The Ghastly Gourmand

No one actively seeks information about food safety unless required by professional or practical necessity. The Ghastly Gourmand is a mobile app inspired by such comics as “the Addams Family” and the works of Edward Gorey, that presents food safety information in a darkly humorous and manner in an effort to add some memory retention to an otherwise dull topic through a touch of dark humor.

Features:

• A “Death Notice – a combination shopping list and alert for your purchased perishable goods.
• A section listing the expiration dates of groceries.
• A list of proper food doneness temperatures.
• An A to Z kitchen hygiene primer featuring advice on maintaining a hygienic kitchen.

Young Heart was used for all the titles and headlines for its decorative but legible Victorian gothic vibe that had some slightly sinister undertones yet maintained a fun feel to it.

For the main body copy, Averia Serif Libre was used for its worn appearance and its resemblance to early letterpress imperfections.

“Death Notices” is an interactive shopping list where the user can set a timer for each item of perishable good on the list. They just click on the hourglass icon and select the method the food will be stored and the item will be added to the phone’s calendar so the user can set a reminder to use the item at its optimal freshness.

Much like “Death Notices”, The “Time to Die” section is a comprehensive list of perishable goods that provides food expiration dates a case by case search. Unlike “Death Notices”, the information is presented to educate the user and to provide a database for “Death Notices” draw from.

In most cases, the ideal method of determining ideal doneness of meats is by internal temperature rather than time, or feel. The “Strange Burning Sensation” section is a list of the ideal temperature to cook various meats to their proper doneness. This section also explains the big discrepancy between what most chefs and the U.S. Department of Agriculture consider the ideal internal cooking temperature (Spoiler Alert: One group factors in commercial factory butchering practices and compromised immune systems).

This section provides the user with a basic but informative method of remembering various important kitchen hygiene terms e.g. “A is for Antibacterial”, “B is for Bleach”, “C is for Cutting Board” followed by a brief description on the significance of each term.