Elizabeth Grove, a food stylist for television and movies, started her company EdibleFX around five years ago. She had been a food stylist for about 20 years at that point, but lately she had been getting odd requests.
“They want brains. They want a face, they want you to eat a finger,” she said of the requests she was getting from movie sets. “I get a phone call – ‘He cuts open this woman and takes her liver out, and eats it right there!’”
You might not directly notice food styling – the art of arranging food to look a particular way on screen – when you watch a movie or TV show, but it’s part of what grounds a project in space and time. Grove went to culinary school and started her career doing production catering and crafts services. But now, you’ll know her for her work on movies like “Saving Mr. Banks,” “Game Night,” and “Gone Girl,” and shows like “Shameless,” “Glee,” and “Stranger Things.”
“I was missing the art of food, the beauty of it, and was looking for a job that focused on the beauty and the respect of food that it deserves,” Grove said of her time working in crafts services. “And that was a food stylist.”
You might not consider some of Grove’s work –which will be on display at an exhibit called Horrifying Food of Film & TV Oct. 13-15 at Limelight Theater – to be particularly beautiful, but there is a gory sort of art to it. In addition to food styling, Grove works with food effects, creating terrifying, edible brains, body parts, and more for actors to consume on the sets of science fiction and horror films – all tailored to that actor’s dietary restrictions, of course. She even has a recipe for edible blood. The main ingredient is hibiscus, and she has different versions for aliens and zombies.
“My imagination just goes crazy,” she said about working in the food effects space. “It’s my favorite thing to do, because the sky’s the limit.”
The exhibit will have eight displays. One exhibit called “Unusual Edible Food” will take attendees through a collection of eyeballs, maggots, bugs, and heads – all of which are completely edible. Another is called “The Horror Food Stylist’s Secret Weapon.” This display will feature delicious looking fish dishes and grotesque looking body parts, made up of nothing more than guava paste and cheese.
“It looks just like fish, tuna tartare, or sushi,” Grove said of the combination. “You’d swear by it. But it’s not. It’s just a big old fruit roll-up.”
Grove’s talents are as evident in that fake sushi as they are in the more horrific displays. To be a good food stylist, you have to be knowledgeable about not just the culinary arts, but the history of presentation, ingredients, and more.
“Food is food,” she said. “But the difference in your eras is how [it’s] plated and how [it’s] styled. That shows you time period and also shows you skill.”
She gives the example of an oven. Oven size and shape has changed over time, so it makes sense that a pan designed to fit in an oven would as well. In regards to ingredients, she gives an example of her time on the 2016 remake of “Roots.” They wouldn’t have used butter to make biscuits back then, or margarine, she said. They would have used lard. And that matters.
““If I make biscuits with lard, if I make biscuits with butter, and I make biscuits with margarine, they all look different,” she said.
The idea to hold this exhibit came to Grove gradually, but with writers and actors on strike, it seemed like a great time to take the plunge. The writers strike has ended and actors are in negotiations, but there’s never a bad time to take a closer look at a part of the industry that isn’t often talked about.
“With the strike and everything going on, there’s no really better time to highlight not only what food stylists do, but as a food stylist what I do, and what I push forward,” Grove said.
Admission to Grove’s exhibit is free of charge.
