The Symbolism of Food

Chef Lo Pinto’s culinary creations reminds us that all food is beautiful in it’s own very special way. The concept of these photos is designed to make us wonder about how we feel after eating mindfully paired and prepared foods.

I spoke with Anthony Lo Pinto, the executive chef at Third and Vine Restaurant in Jersey City, NJ, and the creator of this project. His goal: to bring a wider sense of awareness to the importance of properly paired and prepared food in our lives. In these photos, Chef LoPinto uses carefully selected food pairings to demonstrate the symbiotic and symbolic relationship between different foods and the very inner workings of our own bodies. Using food paired with specific parts of the body shines a whole new light onto food and its importance to our whole being. He poses a potent question through the photos featured here: Have we forgotten about our relationship to food and how it affects us? Food can be our instant medicine or it can be a slow form of poison. Every meal we eat is an opportunity to heal ourselves, heal others and heal the planet.

Eye

You eat with your eyes first! The first dish Chef LoPinto showed me was a carrot salad. Orange, purple and white carrots. Just one of the many cooking principles of macrobiotics is to try to include every aspect of the food being prepared to eat. In this photo, the carrot root is steamed, the stem is pickled and the carrot fronds are fried. When using every aspect of the vegetables our bodies are able to absorb the full nutritional force that the plant holds. Chef Lo Pinto considers the carrot a fruit of the earth. Carrots are ripened in the soil, hence a fruit of the earth.

Carrots are known for containing high levels of beta carotene, which is healthy for our eyes. 

The carrot and eye hold an image of the earth and sky within: the pupil being the earth and the iris the sky. To balance the three different styles of cooked carrot in this photo, golden plums are included.

The golden plum is a sky fruit. The plum starts as a flower, then after it’s pollinated, it turns into a fruit that’s ripened on a branch in the open air.

The plum complements the carrot both in color and sweetness. Chef Lo Pinto cuts the golden plums to resemble diamonds. In this way he honors the four directions of our planet.

Balance is essential to making good food. Chef LoPinto explains “when ingredients are carefully selected, prepared and cooked with care and attention that dish becomes a nurturing and flavorful experience.”

Stomach 1

In the next photo, Chef Lo Pinto reveals a salad made of golden and red beets, cut in rings to symbolize the links of a chain. When eating or even growing the foods together they form a strong link to help support each other. Thus the presentation of the links of beets. The earthy sweetness of the beets and onions is matched by the sweetness of the peach. Once food has been consumed, it starts a long chain of events as it travels through our digestive system. The calendula flower petals catch the sun and hold it to create vibrancy in the food pairing… when you eat flower petals you’re eating sunlight. Mint is not only delicious but holds numerous benefits to our body. Eating mint opens up our taste buds and nasal passages so we get the full flavor profile of our foods. The vegetables of this dish were carefully selected to provide an example of the importance of companion planting. Certain plants help each other in the garden. When planting a garden Chef Lo Pinto gets the best results when the garden beds are diversified. Every vegetable bed has different flowers and herbs planted within them. If you have healthy soil that’s filled with life you will have healthy plants. Healthy plants produce healthy foods that, when eaten, create a healthy life for us.

Ear

The biggest communication problem is we sometimes do not listen to understand. We listen to reply!

The palmier cookie. A French pastry cookie shaped like an ear. One of the first classically trained Chef’s that Chef Lo Pinto worked for said, “this cookie was made for significant events such as meetings, matters of state, and other important conversations which required the attentive ear of the person who ate it. The many-layered pastry cookie allowed attentive listeners to pick up every layer of the conversation.”

Chef Lo Pinto is not saying that this cookie is good for your hearing.

Chef Lo Pinto stated that food holds just as an important role symbolically as it does physically. He believes that if you listen hard enough, the food will tell you how to cook it. If you’re not listening for the fresh, crisp snap of a vegetable being prepared, you may be missing what the food is telling you.

Although a palmier can range in taste from sweet to savory, Chef LoPinto’s palmier cookie is savory, made with delicately layered puff pastry dough, Prosciutto de Parma and black pepper.

Hand

The next photo focuses on one of the most important parts of the body, our hands. This dish features wax beans, haricots vert, cucumbers, tarragon, red onions and nasturtium flowers. The long and slightly crooked shape of each of the string beans embodies the natural curve of our fingers; the cucumber’s long shape likens that to our limbs. Each of the vegetables included here is high in fiber, benefiting our digestion for comfort and nutrition. The string bean family contains calcium, a crucial mineral for the hands and fingers. Cucumbers help produce insulin, important for individuals with diabetes, and tarragon has been known to contain a great amount of antioxidants and aid with cancer prevention. Nasturtium, a peppery flower, provides a vibrant flair to the dish both in flavor and in color. The nasturtium flower helps attract beneficial insects which help ward off other garden pests thus providing a healthy growing environment for the plants. These ingredients when grown or eaten together help each other.

Stomach 2

LoPinto’s fourth picture shows a salad of raw beets, raspberry, and red dandelion, garnished with tarragon, dill, and yogurt placed on the stomach. The earthy sweetness of the beet, matched with the floral raspberry, bitter dandelion, herbaceous tarragon and dill with creamy yogurt, together provide a balanced flavor. The picture provides a beautiful array of colors and scents, satisfying the senses of sight and smell. As Chef LoPinto was plating this dish, he said the combined scents of the raw beet, raspberries and herbs in this salad was incredible. The benefit of raw vegetable fiber combined with the probiotics from yogurt provides us with the nutritional tools to propel us through our day.

Using these images of different foods juxtaposed with related parts of the human body, Chef Lo Pinto provides us an opportunity to gaze at food in a new light. In our lives, we can work toward reminding ourselves that it is possible to improve ourselves, our families and maybe even the world with each bite of food. Our universe is in every bite of food. Every meal is an opportunity to heal others, heal ourselves and heal our planet.

Author: Armand M.Herndon- email: a@yellahouse.com

Photos: Fernando Lopez- lopezkiilphotography.com

Model: Isabella Grace Lo Pinto

Food: Anthony Victor Lo Pinto- chef@cheflopinto.com www.cheflopinto.com