Just because it looks good, doesn’t mean it tastes good!
They say “we eat with our eyes first” and nobody knows this more than food stylists and photographers. When it comes to food styling, nothing is what it seems. It’s all about empathizing on the aesthetics of food rather than its taste.
Yes, we have been living a lie and the food we thought tastes as good as it looks is actually raw.
Here we give you all the tricks that food stylists and photographers have been using for years now to achieve the desired look.
1- Meat Kabsa
When cooked, meat usually shrinks and that is why food stylists never cook their meat. To prevent meat from shrinking, food stylists usually apply blowtorch to the outside of meat then soak it all in oil to give it that succulent and juicy finishing look.
2- Shrimps
Shrimps are easy to cook, but they dry out really quickly. To keep shrimps looking all shiny and prevent it from wrinkling when cooled down, food stylists resort to treating this dilemma by using a mixture of water and glycerol.
3- Basbousa
- Photo Credits: sbs.com.au
Instead of drenching the good old-fashioned Basbousa in a sugar syrup for it absorbs it very quickly, photographers replace the syrup with engine oil.
4- Chocolate Sauce
This insanely crazy good-looking photo of chocolate sauce dripping on a piece of cake is nothing but melted wax mixed with the runny sauce to preserve its consistency and create an eye-popping photo.
5- Grill Marks
We’ve been screwed for almost too long! These grill marks are nothing but paint and eyeliner perfectly drawn to give the illusion of grill marks. Yes! we have been living a lie after all.
6- Steam
A photo shoot can last for several hours and food won’t be hot all throughout this time. Photographers resort to inventive ways to give food that hot, steamy look that makes us drool like drizzling the entire ensemble with boiling water or sponges and cotton balls soaked in boiling water and placed behind the dish to create the steamy effect.
