Chefs and parents plot a lunch revolution at one D.C. public school

by : Ed Bruske

for: Grist.org

Bringing the home back into school cafeterias which are currently full of unhealthy, quick, processed food choices for children. At a time when parents have a decisive influence over their children's eating habits and behaviours, their influence is being obstructed by the cafeteria food system in schools.

http://www.grist.org/article/food-chefs-and-parents-plot-lunch-revolution-at-D.C.-public-school/

Tactility and influence of cups and bottles

This is a very rough prototype on an idea of how to design cups. What seemed interesting to me was the effect of drinking from different heights and thicknesses.

These were all coke glass products. If I can enjoy coke in this container, then what's stopping me from being able to drink any other liquid from it. It was marketed to be attractive to the touch in the first place!

I found that at the same time, I was enjoying the glass cup and that my idea of enjoying coke for the taste was disappearing.

Renderings of the plate in glass.

Ideally, a recycled plastic in some way would make this an even better product. My Formz software isn't the best when it comes to graphics with color, so glass was the more effective look.

This dates back to the beginning of the summer and through out...

I was trying to apply our design into fast food restaurants. Mili and I have talked about foodapy all while having to eat from their plates and it always felt like it was impossible to suggest change in places like mc Donald's...but there's certain restaurants with trays and plates out of Styrofoam.

Many of the things we looked at was how food was stuffed onto a plate. Styrofoam plates get thrown out. Napkins usually fly away when on a tray. When food falls off from a plate, trays aren't considered properly cleaned.

So the result is, the napkins have a pocket, along with the utensils, the main plate in the center is supposed to be the same size as the salad/soup side plates, but because it's higher it would appear bigger.

It's almost impossible to tell what design would look nicer as a tray/plate. The final look has a asian feel to it. which isn't so bad.

One last thing i wasn't able to show is that the two side plates are the feet of the tray.

À la recherche du temps perdu

"À la recherche du temps perdu" or "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

The excerpt on Marcel Proust's description of la Madeleine read to us by Rhona in the fall 2010 Special Topics class from this book was in my mind the lightbulb that explained what we were trying to achieve with our semester-long project when it first began.

It was about taste, memory, satisfaction, joy, etc..

So much of this is removed in our "urban" or "student" or "fast" way of living. Food is seen as caloric intake and some are obsessed with counting while others don't care or don't have time to count. Marcel understood through his rediscovery of a childhood snack that in order to truly benefit form life, we need to stop every once and a while.

communal experience with plates

Our first experience of eating as a group from the Slo plates happened at Marian's house during a get-together. We hadn't originally planned to eat but as the sun was going down we realized after all of the chatting and laughing, that we were hungry! Someone mentioned ordering Chinese food and many other concurred.

When the food arrived, everybody's side dish orders came in rectangular boxes that were apparently mean as a single serving, A portion for 2 was shared among 4 and a portion of 1 was shared among too. What was amazing was that we had plenty to spare afterwards.

Whereas we might have otherwise each taken a standard plate and followed its dictation of how much to fill it up with, we luckily had access to our porcelain plates and the act of sharing became more natural and everybody was able to customize their plate to their fancy.

The food which otherwise is just meant to be seen in bulk, developed some personality on our plates and definitely looked more appetizing.

From previous experience, I had purchased a styrofoam box of 10 peanut butter dumplings and because I was alone and wanted to try them (it was my first time) , I was obliged to finish it all. In this situation, Marian and I shared a 1 person serving of peanut butter dumplings and due to their arrangement on my plate, combined with the shared company, these were especially more delicious than the 10 I ate on my own.

The food had a focal presence and the interaction was most definitely not passive.

Personal discretion was allowed and very little could be put on a plate without looking like some were eating more than others.

The food looked tastier.

A small handful of nachos and hummus became a combination by imagining what else could go in the middle as opposed to salsa.

A little went a long way.