Food porn or that teasing, tastebud-tingling path to presumed delicious

The path to delicious can leave a bad taste – or suggest that something will taste bad.

Sam Sifton, food editor of The New York Times, has written a beautifully illustrated (naturally) piece explaining the “Secrets of Food Porn Photos”.

That’s what it is headlined, but it doesn’t tell us much that we don’t already know.

Such as, a beautiful photograph will get taste buds tingling.

It will make people want to cook. Or at least want to eat. Rightaway.

He points out that some food lends itself naturally to stunning photographs: “a roasted bird; a delicate cake. But it is not always so (see: stew, porridge, soup).”

That’s when photo trickery comes in.

“Even a brown stew, photographed in the right light, at the correct angle, with the correct bowl or platter or cutting board in the background, with a dish towel dropped just so or a crumb expertly flicked onto the border of a plate, can become beautiful,” writes Mr Sifton.

The one thing the uninitiated may learn from Mr Sifton’s piece: the NYT man responsible for its food porn is Andrew Scrivani, a photographer, who as Mr Sifton says, “walks with us on the path to delicious.”