Food for the eyes is not food for the nose

If your eyes can taste and eat, you only need a food stylist to cook for you

The lobster looked enticing. The chicken seemed succulent. The sheen on the grilled baramundi appeared divine.

And though they were laid before my feasting and hungry eyes, the last thing I wanted to do was to eat them. You see, Fanny Seah cooked them. And in no way was her cooking atrocious. In fact, Fanny has studied the craft of cooking with various master chefs around the world for more than a decade now and she can whip up a mean feast at the drop of a chopstick.

But on that day, she cooked strictly for my camera, which was an extension of my eyes. Fanny is a food stylist par excellence.

In my many years as professional photographer and food devotee, I have come to realise that what looks good need not necessarily tastes as so. The craft that the designers, art directors, food stylist and photographers employ to bring visual perfection to a plate of food is strictly…for eyes only.

From the perfect grill marks on the chicken, the curl of the fettuccine under that dribble of fresh tomato sauce to the perfectly sliced snake-head (song-he) fish floating on the clear broth-every cut, colour and angle is deliberate. This is just so that the photographer can paint it with light and bring it to life. The art directors will fit the feeling of the pictures onto their designs and complete that unrelenting attack on your gastronomical senses.

For a simple dish like a plate of chicken nasi briyani, for instance, the cut of the of the meat has to be carefully executed and chosen so that the texture is perfect to the eyes. The curry has to be painstakingly painted on because it has to caress the chicken exactly at the spot where the photographer's lights and lens focus brings it into full bloom. All this constant adjustment of light, positioning of food and plate can be pretty taxing on the freshness of the dish. But under the expert hands of a food stylist like Fanny, a spray of water here, a dab of oil there, some prodding and a little extra colouring can make a 2-hour old chicken briyani dish looks like it just came off the pot.

But to you (and me too), I'll share this fact that food, no matter how well presented or photographed, can only be good not just because it conquers you visually but it must also possess your sense of smell.

If it smells and looks right, then you are in for an ambrosial delight.