| Title | : | The Best American Food Writing 2018 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1328662241 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781328662248 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published October 2, 2018 |
The Best American Food Writing 2018 Reviews
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The first ever compilation of The Best American Food Writing provides a wide range of perspectives, from a profile on Azerbaijan cuisine by Anya von Bremzen to an article from ESPN Magazine about the NFL's obsession with peanut butter and jelly. Three of the essays had ties to South Carolina, including an examination of legacy of racism with our BBQ and whitewashing of "craft culture." The #metoo movement is a focus of two essays including the acclaimed New Yorker piece, "Mario Batali and the Appetites of Men."
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Because I’m a big nerd, I’ve actually read several of these pieces in their original publications, but it’s still great reading. A nice mix of shorter and longer pieces, reviews, memoir, and investigative journalism. Highly recommend!
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Hear ye hear ye it’s only take 2018 years but we finally got a HOT compilation of US food writing and like it talked about so much and was varied and interesting and I had no idea the NBA loved sandwiches but I did have an idea of the alternative meat industry but now I just got to learn more about it ?? And now I can’t stop looking at pictures of Milkbar on Instagram and wondering also how the dairy industry has cheesily melted its way into every American nook and cranny!!! Can’t wait for 2019!!!!
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I give this book 3.5 stars. I remembered when food writing books were about the food. They made you salivate, entertained, and left you wanting to know more about food. In this book, the focus was on school lunch program, agricultural, politics, poverty, racism, or sexism/harassment. It's as if food had to be controversial to be included in this collection.
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What an amazing collection! I'm so glad the editors put this together. Not all of the stories are 5 star stories but I loved the diversity and broad reach of these stories. I learned a ton and I'm looking forward to diving into more writing in this genre in the future. The stories span subjects like the politics of school lunch, spanish hams, Christina Tosi, PB&Js for the NBA, Oranges, whale harvesting, cheese, Pioneer Woman and Mario Batali. I miss you Mario you perverted bastard. I can't even find orange Crocs any longer.
I'd highly recommend this collection. -
I picked this up because I like Ruth Reichl's writing. Unfortunately she doesn't have a piece in this collection of short stories and memoirs. Fortunately, she has plenty of interesting authors in it and I enjoyed it.
There are lots of interesting stories about woman chefs that I really enjoyed. I liked Amanda Cohen's piece called " I've worked in food for twenty years. Now you are about female chefs?" It was certainly eye opening. The piece on Mario Batali was quite disturbing and how we gave him and other chefs a pass for so long. And how about Gwynth Paltrow? Sexually harassed by both Batali and Weinstein? Yuck.
There is something in here for everyone if you like food writing. -
A new entry in the Best American Writing Series, Best American Food Writing is up to the same excellent standards as the others -- Travel, Science & Nature, Essays, etc. The essays and articles come from a variety of sources, many online only. And they are only about food in a very broad sense -- it's really about good writing more than good food. I enjoyed the story about Jamie Oliver's clumsy attempt to change the diet of a West Virginia school district and the quiet success of the local administrator who oversees the school lunch program. Also memorable was the piece about PB&J sandwiches making a splash in the NBA, and a visit to Pioneer Woman's restaurant.
I have read the unrelated series Best Food Writing edited by Holly Hughes for the past 18 years, but I don't see any sign of it coming this year, so this new series may be just in time to pick up the slack. (Thanks to Mariner Books and Amazon Vine for a review copy.) -
As with a lot of essay collections, I didn't read this anthology from cover to cover sequentially, rather reading whichever story caught my eye or choosing one whose length I had time for. It had a little bit of everything: stories of celebrity chefs and famous restaurants; explanations of food science and innovation; think-pieces on ethics, race and gender in the food world; and thoughtful essays on the future of our planet's food sources. While I connected with some topics more than others (an essay on the NBA's PB&J obsession was oddly fascinating), the whole collection was worth reading. This is an excellent addition to the HMH Best of the Year anthology series.
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I’ve been searching tirelessly to figure out what happened to Holly Hughes’ “Best Food Writing” series, which I’ve been enjoying for over a decade now. Unfortunately, my internet skillz failed me and I turned to this, which doesn’t claim to replace it but also (bizarrely, IMO) doesn’t make even a peep of reference to it in the introduction, claiming that food writing has been vastly overlooked as a genre.
All that aside, this is a solid and thoughtful collection, with pieces chosen that address long-term issues our world faces...missing some of the playfulness of Hughes’ picks, however... -
"Food writing", as a genre, is a relative newcomer to the literary scene. Right? Kinda. At least, being called "food writing" - getting that level of niche recognition - is relatively new. As Sylvia Killingsworth points out in her introduction, maybe the general validation of food writing is less "delayed", more "trickle-up": even though it wasn't until 2014 that The New York Times changed the name of its "Dining" section to "Food", Eater hit the interwebs as early as 2005. (For context, in 2005, YouTube had just debuted, Netflix hadn't yet launched its streaming service, Spotify was still a year away from existing, and six of the top ten TV shows were a version of American Idol, CSI, or Survivor.)
