CAN A CHEF BE AN ARTIST?

            There exists a field called the Culinary Arts for a reason.  A chef can most certainly be an artist; not just visually, but conceptually as well.  Artists make creations that are enjoyed by other people.  Paintings are enjoyed by people that view them, films are enjoyed by people that watch them, music is enjoyed by people that listen to them, and food is enjoyed by people that eat it.  A chef is one of the most important kinds of artist actually when you think of it like that, at least for me and many other teenage boys that eat a lot.

            When preparing food, a chef must use creativity, something that is certainly a necessary characteristic of an artist.  They must be innovative in both the ingredients and the recipe, but also in the presentation of the food.  A good chef definitely needs to have artistic qualities in order to be successful.

TRANSFORMATION IN "BABETTE'S FEAST"

            The theme of transformation appears increasingly throughout the course of Babette’s Feast.  The people of Berlevaag are highly religious and they reject the concept of pleasure because of their fundamentalist Puritan-like ways.  They shun luxury and thus, have never really enjoyed the food that they ate, something which Babette values immensely.  Over the course of the meal that Babette prepares, we see a huge transformation in the way Martine and Phillipa look at food, and on the broader scale, life.  The feast leads to interaction among the guests and the well-cooked meal is overwhelmingly enjoyable.  The narrator of the story explains, "Usually in Berlevaag people did not speak much while they were eating.  But somehow this evening tongues were loosened” (page 56).  The transformation that Babette’s 10,000 franc feast brings about is that of realization; the realization that enjoyment is okay and should not be feared/avoided.