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Food writing is a genre of writing that focuses on food and includes works by food critics, food journalists, chefs and food historians.
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Food writing is a genre of writing that focuses on food and includes works by food critics, food journalists, chefs and food historians.
Food writers regard food as a substance and a cultural phenomenon. John T. Edge, an American food writer, explains how writers in the genre view its topic:
Food is essential to life. It's arguably our nation's biggest industry. Food, not sex, is our most frequently indulged pleasure. Food—too much, not enough, the wrong kind, the wrong frequency—is one of our society's greatest causes of disease and death. [1]
Another American food writer, Mark Kurlansky, links this vision of food directly to food writing, giving the genre's scope and range when he observes:
Food is about agriculture, about ecology, about man's relationship with nature, about the climate, about nation-building, cultural struggles, friends and enemies, alliances, wars, religion. It is about memory and tradition and, at times, even about sex. [2]
Because food writing is topic centered, it is not a genre in itself, but a writing that uses a wide range of traditional genres, including recipes, journalism, memoir, and travelogues. Food writing can refer to poetry and fiction, such as Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), with its famous passage where the narrator recollects his childhood memories as a result of sipping tea and eating a madeleine; or Robert Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis", 1787. Charles Dickens, a notable novelist wrote memorably about food, e.g., in his A Christmas Carol (1843).
Often, food writing is used to specify writing that takes a more literary approach to food, such as that of the famous American food writer M. F. K. Fisher, who describes her writing about food as follows:
It seems to me our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it ... and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied ... and it is all one. [3]
In this literary sense, food writing aspires toward more than merely communicating information about food; it also aims to provide readers with an aesthetic experience. Another American food writer, Adam Gopnik, divides food writing into two categories, "the mock epic and the mystical microcosmic," and provides examples of their most noted practitioners:
The mock epic (A. J. Liebling, Calvin Trillin, the French writer Robert Courtine, and any good restaurant critic) is essentially comic and treats the small ambitions of the greedy eater as though they were big and noble, spoofing the idea of the heroic while raising the minor subject to at least temporary greatness. The mystical microcosmic, of which Elizabeth David and M. F. K. Fisher are the masters, is essentially poetic, and turns every remembered recipe into a meditation on hunger and the transience of its fulfillment. [4] Contemporary food writers working in this mode include Ruth Reichl, Betty MacDonald, and Jim Harrison.
As a term, "food writing" is a relatively new descriptor. It came into wide use in the 1990s and, unlike "sports writing", or "nature writing", it has yet to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary . [5] Consequently, definitions of food writing when applied to historical works are retrospective. Classics of food writing, such as the 18th century French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's La physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste), pre-date the term and have helped to shape its meaning.
Food journalism is a field of journalism that focuses on news and current events related to food, its production, and the cultures of producing and consuming that food. Typically, food journalism includes a scope broader than the work of food critics, who analyze restaurants and their products, and is similar to a sub-genre of "food writing", which documents the experience and history of food. [6]
Food journalism often explores the impact of current events on food, such as how the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food industry, or larger issues, such as impacts of climate change on food production. [7] Increasingly, these themes overlap with public health journalism, political journalism, and economic journalism. [8] This expands on themes traditional to food criticism, which has tended to focus on fine dining and other kinds of food writing, like cookbook writing. [9] These themes are similar to the themes covered in agricultural journalism, which focuses on the agriculture industry for agricultural audiences.
The contemporary field of food journalism grew in the mid-20th century, especially as issues like food rationing during and after World War II. [10] In the United States, the Association of Food Journalists provides professional standards and a code of ethics. [11]Food history is an interdisciplinary field that examines the history and the cultural, economic, environmental, and sociological impacts of food and human nutrition. It is considered distinct from the more traditional field of culinary history, which focuses on the origin and recreation of specific recipes.
The first journal in the field, Petits Propos Culinaires , was launched in 1979 and the first conference on the subject was the 1981 Oxford Food Symposium. [12]People have been writing about food for centuries. Some of the earliest recipes we have found were carved into stone in Mesopotamia nearly 4,000 years ago. [13] The ancient Romans also wrote about their grand feasts and fancy meals held by emperors of the time. Although the modern cookbook like we see today was not invented until much later and measurements were not standardized until the 20th century. [14]
Food writer Michael Pollan holds the Knight Professorship of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley and since 2013 has directed the 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship Program. [15]
In 2013, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg began a graduate certificate program in Food Writing and Photography, created by longtime Tampa Bay Times food and travel editor Janet K. Keeler. [16]
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This is a list of some prominent writers on food, cooking, dining, and cultural history related to food.
