Andrew SimmonsTwo mismatched slices of bread sandwiching a scant smear of purple jelly. A pan with a tortilla leaking a sloppy trail of tomato chunks and black beans. A platoon of glazed snack cakes. The year-old Internet child of Brooklynite Chris Maggio, the photo blog Male Chef trafficks in images you won't see on Chez Pim: the nauseating, the mildly bizarre, and the merely mundane.
Credit: Male Chef
In a recent Vice interview, Maggio, a filmmaker and photographer by day, gives the impression that his collection of images is cultivated with more than mere food-porn mockery in mind.
“I wanted to create an avatar that's completely clueless,” he says. “Like Method acting on the Internet. The 'Male Chef' is acting as this person who wants to brand themselves as someone who has something to say, but doesn't know how to say it.”
When you scroll through the images, the ones that stand out aren't the vilest — peppermints in a bowl of what looks to be regurgitated vegetable soup, Smurf-colored yogurt — but instead the gently pathetic, the rushed snaps of half-hearted meals eaten alone and hardly, if at all, enjoyed. They suggest solitude, mild poverty and a casual weed habit.
When we emailed Maggio, he responded from a trip abroad — where we hope his diet has improved — upon the dining habits captured by his snap-happy creation:
“It pays tribute to those honest Internet documentarians … who would take a photo of what they've eaten … just like they'd take a picture of their family on vacation. Male Chef is just clueless in that way, but maybe it's a little endearing alongside being totally gross.”
Credit: Male Chef
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