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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Purple Haze




In 1980, food styling wasn’t so much about the food as it was about composition.

This picture was made at the juncture between the prop-heavy 1970s (following the formula exactly: plated food, raw version of the main ingredient, cruet set and flowers) and the intense close-up of the 1980s (hinted at here in the glistening sharpness of the eggplant stuffing and water bespeckled irises).

This stylist has gone for a purple theme, presumably to match the eggplant, though the use of a sprig of baby’s breath to echo the moistness of the dish below it might be merely accidental.

Budget Saving Meals Cookbook, Donna M. Paananen, 1980

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