The Art of Food Presentation

The Art
of Food
Presentation
Teacher’s Guide
Introduction
This Teacher’s Guide provides information to help you get the most out of The Art of Food
Presentation. The contents in this guide will allow you to prepare your students before they
use the program, assist them as they navigate through the program, and present follow-up
activities to reinforce the program’s key learning points.
The Art of Food Presentation is a 20-minute video targeted to high school students and
vocational/technical school students interested in the culinary field or a career in Hospitality
and Tourism. Its content is appropriate to such curriculum areas as Trade and Technical
Education. In addition, the information presented could also be used in adult education
cooking courses.
Learning Objectives
After watching the video program, students will be able to:
• Combine visual elements, such as color, texture, shapes, and sizes, into their own food
presentations.
• Utilize a balanced mix of flavors and temperatures when presenting a meal.
• Arrange food platters that are creative and appealing to the eye.
• Use garnishes to enhance food presentations.
• Properly plate a meal.
Educational Standards
The Art of Food Presentation correlates with the National Standards for Family and Consumer
Sciences (FACS), the Career Clusters of the National Association of State Directors of Career
Technical Education Consortium, and the State Standards of the Utah Education Network
(UEN) in partnership with the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) and the Utah System of
Higher Education (USHE).
Standard 8.0: The student integrates knowledge, skills, and practices required for careers in
food production and services. The student analyzes career paths within the food production
and food services industries; demonstrates planning menu items based on standardized recipes
to meet customer needs; demonstrates commercial preparation for all menu categories to produce a variety of food products; demonstrates implementation of food service management
functions; and demonstrates the concept of internal and external customer service.
Source: Utah State Office of Education Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) Standards for
Food Production and Services.
Standard N.CTE.9.0 Career Cluster: Hospitality and Tourism encompasses the management,
marketing and operations of restaurants and other food services, lodging, attractions, recreation
events and travel-related services.
Source: National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium.
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Copyright © 2007 Meridian Education Corporation ®
Standard 20.0118-04: Students apply skills for meal planning and management. The student
identifies quality meal planning elements including following dietary guidelines, following
food guide pyramid recommendations, maintaining nutritional balance, and incorporating
aesthetic guidelines: color, texture, flavor, temperature, size, and shape.
Source: Utah Education Network (UEN) in partnership with Utah State Office of Education
(USOE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).
Program Summary
The way we present meals to make them look appealing and appetizing is just as important
as the ingredients that go into our favorite recipes. The purpose of this video program is to
introduce key concepts to consider when preparing a meal, such as visuals, textures, and
other elements, in order to demonstrate how each of the elements can change a boring plate
into one that satisfies both the palate and the eye.
Main Topics
Topic 1: Introduction
The program begins with an introduction from chefs Doug Fee and Frank Benowitz to the
five key elements of proper food presentation, including important concepts to consider
when planning a menu.
Topic 2: Color
Viewers learn that thoughtfully considered color choices are a simple yet effective way to
enhance the presentation of any meal.
Topic 3: Shape and Texture
Shape and texture are the focus of this section, as the chefs reveal how to use these two
elements to lend interest to the presentation and excite the palate.
Topic 4: Arrangement
Do we eat with our mouth or our eyes? The chefs answer this question by shedding light on
how to properly arrange food.
Topic 5: Garnish
Viewers gain insight into the importance of garnishing a food arrangement correctly, without
overdoing it.
Topic 6: Plates
In this section, the frame that surrounds the art of food presentation—the plate—is discussed.
Topic 7: Summary
The program’s five key points are reviewed.
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Fast Facts
• Some interesting food preparation techniques that affect food flavor include brining,
drying, grinding, marinating, mincing, pickling, salting, seasoning, sprouting, and sugaring.
• Techniques that create a variety of textures range from a shred, slice, or chop of a vegetable,
to the more fancifully named jardinière, julienne, mirepoix, paysanne, macédoine, or brunoise.