A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin was a French lawyer and politician, who, as the author of Physiologie du goût, became celebrated for his culinary reminiscences and reflections on the craft and science of cookery and the art of eating.
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede, writing as M.F.K. Fisher, was an American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. Over her lifetime she wrote 27 books, including a translation of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." In 1991 the New York Times editorial board went so far as to say, "Calling M.F.K. Fisher, who has just been elected to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, a food writer is a lot like calling Mozart a tunesmith."
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating. One who is well versed in gastronomy is called a gastronome, while a gastronomist is one who unites theory and practice in the study of gastronomy. Practical gastronomy is associated with the practice and study of the preparation, production, and service of the various foods and beverages, from countries around the world. It is related with a system and process approach, focused on recipes, techniques and cookery books. Food gastronomy is connected with food and beverages and their genesis. Technical gastronomy underpins practical gastronomy, introducing a rigorous approach to evaluation of gastronomic topics.
Craig Claiborne was an American restaurant critic, food journalist and book author. A long-time food editor and restaurant critic for The New York Times, he was also the author of numerous cookbooks and an autobiography. Over the course of his career, he made many contributions to gastronomy and food writing in the United States.
Michael Kevin Pollan is an American journalist who is a professor and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where in 2020 he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, in which he leads the public-education program. Pollan is best known for his books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such as The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Ruth Reichl is an American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and has been co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. She has won six James Beard Foundation Awards.
Marcel Rouff was a Swiss novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, historian, and gastronomic writer. With Curnonsky he wrote the multi-volume work La France gastronomique, guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises. He may be best known today for his novel about the fictional gourmet Dodin-Bouffant, La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet, which was first published in 1924 and dedicated to his friend Curnonsky and the great nineteenth-century French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Rouff's novel was adapted for French television in 1973 by Jean Ferniot and in a 2023 feature-length movie by Trần Anh Hùng, The Taste of Things.
Michael Carl Ruhlman is an American author, home cook and entrepreneur.
A dish in gastronomy is a specific food preparation, a "distinct article or variety of food", ready to eat or to be served.
Elizabeth Marshall was a cook who ran a patisserie and cookery school in Newcastle upon Tyne between 1770 and about 1790. She is the author of The Young Ladies' Guide in the Art of Cookery, subtitled being a Collection of useful Receipts, Published for the Convenience of the Ladies committed to her Care, by Eliz. Marshall. Her Art of Cookery was printed by Thomas Saint, printer of wood engravings by Thomas Bewick as well as the printer and publisher of the Newcastle Courant, a forerunner of The Journal and the Evening Chronicle.
Antoine B. Beauvilliers was a French restaurateur who opened the first grand restaurant in Paris and wrote the cookbook L'Art du Cuisinier. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin considers him the most important of the early restaurateurs, as "he was the first to have an elegant dining room, handsome well-trained waiters, a fine cellar and a superior kitchen." Beauvilliers is described as a "portly figure, his triple chin, his broad, joyous face, and the light that sparkles in his large grey eye." He dressed fashionably and carried a sword. His success was enhanced by his ability to "cater to and flatter rich patrons", attending to them personally and helping them with items on the menu; he had a prodigious memory and could recall a patron he had not seen in 20 years. He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is a 1997 cook book by Deborah Madison. It contains 1,400 vegetarian recipes from soups to desserts.
Priya Krishna is an Indian-American food journalist and YouTube personality. She is a food reporter for The New York Times and has previously contributed to The New Yorker, Eater, and TASTE. She is also the author of multiple cookbooks, including Indian-ish, a cookbook she wrote with her mother.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.
Jane Nickerson was an American food writer, newspaper editor, cookbook editor, and restaurant critic. She created the position of food editor at The New York Times and was instrumental in the professional development of James Beard and Craig Claiborne. She was influential in the modernization of food journalism.
Food journalism is a field of journalism that focuses on news and current events related to food, its production, and the cultures of producing and consuming that food. Typically, food journalism includes a scope broader than the work of food critics, who analyze restaurants and their products, and is similar to a sub-genre of "food writing", which documents the experience and history of food.
Joe Yonan is an American vegetarian/plant based food writer and cookbook author who currently serves as the Food and Dining Editor for The Washington Post, where he writes the Weeknight Vegetarian column. He has said he is "90% vegan," and he primarily writes about vegan food.
