beauty
n.— «I had fallen victim to what is called, by its detractors, “food porn.” Its creators usually refer to it as “making beauties”—as in “Hey, Al, let’s do a beauty of those pecans.” Bob Tuschman, the Food Network’s head of programming, had described the concept when I visited him in his office, above the Chelsea Market, in Manhattan. The point is to get very close to what you are filming, so close that you can see an ingredient’s “pores” (“You should believe the dish is in your living room”), which then triggers some kind of Neanderthal reflex. “If you’re flicking from channel to channel and come upon food that has been shot in this way, you will be hardwired as a human being to stop, look, and bring it back to your cave.”» —“TV Dinner” by Bill Buford New Yorker Oct. 2, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
After our conversation about wishing well eggs, a listener from Viroqua, Wisconsin, chimes in with another name for this egg-in-toast dish: UFOs, short for Unidentified Frying Objects. This is part of a complete episode.
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