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Food writing

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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.

Definition

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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.

Fields of practice

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Food criticism

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This section is an excerpt from Food critic.[edit]
A food critic, food writer, or restaurant critic is a writer who analyzes food or restaurants and then publishes the results of their findings to the public.

Food journalism

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This section is an excerpt from Food journalism.[edit]

Food journalism is a field of journalism that focuses on news and current events related to food, its production and culture of producing and consuming that food. Typically food journalism includes a scope broader than the work of food critics who analyze restaurants and food products, and is similar to, and sometimes treated as 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 such as 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

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This section is an excerpt from Food history.[edit]

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]

History

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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]

In academia

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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]

Notable food writers and books

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Authors

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This is a list of some prominent writers on food, cooking, dining, and cultural history related to food.

Important texts in the genre (not easily attributable to an author)

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Edge, John T. "Between the Lines: Picnic in the Democrative Forest," Creative Nonfiction; Issue 41, 2011. Archived 2012-07-23 at archive.today Retrieved on April 25, 2012.
  2. ^ Kurlansky, Mark. Choice Cuts: a Savory Selection of Food Writing from around the World and throughout History. New York: Penguin, 2002, p. 1.
  3. ^ Fisher, M. F. K. The Gastronomical Me. New York: North Point, 1989, p. ix.
  4. ^ Gopnik, Adam. "Dining Out: The Food Critic at Table," The New Yorker April 4, 2005. Retrieved on October 1, 2011.
  5. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved on June 20, 2011.
  6. ^ "From Source to Table: How Journalists Are Investigating Food Stories Worldwide". gijn.org. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  7. ^ "From Source to Table: How Journalists Are Investigating Food Stories Worldwide". gijn.org. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  8. ^ "From Source to Table: How Journalists Are Investigating Food Stories Worldwide". gijn.org. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  9. ^ "The future of food journalism: The world on a plate". BCFN Foundation: Food and Nutrition Sustainability Index. 2018-03-07. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  10. ^ Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (2020-07-02). "A Food Journalism Pioneer: The Story behind the First New York Times Food Writer Jane Nickerson and Her Food Section, 1942-1957". Journalism History. 46 (3): 248–264. doi:10.1080/00947679.2020.1757568. ISSN 0094-7679.
  11. ^ Journalists, Association of Food (2021-09-08). "Association of Food Journalists' Code of Ethics". Poynter. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  12. ^ Raymond Sokolov, "Many Hands Stirring Many Pots", a review of The Cambridge World History of Food, Natural History 109:11:86-87 (November 2000)
  13. ^ Mishan, Ligaya (2022-02-18). "What We Write About When We Write About Food". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  14. ^ Skinner, Dr. Julia. "Culinary Memory: The History of Food Writing" (PDF).
  15. ^ The UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship. Retrieved on December 16, 2015.
  16. ^ Food Writing and Photography: A graduate certificate from USF St. Petersburg. Archived 2016-06-04 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on December 16, 2015.
  17. ^ Walker, Ella. "Cookbook: Tortellini at Midnight by Emiko Davies". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 2020-07-29.

Further reading

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