Many non-Western cultures practice some form of sand “painting.” The paintings can take hours to make and can be large, intricate and beautiful. In Tibetan society, the practice is mostly reserved for monks, who ritualistically destroy paintings upon their completion. But in India, where the practice is known as rangoli (note: the Wikipedia page is sub-par), many ordinary people engage in it daily. I’ve seen whole albums’ worth of travel photos of decorated doorsteps.

Western art isn’t completely devoid of transitory or temporary media. But artists have been known to spend days on end wrapped in felt, fur and lard, locked in a room with a coyote. And monks are supposed to be capable of sitting still so long their appendages fall off. These are people whose actions are strongly tied to a message. These are people to whom others will possibly pay attention. But ordinary folk? Housewives?

I used to think the American spirit must be severely deficient in the ability to sand paint. I could find no widespread devotion to something so small-reaching, short-lived and materially fruitless. Most people I know wouldn’t touch art of any kind with a ten-foot pole. Ordinary Americans, if they create at all, build gazebos, advertise their blog or post videos of their amateur rap on YouTube. They try to make a mark on their environment. And they work in what they consider to be relatively lasting media. Nobody expects digital files or architectural structures to just disappear. The modern Ozymandias is on MySpace. Even gamers, probably the American demographic with the shortest attention span (which is saying something), tend to prefer playing online, where their accomplishments can be witnessed, their statistics recorded and broadcast.

Then I remembered food: bread that takes an hour to knead and has to rise overnight. Salmon in a piccata sauce. Apple goddamned pie. The medium of every American housewife, and others. I might go through an entire day without singing a note, writing a word, sketching a line, without listening or looking or smelling the roses because, my God, there just isn’t time for it!

But I’ve got to eat.

Breakfast, even when I roll out of bed half an hour late and have to scramble to work, is a fried egg on toast with homemade plum preserves. Every time I put in the hour to fry the onions and cumin seeds, cook the vegetables, boil the lentils and spice the soup, only to sit somewhere quiet and eat it the moment it’s barely cool enough, I am sand painting and destroying. This is the only American medium whose appreciation requires its destruction. And even in an era of individually wrapped, pre-made microwave meals, with the foodie fad comes a whole new generation defending the art.

Sure, on one level, food culture is just another form of conspicuous consumption in the pursuit of authenticity. But it is consumption without clutter. You’re not watching, collecting, analyzing. You’re eating. Recipes might be handed down–cast iron pans, too–but the food itself is in the moment, best right out of the oven. Not to be kept for posterity. Like igniting a fleet of gasoline-soaked paper boats in a kiddie pool with a WD-40-can blowtorch.

You can take a picture of your plate of penne puttanesca, but good luck photographing its fire.

Share your best (temporary) food creations at [email protected].