Even so, posting his own food diary was a brave new world. Bill Rugen loves cookies. Last January he ate 60 of them, mostly chocolate–chocolate chip. He also frequents Mexican restaurants, avoids vegetables (except french fries), sometimes binges on M&M’s and begins most days with yogurt and fruit. I’ve never met Bill Rugen, but I know all of this because he photographed everything he ate last year and arranged the evidence in a stunning online mosaic entitled Consumed. After shooting the foods in a flash-blasted style that evokes fashion photographer Terry Richardson, he tagged them by their ingredients, meal type and place of consumption. There are some 1,400 unique tags in all, displayed in a vast word cloud. Recording meals for posterity isn’t a new idea. We’ve learned from cave paintings that Mayans had a way with maize, and tomb etchings tell us that ancient Egyptians thrived on bread and beer. We know that medieval feasts were epic displays of wealth and edacity, thanks to the ur-food writers who chronicled them.
