Anthropologist Krystal D'Costa considers food as a spectator sport in history, aka "food porn." From Scientific American:
"The term food porn is credited to Michael Jacobson, the cofounder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest which provides information to the public on nutrition, food, and health. He used the term in the Center’s newsletter to refer to food that’s sensational to the point of being divorced of it’s properties as food: food meant to be enjoyed, but not necessarily consumed for nutrition. Jacobson applied the term to it junk food or processed food but it’s come to reference the sharing of any gratuitous experience of food. And when we consider the ways in which food has been presented historically, we see that the idea of food porn isn’t a new phenomenon.
