

I find this strange and even somewhat inhuman. We should approach visual art more like we approach the creations of great chefs. Yes, there is tremendous variety and uniqueness present among the works of different artists. But, this does not thereby render us unable to compare them to each other in the order of artistic excellence. There are natural, commonly apprehensible (even if difficult to articulate in words) standards which we can and should use to judge works of visual art. Visual art, though endlessly divergent and diverse, can be called better or worse; some works of art are of greater overall cultural value than others. And similarly, as with food, while there is a component of individual taste there are still commonly understandable standards even in the midst of vast variation.

I think most ordinary citizens realize this, even if they don't normally think about it in a particular way.

And so, this is how foodie shows--especially competition shows with judge's panels--manifest the universality of our human striving toward a commonly recognizable perfection through the activity of creating art. And because such shows indicate an implicit acceptance of a shared understanding of perfectibility toward which artistic creativity strives, they also, I would suggest, constitute a rebuke to the strange avoidance of standards in the assessment of contemporary visual art. Perhaps if you watch Top Chef, you might become better (more comfortable?) at evaluating other types of art, being more rooted in the naturalness of applying universal standards to a variety of artistic outputs.

Krauss and Plant on Artistic Collaboration, 2

Here is an interesting video with Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, and T Bone Burnett (who produced the album) speaking more about the process of making their collaborative 2007 album, Raising Sand. It relates to the subject of an earlier post, Krauss and Plant on Artistic Collaboration. (As well as this post, Yo-Yo Ma on Artistic Collaboration.)

I think this album is another example of artists producing something new and fresh as they deliberately embrace the work of those who have gone before them. In this process, the three (Krauss, Plant, and Burnett) seem to have had simultaneously in mind the spirit of the original artists and their songs, their own present-day musical intuitions, as well as the context of contemporary America with its similarities with and differences from the era in which this music was originally made.

We can see in this that paying careful attention and giving respect to the work of earlier artists--having the humility to follow in their footsteps--rather than stifling creativity, can actually serve as a strong and invigorating catalyst for producing something fresh and original and also delightfully accessible to a broad audience.



The Rounder Records promotional web site for the album describes the result as, "an album that uncovers popular music’s elemental roots while sounding effortlessly, breathtakingly modern."

When an artist remains trapped in the closed-in solipsism that seems to be encouraged in at least some modern art-world circles, I doubt if anything so enduring and broadly appealing (and therefore having such broad impact) could result.

For another musical example of the old and the new being creatively combined together to make something delightful, see Ray Charles, "Oh What a Beautiful Morning."

[And for more on the theme of the old and the new coming together, see here]

Ray Charles, "Oh What a Beautiful Morning"

More Ray Charles!

Here is an incredibly awesome performance of Ray doing his special jazz version of this classic American song from the Musical, Oklahoma, on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (and Carson's Tonight Show Band was always a really great band). If you like big band jazz at all, you will love this! It's amazing what he does with this song. I can't imagine anyone else but him singing it like this. One of a kind.

It has a slow intro and then starts swingin' at 2:00.

I love how he puts his entire body into the music! And you can tell it's sincere. He can't help but almost jump out of his skin in his genuine enthusiasm for the music. It's as though every cell of his body is totally absorbed into the soul of the song. Just awesome!!!



This is a good example of great art coming out of a close familiarity with the past. Ray took something older and very familiar to American culture, mixed it up with something a little more recent, and in the mix made it very much his own. And though it is very different from the original, it still has a recognizable trace of its original form. This is one of the reasons the final result is so pleasing. It is old and new and unique and (slightly) familiar all at the same time. It takes real artistic genius to pull this off so well.

Update: If you are a fan of Ray Charles, you will be interested in this. There is a new video podcast series, "Ray Charles, Genius," on Ray and his music available on YouTube. I especially enjoyed the following two episodes: Playing with Ray Charles, and The Real Ray Charles, According to Mike Post. If you are a music lover there is some great behind-the-scenes information in these episodes.

I also especially enjoyed one particular clip from a series of video interviews with Ray made by the National Visionary Leadership Project. Go to this web page, and play the episode, "My First Piano Lessons." (You will need the ability to play wmv files; Windows Media Player or RealPlayer will both work). In this clip Ray talks about his very first experience of the piano when he was only four, via a local boogie-woogie piano player whose music captivated him. It's pretty neat. At the end of the clip he makes this insightful remark, "[music] was just something that was in me, that I just had to be a part of it."

This remark fits nicely with the following idea which I believe is true: great artists have a sense that somehow in the creative process they are tapping into something beyond themselves. The spirit of the artistic impulse is both inside and outside them. When they are engaged in their art, they are not acting completely alone--they are not an isolated island. Somehow, as they create or perform, they are also mysteriously connected to a spiritual reality that informs the artistic process. Note, Ray did not say he had to create music out of nothing as though it were a solitary endeavor; rather, he said he "just had to be a part of it." It, was an already existing reality to which he wanted to become more consciously attuned and connected.

And if you liked that one, the clip, "Hearing my first arrangement," is also quite fun and charming. He describes how thrilling it was for him the first time, still a boy, that he heard musicians play an arrangement of music he had written.

Music Performance and Theology--Contemporary Parallels

In the practice of Catholic theology there is an ongoing issue as to how one might successfully achieve being faithful to the tradition--respecting the great patrimony of thinkers of ages past--while also being genuinely contemporary, bringing into play authentic contributions from the modern/post-modern world. (For a related earlier post see here.) The best Catholic theologians I think always strive to do both.