• The five key elements of food presentation are color, shape and texture, arrangement,
garnish, and plating.
• At high altitudes, food preparation may require changes in time, temperature, or recipe,
due to lower atmospheric pressure and a thinner blanket of air. This decreased pressure
causes water and other liquids to evaporate faster and boil at lower temperatures, and also
causes increased expansion in the leavening gases of breads and cakes. Altitude should be
taken into consideration when timing the preparation of a meal.
• In the past, a plate of food was a plate of food, with regimented and easily anticipated
placement of food. This “flat” approach has since been replaced by a vertical stacking
placement that has, literally, taken food presentation to new heights.
• Instead of using a ladle, consider instead reaching for your squeeze bottles. They can be
used to easily paint and drizzle gravies, syrups, and sauces on both the food and the plate.
• According to chef2chef.net, the top five culinary schools in the United States as of January
2007 are The Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park Campus, Hyde Park, NY), Texas
Culinary Academy (Austin, Texas), Johnson & Wales University (Charleston, SC), Sullivan
University (Louisville, KY), and Johnson & Wales University (North Miami, FL).
• A common mistake in food presentation is to overload the plates with too many contrasting foods. In plating your food, take a tip from a professional four-star chef: display food
vertically and keep it minimal by avoiding large portions and heavy sauces.
• Marcus Samuelsson, chef and owner of the world-renowned Aquavit and the Riingo in
New York City, is famous for preparing culinary works of art, framed on Chicago glass
blocks normally used in interior design.
• A cutting-edge plating technique is to construct food to look like something it’s not (e.g.,
constructing something that is not an egg to look like one). Color should also be considered in conjunction with the food—a red plate, for example, can be wonderful with a salad
or risotto Milanese. Plates with a very busy pattern should be avoided.
• Beautiful, edible flowers can be easily cut from tomatoes, radishes, carrots, chilies, and
onions, as well as butter balls, lime slices, and fluted mushrooms, using a few paring
knives, a vegetable peeler, and some specialty tools.
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Vocabulary Terms
accompaniment: Something added for embellishment, completeness, or symmetry.
arrangement: An orderly grouping (of things or persons) considered as a unit; the result of
arranging something in a particular way.
asymmetrical design: A design that is not identical on both sides of a central line, that has
no balance or symmetry.
brunoise: The cutting of vegetables into very small dice (2mm x 2mm x 2mm).
color wheel: A circular diagram in which primary and secondary colors are arranged sequentially so that related colors are next to each other and complementary colors are opposite.
complementary colors: One of a pair of primary or secondary colors opposed to the other
member of the pair on a color wheel. Green and red are complementary colors, as are
orange and blue, and purple and yellow.
cooking methods: Ways in which to cook food. They are divided into three categories:
dry-heat (such as frying, broiling, and baking), moist-heat (such as boiling and steaming),
and combination-heat (such as stewing).
flavor: Taste, especially the distinctive taste of something as it is experienced in the mouth.
Examples: sweet, tart, savory, pungent, earthy, acidic, salty, bitter, bland.
garnish: To add an edible accent that augments flavor or increases the visual appeal of a dish.
gourmet chef: A connoisseur of fine food and drink involved in cooking, preparing, and
presenting high-quality or exotic ingredients.
jardinière: The cutting of vegetables into batons (3mm x 3mm x 18mm).
julienne: The cutting of vegetables into thin strips.
macédoine: The cutting of vegetables into dice (0.5cm x 0.5cm x 0.5cm).
mirepoix: The cutting of vegetables into roughly cut thin pieces.
mise en place: From the French, meaning literally “put in place,” it means the proper planning of equipment and ingredients for food preparation and assembly in professional cooking.
paysanne: The cutting of vegetables into thin slices according to the natural shape.
scale: A certain relative or proportionate size.
symmetrical design: A design characterized by symmetry; that is, the elements on one side
of a dividing line match those on the other side of the line.
