Lick It: Challenge the way you experience food

„The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.“

so what are you waiting for?

if you are curious about the most diverse aspects of food and eating, love to immerse into the universe of printed words on paper and furthermore be delighted by underlining illustrations of lighthanded deepness.
get the book and bite them chapters like pralines on your pillow and enter an new foodieverse of thoughts, ideas, dreams and facts.

Marije Vogelzang is inspirational. Her book Lickit invites the reader to reflect on how important food is, consciously and unconsciously. The challenges Marije created for each chapter are exactly that: an inspiration and a spark asking the reader to stretch the boundaries of the imagination when it comes to food -- food is life, we are food. Marije's book is a must!

This wonderful book on food design / eating design is full of inspiration. It opens up completely new perspectives. One of the best books on food design that I have read so far.

Gamechanger, mustread this one!

An inspiring and unique book for anyone who likes food, eating and creativity!

Wow, wat een tof boek! Dit boek is zo treffend raak en laat je 180 graden anders denken over iets wat we allemaal dagelijks doen, eten. Marije Vogelzang gunt je een kijkje in haar inspirerende hoofd dat overloopt van verassende verhalen en boeiende feiten over de magische ervaring van eten.
De hoofdstukken hebben prikkelende titels als ‘Garnalenseks’, ‘Macht’ en ‘Afrocado‘ en in elk van de 22 hoofdstukken koppelt ze eten dus moeiteloos aan een veelzijdigheid aan verassende onderwerpen; eten en macht, eten en tijd, eten en seks, eten en geur, eten en de toekomst en nog veel meer. Voor elk van die hoofdstukken heeft ze een expert op dat gebied geïnterviewd.
Lick it zit vol grappige persoonlijke anekdotes en de vele prikkelende designs van haarzelf, haar collega’s en studenten van de Design Academy zorgen voor een creatieve explosie in je hoofd. Vegetarische fantasiedieren, kraanwater als wijn serveren, de schoonheid van Viennetta ijstaarten, het komt allemaal voorbij. Maar ook waarom de supermarkt een designmuseum is (met audiotour).
Elk hoofdstuk sluit ook nog af met een supercoole challenge , zoals je uitvaartmaaltijd plannen of de Veggie Bling Bling Workshop (super aanrader voor kinderen, check haar Instagram!) en andere uitnodigende opdrachten die je thuis met familie, vrienden of kinderen kunt doen.
Het is een ongelofelijke bibliotheek aan kennis die al je perspectieven doet verschuiven en ik vind dit dé gids voor iedereen die zijn relatie met eten wil verrijken. (het zou verplicht voor scholen op de literatuurlijst moeten staan!)

Marije Vogelzang is an internationally operating ‘eating designer’. She graduated from the Design Academy in Eindhoven. She then started with two experimental restaurants in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, called ‘Proef’, and her design work at the same time. She has traveled around the world with lectures of her work and held exhibitions in many cities, including New York, Toronto, Moscow, Tokyo, Shanghai and Cape Town. She became head of the ‘Food Non Food’ department at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the first bachelor program in design in the world that focuses on food. She is founder/director of The Dutch Institute of Food and Design.

Lick it is an attractive, innovative, smoothly written book, dedicated to her children Juni, Januari and April, who also inspired her. The book is vivified with drawings by Marije herself, which illustrate the text in a phenomenal way. The book is personal and compelling. It's about food and design. Marije Vogelzang developed a completely new vision in this area, which she then shaped it. She thus puts a completely new trend in the design world on the map. It's not about designing new food products. That is the area of 'food design', but about thinking about food and shaping it. She hopes to make people think about food. For Marije, the design process does not start with making something beautiful, but with finding a different angle to see something new or different in the existing. So it's never just about the beauty! She starts with a vision and then chooses the language, i.e. the aesthetic side, with which she expresses the vision. She changes 'Form follows function' to 'Form follows feeling'. The book is written for the eating person, so for everyone.

The 'Challenges' are an important part of getting people to think about food. With the Challenges, for which a lot of space has been made in the book, she wants to involve readers, and therefore also eaters, more consciously in food and stimulate their creative thinking. Thinking differently can change the world. Just as 'recipes' in a cookbook indicate a method of creating a food product, the 'Challenges' are a method of challenging yourself, using your own creativity and doing things not just by reading and understanding with your head, but also with your mouth, with your hands, in short with your body.

Traditionally, wood, metal, steel, stone, plastics are the materials with which designers get to work and make beautiful things that can defy time. Marije Vogelzang uses materials made from organic matter, such as food. Food as a material means taking many aspects into account. Marije indicates that the design process of food is much more complex and extensive than the design process of, for example, a chair. A food product must look good, be safe and tasty, but also have a long shelf life and be easy to produce and package. Yet we do not encounter it in a museum. But, says Marije, such a museum already exists, namely the supermarket. With an audio tour, Marije guides you, as a Challenge, through the 'Food Design Museum', namely the supermarket.

Lick-it is a versatile book with a philosophical viewpoint. To wonder and asking questions, that's where philosophy starts. Marije is constantly amazed and asks questions in a Socratic way. But, she goes further and links action to it, in the form of Challenges. Perhaps the most basic question in this context is: What is food? Many things are connected with food. But food is only food, she says, if it is connected to people. The "What if?" questions are constantly present in the book.