I think that an instructive parallel can be seen with music, especially in live music that includes individual solos against a background of a standard tune.

Think of how this works with a live jazz performance (bluegrass would serve just as well). The whole group of musicians launches into a particular song (e.g. "Devil May Care" as below with Diana Krall and her band). If it is a jazz standard, the song has a traditional structure and melody. Its basic foundation is known--solid, stable. And because the musicians are accomplished, well-practiced, and also know the song well and know how they like to play it as a group (since they have rehearsed it), the foundation of the song's basic structure is secure during the live performance. No one has to worry about the song going off track or anyone getting lost as to where the group is in the song. This provides the context for each individual musician to then be able to stretch his wings and shine in various solo contributions as the song is performed. Each soloist can challange himself more to his highest potential as a soloist knowing he can lean upon/rely upon the secure foundation maintained by his bandmates. You can see this taking place among great musicians as they perform live--the security of the known providing a base upon which the creative can soar without fear. [Less accomplished musicians cannot do this well. They are not secure enough in the basic elements of the music to allow for each soloist to flourish to his full potential.]

With the steady, secure foundation of the rest of the band moving along confidently the stage is set to permit the musicians to take turns shifting out of the role of being part of the supportive musical backdrop, "stepping out" into solo roles. Then, after a solo stint they seamlessly shift back into the group's communal performance of the standard song structure, allowing another member in turn to step out for their solo and then back, and so forth, in a flowing, creative back-and-forth between the song as performed by the group and moments of individual creativity and spontaneity.

And a further observation about how this works: As each musician takes a solo turn, they do not do so as though they were detached from the underlying song structure being played by their fellow band members. Very often, the underlying standard melody to which they are all together attuned and "locked in" as a living community in a united dynamic action, provides creative raw material for the soloist to riff on--augmenting, twisting, inverting, playing with the known melody to put his own unique interpretation on it.

So, it is not by acting as an isolated, lone agent that each soloist creates his own special musical contribution of the moment to the living whole. Rather, he makes his solo contribution by allowing it to somehow shadow, reflect, interpret, and build upon--but in a unique and unforeseen way--the known and predictable form that the others are playing underneath. This playful interaction between the known tradition and the creative output of the moment, informed by years of practice and talent development, makes for the occasion of a great live music performance. It is undergirded by the secure familiarity of the known and beloved, while at the same time made refreshingly alive and exciting by the transformation provided by the creative and the new.

Good theology is very much like this! It is a musical interplay of the tradition with contemporary and creative elements. And it is the very presence of the perennial in the contemporary that enables the new to have confidence as it breathes new breath and stretches its wings beyond what has come before.

Past and Present: both needed for your self-understanding

A week or so ago after attending an evening class with friends at The Personalist Project, I was asked (not in these exact words) what I thought about the topic of tradition vs. the now (i.e. custom vs. novelty; the past vs. the present; the old vs. the new). I didn't get to respond and so I'll offer a few thoughts here.

In recent Catholic history the following two terms have been used to capture the above notions in regard to how one approaches theology: aggiornamento, and, ressourcement. The former pertains to updating (using the new); the latter to recovery (of the old). Some would claim that those whom I'll call ultra-traditionalists want to return to an idealized past--using only the extraordinary form of the Mass (i.e. the "Tridentine" Mass used universally in the Latin rite until the Mass of Paul VI was promulgated after Vatican II) and eschewing modern theological and philosophical categories in preference for what had been taken in the early 20th century to be a strict Thomism of a pre-modern bent. In contrast to this are some (can they be called "progressive," theologians?) who seem to prefer ignoring any portion of the Catholic theological heritage seen as substantially rooted in pre-conciliar (as in, before Vatican II) thought.

Stepping aside from these extreme traditionalist and modernist camps, there is an idea that Catholicism, in order to be healthy, always needs both perspectives. This was indeed important for Pope John XXIII when he announced the Second Vatican Council.

I observe that clarity can be shed on this if one simply thinks about one's own personal experience as a unique, individual human being.

Who would say that what they think and believe, and how they behave in the present, has nothing to do with what they have done and thought in the past? Of course, at every moment of our time-bound lives, our experience of ourselves and our self-identity, our habits--our virtues and vices--are constantly informed by the sum total of our human experiences up to the present. Our present self, as we know ourselves, is never an isolated island of the present moment, disarticulated from our personal past. Rather, our self-identity and self-understanding are ever shaped and formed by our constantly expanding and living personal past. So, in regard to the individual person, there can be no isolated consideration of one's present self as cut off from (unrelated to) one's history. Likewise, our self-identity is never taken as merely equal to a frozen point from some past moment, static and unmoving. We, as human persons, are always a dynamic harmony of the present with the ever-expanding past. We cannot be otherwise.

It is the same with the Church and with any culture as a whole.

And so, my take on this is that it is very artificial to attempt to fix on an idealized reference point from past historical circumstances and try to bring it forward in static fashion as a model for today. This would be like preferring a single picture frame of a movie to the entire moving picture, thinking that one can understand the whole simply from the single frame, without taking the whole film into account. Therefore I think it is clear that in any human science wherein we want to have a sane understanding of who we are and what we are about as persons and as a people--because of the nature of human life (as both in time, but made for eternity)--we need to engage our minds continually on the new and the old, the past and the present, in a continually unfolding interplay.