Taste Home
Before sitting to write this post, I made a piece of marmite toast.
For those of you who don’t know, Marmite is a yeast based spread that comes originally from Britain - though, I’m particular to the New Zealand variety. Its black and tastes salty, and is generally amazing. I think of it as a savory alternative to jam. For those of you who do know, don’t even start on the Vegemite debate, cause I’m not even gonna go there.
I bring this up because it was the basis of a project for Jason Santa Maria’s Craft & Communications class. At the start of the school year (6 weeks ago), we were tasked with investigating the concept of Find, and producing some kind of improvement within that domain.
My partner, Guri Venstad (from Norway), and I (kind of from New Zealand) decided to investigate finding international foods in NYC. We found a couple of interesting things:
1. It can be really hard to find food from your home country.
2. Through food, people are actually looking to find and connect with something familiar.
“Eating RJs black licorice logs makes me think of sitting on my mum’s porch in the sun; having an idle chat with a cup of tea.” - Rachel Liebert, New Zealander
Reflecting on our own experience and talking to a lot of other NYC imports, we came to the conclusion that food particular to your home country allows you to feel a sense of connection to a part of your past and a part of your identity.
Our response [to this very juicy subject] was Taste Home. A website that pulls together familiar foods organized by country, giving those who aren’t native to NYC a place to find something familiar to them. Our prototype uses photography as the primary visual element and contains a few Norweigian entries. Check it out, even if its just to read about brown cheese.
We received a great response to the idea from a few different people and have decided to continue working on the concept. Tastehome.com has unfortunately been registered already, so we’re shifting slightly to ‘Tasting Home’.
Over the next few weeks Guri and I have tasked ourselves with finding out a more refined visual direction for the site. We’re investigating food photography + art direction, and will be working with the ever amazing Barbara de Wilde to figure out a more considered typographic direction.
