Whatcha eatin'?
By Jane Rushmore
From Play Magazine
Flip through the pages of this yearbook and you find some surprising candids. The steak from April 13 looks so tender. The 11 p.m. bowl of Cheerio's from Aug. 18 holds so much comfort. The Aug. 6 bag of Kettle Chips nestled in a field of daisies at Hudson River Park stirs up so many memories.
At least it does for Tucker Shaw. He spent a year photographing every single thing he ate, and published a book about it, aptly titled, Everything I Ate.
From the morning bagel to the afternoon protein bar, it's all in there, even the four-hour dinners at Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar on June 19th where Shaw had to send the maitre d' back for more creamer in order to get his paparazzi-style shot of the baba au rhum.
Shaw launched his project on New Year's Day in 2004. Once he got over his hangover and snapped some pictures of his leftover slices of pizza at 2:34 p.m., he never picked up his food without picking up his camera first.
"I had the idea about six weeks before and I started on New Year's because I thought this was the type of project that would be best as being exactly a year," Shaw explains. "I thought the calendar would be a great place to start."
He says the idea came first, then the camera, then the project, then the book deal. He was about four months into the project when a friend turned the photos over to a friend, Sam Sifton, who wrote up a piece for The New York Times. Shaw took the clip, pitched his project to an agent and got a book deal.
Shaw certainly wasn't a starving artist. "There were a couple times when I didn't have my camera, so I didn't eat, but that didn't happen often."
He says the camera could produce some extreme reactions, from offense to boredom. "People were remarkably tolerant of the camera," in general he says, "because they come out all the time. It's kind of like a siren, either people freak out and think you are taking their picture, or they don't even notice."
Most of the time he didn't get much interference and was able to snap away happily - even at birthday parties and holidays where he would pause the celebration to get his shot.
"I did have to slap a couple of hands away," he recalls, "but everybody got it. By the end of the year, it was a project everybody shared in. When the camera came out, it was like a toast, or saying grace. It signaled the start of a meal."
Even though his friends play a big part in his eating habits, Shaw doesn't mention anything beyond first names in his descriptions. He wasn't protecting the innocent necessarily, he just wanted to focus on the food.
"I didn't want it to be a memoir of whether the food was any good or not, or what kind of mood I was in," Shaw explains. "I just wanted it to be a report of the where and the when."
What Shaw leaves out speaks volumes, and leaves plenty of room for interpretation. He left out prices, even though there are some six-course meals at upscale restaurants.
Shaw says he wasn't trying to be secretive about the bill, he just didn't think of it until a couple of months into the project. But he admits that he's not afraid to drop some serious money on a meal out with friends.
"Food, by far, is my biggest expense," he says. "I'll save up for a great meal at the end of the month. But, that said, I don't think expensive food is necessarily better."
To be fair, he included pictures of every bowl of mac 'n cheese, but he didn't include portion sizes either.
At times you'll see a bag of mixed nuts, or a huge bag of potato chips, reappear for a few days in a row, sometimes when Shaw is out with friends, sometimes when he's sitting at home watching tv. You never know how much he is eating - the whole bag, or a handful?
"If I were to try to do it again, I think I would be more exact about how much I ate," he admits. "I was going more for the range of what we eat and the frequency at which we eat. The real picture I was trying to create was how vibrant and varied the whole food culture is."
Especially in New York City. Food is a celebration for Shaw and Manhattan is the Holy Land - where you can find manna from heaven deep fried, steamed or drizzled in olive oil.
His project took Shaw to new levels of food ecstasy. Having a camera freeze the climatic moment before his first bite gave him a newfound food appreciation.
"I don't eat blindly anymore," he says. "You go through life and a potato chip crosses your path and you eat it and you don't really notice it. And that's too bad."
Looking back on his project, Shaw can remember every meal, every person, every emotion he had just by glancing at a page of his book. He tries to apply that awareness to every meal these days.
"If you ask a lot of people what they had for dinner last night, they won't remember it or they won't be honest about," Shaw says. "I think that's sad. There seems to be a lot of secrecy and guilt associated with food. A lot of people think food is the enemy. That's partly what I wanted to do with this project, to be honest about everything, and it's ugly sometimes. But to have fun too. Food is entertainment too."
As entertaining as food can be, drinks usually liven an evening up, and those records are mysteriously missing from Shaw's documentary on dining.
It wasn't forgetfulness, not entirely anyway. "I lost track pretty quickly, and not just the martinis, but after the eighth or ninth glass of water a day," he explains.
Shaw did include the protein shakes and smoothies, where the drink made a snack or replaced a meal. For a while he photographed cough drops and gum, but that got a bit overwhelming.
While these were minor culinary adventures, Shaw can think of worse ones. He easily remembers the worst meal of the year - a turkey sandwich from Au Bon Pain. It's surprising how offensive this little turkey sandwich was to Shaw, considering all the reheated pizza, all the big bowls of cereal, all the other non-descript meals, why should this one scar him so badly?
"It was completely soulless," he explains. "It was made by hands that really didn't care and ingredients that were lifeless. It was sort of sad and soggy and just ugly."
Luckily, Shaw made the best of the situation - he learned from it. He likes to take risks when it comes to his foods, which is why he avoids chains in general.
"It always surprises me to see Domino's Pizza on one side of the street and Joe's Famous on the other and to actually see people in Domino's. Not that Domino's isn't good, it's just not interesting. And Joe's may not be interesting either, but at least there's a chance it'll be great. It just goes to show that there's more to chose from."
As far as his best meal of the year, Shaw says there are lots to chose from. He can name two or three, but his standards go far beyond what's served for dinner.
"It's a confluence of elements," Shaw explains of the making of a memorable meal. "The food has to touch some emotional buttons, for sure. The setting has to be not necessarily remarkable, but pleasant. And the company has to be game to be there."
Beyond that, he says, there's the feeling that you walk away from the table with.
"You have to be well-fed," Shaw begins, "but that means feeding your stomach, but feeding you as well, feeding your soul, feeding your imagination. You want to leave the table feeling satisfied, that's a lot more than feeling full."
Shaw starts every meal with that anticipation, and that hope of finding satisfaction.
So if we are what we eat, then Tucker Shaw's life is an open book. But he's quick to say that he thinks we are more than what we eat. He brings up a French philosopher, called Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who said "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."
Shaw's book is a challenge to that testament. "Food for me is so far beyond what's on your emotional plate," he says. "It's emotional, and I eat in an emotional way. I guess you can see that in the pictures and I think people fill in the blanks when you leave things out. And it's a great yearbook for me. I can remember every single day in a way I never could before." |
|
|
|
