sasha wizansky’s Meatpaper
food as Th e A r b i t e r s o f Ta st e culture As editor in chief of the print magazine Meatpaper, Sasha W izan s ky (MFA 1998) has a unique viewpoint not only on meat eaters, but also on the way food and art fulfill a range of desires. “Food can fill a physical hunger or stimulate an aesthetic demand. Art can feed a sensory void or stimulate academic discourse. Food and art can both be cheap, mass-produced, democratic, expensive, rarified, or entirely exclusive. The more I think about this question, the more similarities I see. In the U.S., though, the necessity of food never needs to be defended, whereas there’s a schism between those who consider art a basic human need and those who consider it superfluous.” A former vegetarian, Wizansky coined the neologism Fleischgeist after noticing a shift toward meat in Bay Area eating habits. “In 2004 I started a collaborative project about meat, and wound up carrying around a ‘meat notebook,’ talking to people about meat. It’s one of the world’s best conversation starters. I heard childhood memories, Brazilian barbeque recommendations, and deeply personal meat confessions. Some people felt compelled to tell me how much they loved certain meat dishes even though they felt terribly guilty about eating them.”
The Brazilian food historian M a rc i a Zo l a dz (Graphic Design 1975) also has a more theoretical perspective on the links between making art and cooking food. She stresses the artisanal over the aesthetic when comparing the two. “Although today both are what could be described as cultural industries, originally they belonged to the crafts rather than the arts.” Based in São Paulo, Zoladz is a journalist, an author who has published cookbooks in Holland and Germany, and a restaurant menu consultant. She delivers lectures around the world (regularly at the Oxford University Symposium on Food and History), and she has traced her nation’s sweet tooth from the Arabian Caliphs to the Iberian peninsula, the court of Portugal, and the African coast.
creativity crosses boun da r ie s From São Paulo to San Francisco, compelled by intellectual curiosity and pure creative drive, CCA alumni are discovering the many threads that connect art and food. M i c h a el M us c a rd i ni (Printmaking 1972) spent 27 years in the construction business, and then in 2004 sold his company to follow in the footsteps of his Italian-born grandfather Emilio, making wine. “My life has been profoundly affected by CCA. Today, running Muscardini Cellars requires both the business skills I gained from being a builder and the creativity I experienced at CCA. The whole process is wonderful—producing a perishable item that produces so much joy.”
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Pitruzzelli’s fusion of Deutsche fare and design flair has won thousands of carnivorous converts in Southern California. Wurstküche recently opened a second location in Venice Beach. “The most rewarding aspect of owning a restaurant is seeing people appreciate the experience we create—watching them meet and fall in love, if only for a night.”
The number of CCA alumni who’ve entered the food and wine industries isn’t surprising, Wizansky observes, given the college’s emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry. “Though I never anticipated that I’d become the editor of a magazine, the essential aspects of the job are collaborative, interdisciplinary, and curatorial—all intuitive approaches for art students.”