Lights, Camera, Action!

It’s 1983, the infancy of food porn

and the good folks at Sharp Electronics Corporation

who have produced this Microwave Cookbook

have cottoned on to the extreme close-up

as a selling point, and it must be said

that while the lighting, styling, and overall

quality of the photographs is excellent,

their fetish for spearing, skewering, piercing

and otherwise gripping, pinching and poking

the produce with gleaming sharp metal utensils

lends the whole thing a distinct BSDM feel.



The rough charms of a rustic meatloaf

are certainly improved by the prick

of carving fork’s razor-sharp points

to clarify the texture of what is meant

to submit to the knife.



The tip of a Chicken Breast Parmesan has been

sliced and held aloft on the tines

of a silver fork, connected to the rest

by a thinly stretched ribbon of transparent,

oily cheese. Peeking out from underneath

the labial web is a layer of glistening red

tomato sauce, the severed edge of breast itself

resting in the puddle of clear juice it oozes.



The slivered almonds are captured in the act

of falling upon the buttered green beans

where they settle into the melty yellow knobs

in ecstasy. The beans perspire under their weight.