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taste buds: Oval-shaped clusters of cells located on the tongue and lining of the mouth that
contain special nerve endings that help give rise to the sense of taste.
texture: The visual and especially tactile quality of a surface. Examples: firm, soft, crunchy, mushy.
Pre-Program Discussion Questions
1. How many different types of flavors can you identify?
2. When preparing a meal, which do you think about more—the presentation, or the flavor
of the dish? Which do you believe is most important?
3. Would you rather have an all-brown dish, an all-red dish, or a dish that included ten
different colors? Why? What additional colors do you think would improve each dish?
4. How do you think you could save time and be prepared when it comes time to readying
your meal?
5. In your house, which plates are used every day? Which plates are used when guests are
served? How do they differ?
6. Have you ever prepared a meal that turned out to be a disaster? What went wrong?
What would you do differently the next time?
7. Why is the arrangement of food so important to a successful food presentation?
Post-Program Discussion Questions
1. What are the five key elements of proper food presentation?
2. What are some important things to remember when planning a menu for a dinner party?
3. What is “mise en place,” and why is it important?
4. How do shape and texture affect the appearance of your meal?
5. What can you do when cooking to ensure that the meal is presented to your guests with
pleasing color?
6. How important do you think garnishing is to finishing off your plate? What do you wish
to accomplish when adding the garnish?
7. Why is proper plating important? What is its main purpose?
Individual Student Projects
• Ask students to go home and create a meal for their family or friends. The meal should
take into consideration the five key elements. At the end of the meal, they should gather
the participants’ thoughts on what they liked and why, and then write a short synopsis of
the event.
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• Have your students research stacked food. Then, keeping in mind the importance of flavors,
textures, color, and balance, ask them to make a small stacked dish recipe and either take a
photo of it, or create it for the class, where it can be tasted and discussed.
• Create a list of events such as the Super Bowl, a wedding, Halloween, etc. Have each student
choose an event and then create a plate that incorporates not only the five elements, but also
the selected overarching theme. Discuss the plates in class.
Group Activities
• Divide the class into small groups and ask each group to bring in a camera. Using a wide
variety of cheeses, fruits, meats, and vegetables, ask each group to devise and prepare a
series of trays that best exhibit the interesting use of shape, color, texture, flavor, and garnish. Take pictures of the various displays, and then as a class, critique and discuss how well
the various elements work in each version.
• Divide the class into three small groups and assign them fruits, vegetables, or desserts. Have
each group create a plate that presents a color wheel made entirely from food within that
category. Then, ask each group to create a ring around the color wheel of complementary
colors, using any food category they wish.
• Split the class in half and ask each group to consider the preparation of a four-course meal.
The five elements should be well-planned for each course. Each group should create a
video or in-class presentation, and be able to defend why they made the choices they
included in the meal. The other half of the class should then discuss and critique what they
think worked or didn’t and what elements of the meal could have been improved.
Internet Activities
• Using the Internet and magazines, alone or in combination with drawings or sketches, ask
your students to find pictures and graphics of various foods, and then make a poster-sized
meal of balanced, colorful, and well-shaped and -textured food. Each element should be
labeled on the poster with a small explanation of why it was chosen.
• Using any search engine, find examples on the Internet in which a restaurant presents tantalizing examples of plated foods that demonstrate the five key elements. Bring the URLs to
class and browse the sites on a computer, or print out the images from the sites and bring
them to class. Explain how and why the elements work well.
• Allow your students to think outside the box and devise a plate of anything BUT food,
which incorporates and demonstrates the five elements working seamlessly together (e.g.,
a mechanic’s plate, a puppy’s plate, etc.). Ask the students to write a paper with supporting
pictures, create a multimedia presentation, or present live to the class their plates. The
selection of the materials used and the reasons why should be detailed.
