The job of the plate in signature dishes.  (Maria Fernanda Jasso Rubi, 2022)

For our 4th anniversary, my boyfriend gave me the book “Signature Dishes that Matter” (2019), curated by Susan Jung, Howie Kahn, Christine Muhlke, Pat Course, Andrea Petrini, Diego Salazar, and Richard Vines. I don’t have to tell you how happy I was when noticing all the history written on those pages. This book is a list of dishes selected by the curators regarding their thoughts on what a signature dish is while explaining what makes them unique and how they have evolved. 

As I was reading it, I remembered the movie Julie and Julia, the story of a woman trying to create all of Julia Child’s recipes in a year. I thought to myself, – I could do something like that-  Not as in “let’s master French Cuisine in a year,” but more of a “let’s create the perfect plate for this exquisite, full of history plates in a year!”.

What do I mean by the perfect plate? – As the years go by, I have been leading my career towards experience design, something I do for every project since I learned the proper way of doing it. The idea is to create a plate based on the experience of the people eating and/or serving them. 

I think that the place, the moment, and the cook make a big difference in the whole experience of eating a dish and that every dish will have their little stories that will change my view on how I should work the design, so I am excited to start. 

Just the plate? – 

I know that when you eat, maybe the thing that you notice the least is the plate, but it takes a massive part in every step of the history, process, and final delivery. 

I know that you wouldn’t like to eat certain soups on a flat plate or a steak in a bowl, but more than the shape, the way it completes its job to present and hold the food for you in a specific situation is the magic and the secret of the plates, and I’m all here for it. 

I enjoy food and its history so much that this will be a little hobby to develop my design skills in the food industry. I also want my research not to go unnoticed and would love to share my thoughts on every dish with you. As well, I am on my way to being able to study for a master’s degree in Food Design. Hopefully, this project will help my portfolio pop up quite a bit for the university application and potential customers so I can save enough money to afford just the beginning of my trip. 

I have a year to work on this project. I am sure that after I look back on some of the designs, I will not be happy with the result and that my vision and opinion on them will change after time and extra knowledge, or for the very least, I’m hoping for that because it will mean, all of this, is working.

Thank you if you will follow this with me.  

Fer J. 

Bibliography

Jung, S., Kahn, H., Muhlke, C., Nourse, P., Petrini, A., Salazar, D. & Vines, R.. (2019). Signature Dishes That Matter. New York, NY: Phaidon.

This blog can be followed at www.maryferidesign.com 

Most of the updates will be posted first there, the following renders at @maryferidesign, and after a while, I will update Behance.