Jem Kamran -Lunch with Tolstoy

It is interesting that Tolstoy uses food to explain his theory of art as pleasure and communication. He claims that "in order to define art precisely, one must first of all cease looking at it as a means of pleasure and consider it as one of pleasure and considered it as one of the conditions of human life." Son in terms of food one must stop thinking about how tasty the food is and consider it as a fuel to sustain life. Considering art in is way we can't help to see it as something that is important and therefore can't help analyzing the intentions behind it. If we see food as a piece of art then we will consider more than how it makes us feel, but we will consider the hands that prepared the meal. We would notice that the cook has paired certain flavors together because the cook wanted to you taste flavors of his homeland. He wanted you to experience what he grew up with as a child and wants to share it with you. Through the meal you are sharing in his story.

Tolstoy's comparison to food makes sense to me because, in my culture and the house that I grew up in, I always saw food as a form of communication. Whenever my mother would cook a family recipe she would tell us about her great grandmother and how one entree would take hours to make. Our meals are often more than the pleasure of good food, but is more of a history of where the recipe came from we came from, but most of all where we came from. According to Tolstoy this would be considered art that communicates.