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Assessment Questions
Q1. What are the five key elements of proper food presentation?
Q2. When you have everything measured and placed out so that you’re not distracted as you
work, it is said you have ___________________________.
Q3. When planning a meal flavors should always be ____ and____?
a) Salty
b) Bland
c) Balanced
d) Complementary
Q4. Which of the following is an example of complementary colors?
a) Blue and white
b) Blue and red
c) Blue and orange
d) Blue and yellow
Q5. True or False: Choosing foods with complementary colors means that you should select
colors that are similar and go with each other, such as a pinkish strawberry mousse and a
red strawberry.
Q6. Which of these are examples of foods that are not in proper scale? (Select all that apply.)
a) 8 onion rings on top of a steak
b) 1 escargot with 4 russet potatoes
c) 3 strawberries and 7 blackberries
d) 1 bowl of soup with an entire loaf of French bread
Q7. True or False: A plate should always receive the final touch of a perfect garnish.
Q8. When arranging the food on your plate, with what kind of design should you approach
the arrangement?
a) A symmetrical design
b) An asymmetrical design
c) Both A and B
d) Either A or B
Q9. Fill in the blanks with either “natural” or “enhanced.” An example of a(n) ___________
shape is a baby carrot, while an example of a(n) ___________ shape is a carrot medallion.
Q10. If you have a plate with overcooked fish, overcooked broccoli, and mashed potatoes,
what key element of food preparation is most lacking? (Choose the one best answer.)
a) Color
b) Texture
c) Shape
d) Arrangement
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Assessment Questions Answer Key
A1. Color, shape and texture, arrangement, garnish, and plating.
A2. It is said that you have “mise en place.”
A3. The correct answers are C and D. When planning the flavors of your dish a good
approach is to keep the flavors complementary and balanced. Meals should not be
overpowered with salt, nor completely bland and lacking flavor.
A4. The correct answer is C. Blue and orange are complementary colors.
A5. This statement is false. Complementary colors are opposites on the color wheel. When
two colors are similar, they are in the same color family.
A6. The correct answers are A, B, and D. Three strawberries mixed with seven blackberries
would be in the same scale, while all the other choices had one ingredient dwarfing the
other.
A7. This statement is false. Although most plates are enhanced with a garnish, there are
times when a plate is so perfectly balanced with the other key elements that a garnish is
not needed. If the dish looks complete without a garnish, feel free to leave it alone.
A8. The correct answer is D. You should approach your arrangement with either a symmetrical or an asymmetrical design, depending on the ingredients. You shouldn’t try to incorporate both on the same plate.
A9. An example of a natural shape is a baby carrot, while an example of an enhanced
shape is a carrot medallion.
A10. The correct answer is B.
Additional Resources
Dishing with Style: Secrets to Great Tastes and Beautiful Presentations
by Rori Trovato
Clarkson Potter, 2004
ISBN-10: 1400050405; ISBN-13: 978-1400050406.
Food Art: Garnishing Made Easy
by John Gargone
Schiffer Publishing, 2003
ISBN-10: 0764319604; ISBN-13: 978-0764319600.
Food Color and Appearance
by John B. Hutchings
Springer, 1999
ISBN-10: 0834216205; ISBN-13: 978-0834216204.
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Working the Plate: The Art of Food Presentation
by Christopher Styler; photography by David Lazarus
John Wiley & Sons, 2006
ISBN-10: 047147939X; ISBN-13: 978-0471479390.
About.com
http://www.homecooking.about.com
Chef2chef.net
http://chef2chef.net
Chow.com
http://www.chow.com
Cooking-and-food.com
http://www.cooking-and-food.com
Etabletop.com
http://www.etabletop.com
Food Network
http://www.foodnetwork.com
Additional Resources at www.filmsmediagroup.com
Available from Films Media Group • www.filmsmediagroup.com • 1-800-257-5126
Basic Food Preparations
• CD-ROM
• Order #10061
A trip to the dining room begins with a trip to the supermarket and the kitchen. This CDROM offers insights into selecting, preparing, and cooking food. Methods for evaluating the
quality of beef, poultry, fish, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and other foods are described
in detail. In addition, ways to prepare sauces, soups, vegetables, salads, dough, batter, and
even convenience foods are also illustrated. A section on cooking meat is included as well,
featuring the correct way to determine if it is “done.” A Cambridge Educational Production.