So maybe it's fitting that it's taken Food Writing a bit longer than other genres to get its own Best American Writing series, but between Killingsworth & the beloved Ruth Reichl, its freshman issue is no slouch. I'll give it four stars because there are a few pieces I skipped and a couple I flat-out didn't like, but it's a great collection, and is the perfect gift for the reader-foodie in your life, even if they act like they hate being called that. Fine. Your favorite Ravenpuffs, then.
TL;DR: the titles of my cherry-picked favorites are bolded.
"Introductions", Sylvia Killingsworth and Ruth Reichl
Yeah, don't skip these. A nice lead-in to what you're about to encounter, with some helpful landscape-defining points. Plus, Reichl's prose is always lovely.
"Revenge of the Lunch Lady", Jane Black
Originally published in The Huffington Post, Black's investigative-slash-quasi-political piece is sometimes slyly funny, sometimes you-will-actually-shed-tears heartbreaking. The opening gambit, recalling the first season of "British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver"'s ill-fated reality TV show, segues into the real story behind the plot, following the story of the much-maligned yet unfailingly compassionate school food director Rhonda McCoy, the would-be savior of Cabell County, West Virginia. If you read nothing else in this book, read this. It is, without question, the toughest piece here; it is also, perhaps, the most relatable, the most unknown, and the most fucked up. There are plenty of tales of inequality, harassment, & general unfairness in this book. This one, though... this one will make you reconsider some things.
"New York. Chicago. Detroit. Portland? Making the Case for a New American Pizza City", Karen Brooks
Fluff! Thank goodness, we need fluff after the first story. This is "investigative" journalism in its absolute loosest definition, filled with cartoonish characters, outlandish ingredients, and opinion-based, unverifiable claims. It's not going to change your life; it's not even going to make you hungry, necessarily. It's like the floral section right as you walk into the grocery store, especially in the time of Covid-19: a soft landing from the reality of the whack-a-mole parking lot and we-were-already-afraid-of-germy-carts vestibule.
"Christina Tosi Has a Cookie", Mary H K Choi
I quite enjoy that the first celebrity chef "profile" in this series is Christina Tosi, the spritely bundle of pure energy behind Milk Bar, which has quietly dropped its original Momofuku modifier, thankyouverymuch, not because Tosi and David Chang had any kind of falling out*, but simply because Tosi & Team were able to build up and build out their brand on its own merit. *I also enjoy that Chang, Tosi's mentor & original benefactor, is interviewed ("no matter what the fuck I say, people just assume it's a Momofuku product"), but Will Guidara, Tosi's restauranteur husband & the brains behind Eleven Madison Park and Make It Nice, is barely mentioned. Which segues nicely into...
"I've Worked in Food for Twenty Years. Now You Finally Care About Female Chefs?", Amanda Cohen
Heads up: Amanda Cohen has had enough, and she's not wrong. Her writing, at least here, is a bit more aggressively sarcastic than I care for, particularly in a piece defending the stalwart women in food, whose constant - yes, constant - battles against sexual harassment and for basic equality have long been ignored, dismissed, shushed, or gaslit so thoroughly that you'd be validated in wondering if the utilities bill was a bit higher in some establishments. Still: her palpable anger comes from a familiar place: I have also been a woman in the food industry for the better part of 20 years. The #metoo movement was simultaneously a fist-pump and a forehead-slap for many of us in hospitality; it was, candidly, a moment of thank-god-finally-someone-is-listening but also immediately a source of great frustration, as the stories that emerged were largely set behind closed doors and cultivated pity, whereas the constant - again, yes, constant, unending, suck-it-up-or-leave - harassment of a kitchen, bar, or dining floor are almost never private, and rarely generate anything but competition. The ever-escalating attitudes and actions born of a universal macho dick-measuring contest put the women (and honestly, men, too) on the receiving end of that treatment in an impossible place: complaints just result in more subtle, more vicious harassment; defensive measures are painted as overreactions.
"Secrets in the Sauce", Lauren Collins
Originally published in The New Yorker, which I think most people who have ever read the magazine would guess by the third page. A well-paced examination of the racially-fueled, utterly whitewashed history of barbecue in South Carolina, with no mercy for privilege.