She refers to Confucius, who assumed that all people are good by nature, but also have a little naughtiness in them that need not be suppressed. Doing only sustainable and correct things leads to boring, predictable and unfruitful ideas. By embracing ‘the negative’, she says, sparkling new ideas can emerge. So don't judge too quickly. From her own experience, she indicates that a 'bad idea' can lead to refreshing reactions and insights.

Philosophers ask the question what is the meaning of life. This question is also addressed in Marije's book about food. Inspired by Alan Watts, who says that the meaning of life is to live, Marije goes even further by pointing out moments when we feel deeply connected to life and to others. With Nietzsche she points out that it is about man as a creative creator who should take life with gay seriousness. Marije puts this into practice in a playful way by looking at the world around us with a childish look and questioning it. Why don't we actually eat únder the dining table? In India she let guests eat under the table during a traveling dinner, which gave them a pleasant and disarming experience. She also asked why we copy animal meat with meat alternatives. Copies are inferior while vegetarians deserve a superior version. This led her to make vegetarian fantasy animals. Marije rightly quotes Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Henk Manschot (in: Nietzsche and the Earth) Nietzsche is the first philosopher who recognized the importance of nutrition, because food is the most profound link between people and their 'place on earth'. After all, what we eat is 'converted' and literally becomes part of our body. Marije Vogelzang makes the reader see and experience that again.

In the book, the importance of investigating, looking, listening, experiencing, tasting, feeling, wondering is constantly emphasized. Below I give a small selection from the many, innovative and surprising visions and ideas, and ways to deal with them in practice.

With one of her first projects, Marije wanted children to eat healthy food, especially vegetables, which is a problem in many families. For this, Marije came up with a workshop for children, with lots of vegetables on the table, where children could make jewelery with their own small sharp teeth as tools, as well as cookie cutters and even a drill. Result: the children playfully took vegetables in their mouths and shaped the jewels with their teeth.

Marije sees the food system as one of the best places to start finding sustainable solutions that can make the world a better place. What we eat together has a huge impact on how the world looks, as Carolyn Steel has also shown. One of the biggest sustainability issues is soil health. The Challenge that connects to this, consists of making a dish using ingredients that are regenerating, make it tasty and have fun making it. For a performance in Tokyo, 'The Future in Your Hands', she made soil-regenerating snacks that she let people eat from her hand. Literally being in control of a healthy future comes together here with intimacy and trust.

Every culture has its own norms when it comes to food. Marije wonders how you, as a designer, can design more inclusively by making invisible standards visible. Falling outside the norm can be liberating and doesn't have to mean giving up on your values. Now how do you define queer food? One minute food is a delicious dish and the next minute it's garbage. Do not chew gum with your hands. To discover the endless possibilities of chewing gum, Marije gives a recipe for making chewing gum in a Challenge. It invites you to be flexible.

We in Western society are focused on growth. But shrinkage is better in many cases, think of cancer. Is the possibility of shrinking ourselves merely a childish fantasy, or can shrinking ourselves allow us to experience greater abundance? We eat far more than we need. The plate must be empty. What if we take a smaller plate or, as Marije designed, placing inedible ceramic objects that look like food on the plate? Then you eat less without realizing it.

The What If Question: What Happens When You Close Your Eyes? led to the “Food Massage Salon”, where all senses were activated, except the eyes. This in contrast with an exhibition with beautiful pictures of food.

Marije shows that we can also be involved with food in a sensual way. She goes in search of a new sensory relationship that links food and sex. Sex and food are also connected in another way. Currently, animals are forced to reproduce. One of Marije's Design Academy graduates wants to make sex toys for shrimps to eliminate the cruel way currently used to induce female shrimps to reproduce in captivity.

Marije made an exhibition about hunger. Of course, the heartbreaking hunger in poor countries was discussed, but it was also shown how hunger manifests itself, also in prosperous countries, and can therefore be a seed for fantasy. Many people systematically overeat. In a video she shows the misery of a young African-American woman who is overweight. The woman represents the many Americans who live in the so-called 'food deserts'.

Marije also pays attention to the value of food. There's something crazy about gratuitous. Free of charge is the norm in the social world, but different norms apply in the market world. In the 'Eggchange', a kind of exchange office, Marije unites various aspects: the enormous productivity of chickens, market thinking and the exchange of ideas about the economy, about food, about the ethical aspects of broiler chickens and food tech industry. By becoming a member of the 'pop-up bank', of which even Queen Maxima became a member, you received a fertilized egg, which you could immediately eat or brood and grow your capital into chicken and later more eggs, etc.

Marije does not shy away from subjects related to food. In the book, Marije develops visions and ideas on many other topics, which she always connects, via the Challenges, with surprising actions. These include the influence of food on the world, the connection between politics and food, taste and smell, the value of food, animism. Backcasting is also discussed. By looking back at the present from the future as if it were the past, Marije asks in the Challenge to take pictures of a top three of things that will change in the future and to write the memory from the future. And, even death does not leave her untouched. Food is life for us, but death for others. The Challenge to plan your own funeral and your funeral meal is very special. Her 'white funeral meal', which she designed as a student, will certainly inspire.

The book concludes with an extensive Challenge consisting of very original invitations to eat with others. That's where it all starts with: with food and the connection you make with other people.

Marije Vogelzang created an Instagram account, which includes photos of the results of the Challenges that people have performed and shared. Check out @lickit.book.

I think that Marije Vogelzang will certainly reach a larger audience that will experience food and creative thinking in practice through her writing style and the combination of knowledge and experience.