Letters to the Editor
-
just eat and write, already
As a food writer and former reviewer, I sympathize with Bauer's disillusionment with restaurant-going. Turning anything that you love into a professional gig can be disappointing and you don't get a lot of sympathy from people who don't understand why you might rather be home eating chips and salsa for dinner on the couch instead of downing another organic pork chop with polenta and grilled fennel. What I don't quite understand is how she ended up with the job. She admits that she's not a foodie (oh, loathsome word!) so why the food reviewing? There are a lot of people, myself included, who just love to yammer about food, who enjoy discussing a slice of cheesecake or a pastrami sandwich the way Bill Simmons enjoys describing a double-play. For better or worse, we care terribly about what we eat, and I'm sure there are food writers out there who are as thin as a stick and those the size of a house, but they are all, in their way, obsessed. We all love to have dinner with interesting people or with friends and family, but if you want to write about the quality of the company and not the quality of the cheese plate, you should be doing interviews or writing a novel. There are too many people out there who love to write about what's on the plate in front of them to waste the opportunity on someone who's just doing it for the paycheck.
-
Cry me a river
Oh poor me, I have to earn my living eating great food and writing about it. Woe is me, when will I be able to give this up and find a soul-crushing 9-5 office job with a lousy commute?
-
Food is overrated
The author points to a cultural problem at large--the fetishization of food. I grew up in a household where food was held in such high regard and there was an obsessive focus on quality, experimentation with recipies, viewing of cooking shows, shopping, etc. How does this environment affect children? Until about a year ago, my sister was morbidly obese and I had a several year struggle with bulimia. My teeth are relics of my bulimic past with over 3k in dental work. It wasn't until my late 20's that I realized food is merely fuel. When I visit my family, I am often disgusted with their constant talk about food. They never want to discuss politics, art, or literature. Their myopic world renders them unrelatable to me. My father hardly reads anymore. Besides candy making, my parents' marriage is devoid of any real pleasure. As both my parents' health deteriorates due to diabetes and other obesity related illnesses, food reigns supreme. This isn't just about my family, I have co-workers who consantly obsess about what they are going to cook for dinner. I have one co-worker in particular who is an extreme food snob and only buys his baby food from a high-end organic store.
Sadly, it is very difficult to have a relationship with these people because when you try to talk about something else the food obessessed tend to change the subject or stare at you blankly.
-
Food is real, food is good
"Food obsessed people" are human beings who love food.
Can't you accept their existence on the planet without whining and making yourself some kind of victim of their presumed evil?
I think the biggest enemy of liberal secular humanism is SALON, because the po-mo writers at Salon are just too hip to care about humanity on any genuine level.
It's all ideology, all the time.
We always have be shown where the enemies are hiding.
-
Don't Give Food a Bum Rap
It wasn't food you got tired of, but people and their need to be more "it" than the Jones.
Don't blame the food.
-
Liked it, like her writing
I enjoyed Ann Bauer's article--and I find it interesting that it has inspired so much vitriole here. Whether you like it or not, you can't say it wasn't stimulating. Personally, I enjoy looks into "worlds" not familiar to me, and the best windows include a personal perspective to make it real and palpable. So I'm willing to absorb the writer's personality traits that shine through, even if they are sometimes negative for the purpose of getting closer to the experience she went through. Yes it's confessional, yes she isn't a perfect person--but I don't open up Salon to read sappy earnest articles, I read it to hear real voices. I also enjoyed Ms. Bauer's previous article, in which, if I remember correctly, she was quite frank about her personal shortcomings and that honesty made the article stick with me. On a final note, it's so true that your work can spoil your enjoyment of something--people in the movie business or music business or retail business go through that every day.
-
Hypocritical? Nah, just impatient with ad hominem attacks
My previous comments on Camille Paglia were directed toward her scholarship, not her person. The comments to which I responded here were attacks on Ann Bauer herself.
-
Thank you for this great piece
Dear Ms. Bauer,
Thank you for your funny and perceptive essay. I am a chef in New York, and for as long, have done side work as a food writer. I am particularly turned off by the “foodie” world of gloss and celebrity. While it is in my professional interest to stay attuned to the food press, I am increasingly put off by its blind obligation to fawn over novelty or to express what often seems like arbitrary disdain.
I have always been partial to food critics who show a nimble mind and affection for words--writers, in other words, not primadonnas of taste. Sadly, most food writers serve up pre-processed metaphors rather than personal experience and, like slutty clothes, their words distract more than describe. Eroticism in food writing is an especially ineffective stylistic tool. Chefs don’t think their food is sexy, unless (for some) it is shaped like a cucumber, which is just sad and embarrassing.
-
admit it, deha...
you love the snark!
-
You really couldn't find a single zaftig person in a Minneapolis restaurant?
I spent months in the Twin Cities looking for an eatery that wasn't crammed to overflowing with the morbidly obese... I suggest that you either don't know the definition of zaftig or that you were living in some sort of alternate universe version of the Minneapolis metro area.