Available for Windows only. © 1999.
Preparing Vegetables
• VHS/DVD
• Order #26102
Healthy, delicious, and appealing...whether raw or cooked...vegetables are an important part
of a healthy diet. This video examines various ways to prepare vegetables to retain nutritive
value, color, texture, and flavor. Details simmering, steaming, baking/roasting, microwave,
and other methods. A Meridian Production. (12 minutes) © 1990.
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Timing and Organization in Food Preparation
• VHS/DVD
• Order #26658
How do you get a meal to the table...piping hot and ready to eat...at the right time? Luck?
Actually, it’s all in the timing and this video provides the viewer with five basic steps to help
develop this skill. A Meridian Production. (10 minutes) © 1991.
Ever Wondered About Food?
• VHS/DVD/Digital On-Demand
• 6-part series
• Order #35573
• Correlates to educational standards
• Closed-captioned
• Preview clip available at www.filmsmediagroup.com
Superb cooking techniques, fun food facts, and exciting culinary history all come together in
this six-part series. Each program focuses on a basic, time-honored element of the human
diet, exploring how that particular food source has been collected and prepared over the centuries. The untold stories of cheese, seafood, eggs, potatoes, chicken, and mushrooms are all
revealed — along with dazzling, hands-on demonstrations of cooking methods for each
ingredient, from master chef Paul Merrett. The series includes Ever Wondered About
Cheese?; Ever Wondered About Seafood?; Ever Wondered About Eggs?; Ever Wondered
About Potatoes?; Ever Wondered About Chicken?; Ever Wondered About Mushrooms?
(30 minutes each) © 2005.
Catering Skills
• VHS/DVD/Digital On-Demand
• Order #35734
• 2-part series
• Two viewable/printable teacher’s guides available online
• Correlates to educational standards
• Closed-captioned
• Preview clip available at www.filmsmediagroup.com
Entering the world of large-scale, high-end food service requires attention to rigorous standards and expectations. This two-part series familiarizes students with the basics and the fine
points of professional catering—menu preparation, kitchen practices, dish presentation, serving techniques, and more. Guidance from culinary instructor Richard Dodson and detailed,
step-by-step visuals of kitchen and dining hall operations help train aspiring caterers for this
very demanding business. The series includes Catering Skills: Setting the Scene; Catering
Skills: Behind the Scenes. (25 to 28 minutes each) © 2005.
Food Art Poster
• Laminated Poster
• Order #35059
This 25.5” x 25.5” diamond-shaped poster will encourage your students to play with their
food—but in a good way. These culinary creations are guaranteed to add an element of healthy
fun to any discussion about good nutrition. Recommended for grades 6 and up. © 2005.
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Savor the Spectrum! Poster Set
• 6-Poster Set (Laminated or Unlaminated)
• Order #34643
• Correlates to the National Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences Education.
This dazzling six-poster set will show your students how to eat better—and have fun while
doing it. Tell them to forget about “citrus fruits” and “cruciferous vegetables” and just think
“color,” the easy way to work nutritious, delicious produce into their diet. Plates turn into
palettes when they savor the spectrum! A Meridian Product. Poster set includes “9 A Day”
Every Day—An Overview, Blue/Purple Fruits and Vegetables, Green Fruits and Vegetables,
White Fruits and Vegetables, Yellow/Orange Fruits and Vegetables, Red Fruits and Vegetables.
Six 17” x 22” posters. © 2005.
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