Food design chez Bras

Abstract

It is not easy to say what food design is. Contemporary design finds in food a playground that gives new incitements but, at the same time, presents relevant challenges. Of course, there are several “objects” involved in food consumption and preparation, but more frequently food design means also working on edible substances and on the communication artifacts that come with them. The question then is: can we think about food as the result of a project? Analyzing the artifacts – from the logo to the dishes – that Michel Bras has constructed and through which he has raised his identity as a chef, in this paper I will advance the thesis that not only a theory of food designing is conceivable but also that it has an indispensable counterpart in semiotics. Only through understanding the mechanisms of intersemiotic translation that Jean Marie Floch indicated in one of his most famous books, can the heteroclite group of artifacts that populate the world of gastronomy be recognized as a coherent – and therefore effective – discourse; a discourse whose aim is to create a tasteful identity.