The Art Of Food Porn

Growing up, I remember spending long Yom Kippur afternoons in front of the television. When the fasting holiday landed on a Saturday, I would tune in religiously, if not masochistically, to the cooking-show line-up on PBS. Although a really good Jew would have been at the synagogue praying, my meditations were on Jacques Pepin, Julia Child and Jeff Smith. I watched them prepare one mouthwatering meal after the next while I waited for the sun to go down so I could finally eat again.

I wasn't familiar with the term "food porn" then, but this habit would certainly qualify. Because I couldn't eat, I got a vicarious thrill from the entertainment of food preparation. Later in life, I moved on to a more advanced form of vicarious eating: vicarious cooking. Last week, for example, I was dealing with a chronic affliction: being a sugar junkie. Rather than tearing into a jumbo bag of M&Ms and facing the stomach-curdling remorse a half-pound of chocolate later, I decided to bake. Testing the old cliché that the cook is never hungry, I rationalized that making brownies would sublimate my cravings. I was correct. After partaking in a moderate three slices, I was done. Somehow, baking replaced my desire to indulge.

Though the psychological intricacies of the technique's success elude me, I know food porn works. Just look at the ability of millions of Food Network spectators to get their culinary rocks off by watching others do the cooking. We all have this in common: We would rather be eating. It is the reliance on substitutes that qualifies our pursuits as food porn, and somehow, there is release to be found in these peripheral activities.

That being the case, it seems inevitable that proverbial food porn would take on a more blatantly sexual bent. I've only seen her show a handful of times, but I am fully aware of Nigella Lawson's seminal influence on the genre. Her over-the-top enjoyment of cooking on Nigella Bites-finger licking, wanton nibbling, sloppy tastes of ingredients-coupled with her curvy, life-giving good looks have brought the marriage of food and sensuality to the pop-cultural fore. Due to Lawson's success, the misconception has arisen that a sexy chef will, by default, make food sexy. Take Giada De Laurentiis, the starlet-cute hostess of the Food Network's Everyday Italian. Although one can't ignore the chef's resemblance to Natalie Portman-her perfect skin, pert breasts, and preternaturally tight abs-her plastic screen presence renders her physical beauty irrelevant. Tasty as her fried chicken looked as De Laurentiis dunked it into scorching olive oil, I found it impossible to get off on her show.

To my surprise, it was Ina Garten, the rotund Barefoot Contessa, who made me blush. During an episode in which she frosts a cake in suggestive pink icing, the insouciance of her cherubic gaze shocked me out of passive observation. On the surface, Garten was merely getting a kick out of the perfect icing on her cake. But one direct glance into the camera made it clear that the source of her pleasure went much deeper-and the feeling was infectious. De Laurentiis may have a Scores body, but Garten's devilish look suggests mischief that goes beyond tinting buttercream an unnatural shade of pink.

Like a pubescent boy who's discovered breasts for the first time, once I caught on to the fun of food porn I realized it was everywhere. By the time I finished Adam Platt's description of pork butt (insert joke here) in a recent New York magazine restaurant review, my jaw had dropped open. "When it arrived at our table, the ladies let out a collective gasp, then commenced daintily to pick at it. The fat had mostly melted away, and the meat inside was pinkish purple from the hickory smoke, and it came away in long ribbons. After a while, I discarded the tongs and ate with my fingers. The meat tasted porky and sweet, and you could smell the hickory in the back of your nose." Now, if only I could replace my sugar addiction with food porn-that would be something.