Book Reviews

Eat Love
Marije Vogelzang, BIS publishers

Marije Vogelzang is not a chef, nor is she a food designer. The Design Academy Eindhoven graduate is a self-described ‘eating designer’. Eat Love presents a portfolio of the Dutch designer’s culinary experiments, ranging from tatooed peppers to a 2.5 meter high ham-man. Proprietor of the Netherlands-based restaurant and eating studio Proef, Vogelzang explores the psychological, cultural, scientific and social implications of food.
“I was not the first designer to be involved with food, but I soon noticed that most designers were almost exclusively concentrating on the presentation, the styling of the food. The aesthetic aspect is very important. You can see that in the photographs which in the end are the only things that remain of these short-lived projects... I design not only the food but also the experience that goes with it, the actions,” she writes. “Eating is a more active concept, a verb...What matters to me is the experience of eating in this specific context at this moment.”
Eat Love is a pleasurable, although not too deep, introduction to the concept of eating design. Hand-scrawled comments and illustrations peppered throughout the text make the book a fun read for designers and non-designers alike. Just as she curates her eating experiments, this carefully considered selection of Vogelzang’s work reminds us how “eating together create(s) a feeling of fellowship and even moments of happiness.”