Unseen aspects of foodstylist work on set

When you watch a movie, do you wonder what actors actually eat and drink when they act? Does the food and drink match the era in which the film's story unfolds? Is the food you see on the screen real? Who actually cooks on cooking shows? You will find answers to these questions in the following text! 

Source: Joanka Sikora 

For starters, let's start with movies where food plays an important role: the recently popular movies "Menu", "Life from the kitchen", "Julia and Julia", "Hundred foot journey", "Cooked", "Guys from the kitchen" or at least "Chocolate". To this I will add the TV series "The bear". 

With all the productions, the participation of foodstylist leaves no doubt. These films are about food, and it plays an important role enough that its exposure requires the presence of a food stylist on the set. The technical aspect of food also remains important – that is, preparing it, taking care of its appearance, at least at a separate stage of demonstrating the creation of dishes, and continuing, that is, ensuring that the food that was “playing” a few days ago is the same food that looked the same when it comes back to this scene again. 

Source: Joanka Sikora 

It may happen that some scenes return to production after a few days, because, for example, this is due to the availability of the actor or the object in which the photos were taken. In addition to making feature films, we should also mention examples of TV shows where many food scenes are filmed documentarily - here and now. I'll give you an example of "Street food" movie. There is also the cult TV series "Chef's table", where the main role (and work) is performed by the chefs (or rather, their team), which this episode tells about.

This is all obvious. And what is the story related to other movies where food is not the main character, but only the background or filling of a given scene?

I will repeat the question - is this true? Is it delicious? Is this even relevant? It turns out that - yes! Often, you probably don't even realize that a foodstylist has been hired for a given scene. Sometimes you can't even see the results of his work.

Why is the foodstylist job invisible?

When implementing the film project, it happens that you need food. Of course, you could order them just from the restaurant. However, what if a particular scene is implemented over several days rather than in a row, or in a field where there is no restaurant and delivery is difficult? In such a situation, it is good to have someone who will solve this problem and make sure that it appears on time, so that it meets all aesthetic and hygienic standards. An important aspect of this job is also taking care of the actor / actress good form. 

One of the factors that affect this condition is, for example, diet or allergies. It happens that one of the actors is allergic to something or does not eat certain things. Then my job as a food stylist is to create a dish that looks identical to the one that was supposed to appear in the movie, but will be devoid of those ingredients that are unacceptable. 

As an example from my own experience, I can cite oysters - the actor was allergic to seafood and was a vegan. So what did I do? Colored agar oysters served on long-prepared original shells. 

Source: Joanka Sikora 

Another less typical task was making turtle soup. Instead of turtle, I used seitan (a vegan meat substitute), which may resemble turtle meat in color and texture, which, apart from cultural and culinary considerations, is protected after all, so given all these aspects, it is still impossible to eat it.

Question – why all this?

Food on set is an essential part, just as the scenery helps the actor empathize with his character.