"On the Ibérico Trail", John T Edge
Point / Counterpoint: here we have a story following a heritage pork breeder from the depths of Tennessee, an artisan who learned his craft from his family, whose abiding respect for his nuanced final product is never ironic. The story itself has almost-sad touches; Edge describes the jaunt through Spain with our hero, Allan Benton, as primarily a research business trip, but notes that it's the first-ever international trip for Benton and his wife; the loving care and obvious enthusiasm with which Benton chooses charcuterie souvenirs is almost mocked in the recollection of those same treasures being confiscated at Customs, with heavy hints that country-bumpkin naïveté plays a starring role in their loss. Still, it's impossible to deny that the piece, on the whole, is an homage to the man whose "name is synonymous with excellence in all things pork". Part history, part travelogue, part mini-biography, part food education, it's a quick, colorful, worthwhile read - especially if words like "Duroc" and "Mangalitsa" mean as much to your eyes as your tastebuds.
"Is Dinner for Two Worth $1000?", Jonathan Gold
By the end of this review, it is still hard to tell whether or not Jonathan Gold would answer his own question yes, no, or other. It seems that Vespertine is the embodiment of LA, by design and by happenstance, wrapped up in itself in the way that only coastal California seems to be able to pull off successfully. Regardless, since you're less likely to eat this food than read about it, Gold's prose is absolutely the way I'd want to consume a meal like this.
"How Driscoll's Reinvented the Strawberry", Dana Goodyear
Another item from The New Yorker, this time an assignment from History of Food Economics, and though it's a bit wordy, it's never boring. Who knew exactly how genetically processed the "standard strawberry" is?
"Temples of the Seasons", Alex Halberstadt
So: I liked this piece quite a bit, driven in part by a long-standing admiration of and fascination with the simple rituals of Japanese life. But the piece as a whole felt like a rewrite of a favorite early-college essay, an edit of a sprawling travel journal whose unrelated details were still trying to wedge themselves in to paint a comprehensive picture.
"The Struggle of "Eating Well" When You're Poor", Marissa Higgins
This piece resonated with me in a way that I couldn't put my finger on right away. TL;DR: being able to control what food you eat can be a psychological necessity. There's a lot of power in being able to make that choice multiple times a day, every day, instead of having it made for you by circumstances beyond your control.
"The NBA's Secret Sandwich Addiction", Baxter Holmes
Again, editors Reichl & Killingsworth display a knack for putting these stories in the right order. The previous piece is heavy with personal history, an essay on socioeconomic disparity as much as the power of food over one's life; this piece is delightfully silly in comparison, cataloging the PB&J preferences of NBA teams. The amount of sports medicine and nutrition science included is just enough to legitimize the undercurrent of why this "phenomenon" began; the rest is a fun peek behind the curtain of professional basketball, revealing a side of the players you would never expect to find.
"The White Lies of Craft Culture", Lauren Michele Jackson
This piece feels like a TL;DR for the earlier "Secrets in the Sauce", written for an Eater audience instead of a New Yorker one - going so far as to include a paragraph-long excerpt from "Secrets", which threw me off for a minute: "wait, didn't I just read this?". Complete with five-paragraph-essay final sentence and a skewering of the favorite martyrs of appropriated craft culture. If you understood "Secrets", you already read this piece.
"Where's the Beef?", Beth Kowitt
Originally published in Fortune, this piece was written to engage an audience familiar with the world of VC but with just enough subtle context to serve as explanation for the rest of us. This one felt like the meat (meat-less?) version of the "Driscoll's" piece earlier, which does a nice job of contrasting two industries that are much more similar than might be expected.
"In Good Hands", Francis Lam
Season 5, Episode 1 of Netflix's Chef's Table features a barbacoa restaurant in Philadelphia, whose allegedly great food plays a distant second fiddle to the social-justice theme of illegal immigration highlighted in the episode. It's actually pretty frustrating to watch, as it's in the fifth season of a show whose premise has been solidly established as "the one about high-end chefs at bucket list restaurants whose creativity will blow your mind". This season premiere comes off as a weird cross between a holier-than-thou lecture about the unsung heroes of the food economy in America and a guilt-ridden atonement for four seasons' worth of celebrating Big Names; and, maybe worst, it victimizes chef Cristina Martinez, the very person (and by extension entire demographic) it purports to champion. I didn't realize until about halfway through this piece, Lam's mini-biography of a Malaysian food-truck maven in San Francisco, that I was thinking of the Chef's Table travesty; Azalina isn't an undocumented immigrant, for one, and her story is told with an emphasis on history and influence rather than present-day execution. But the nuance and care that defines Lam's framing of her story is what Cristina Martinez's story deserved.
"To Wash or Not to Wash?", Harold McGee
A funny-yet-technical piece on the dangers of washing your chicken, or not washing your chicken. #chickenshitstorm, indeed. Short read, not for the faint of mind.
"Born in the USA: The Rise and Triumph of Asian-American Cuisine", Ligaya Mishan
Imagine condensing The Flavor Bible into a map graphic. Pick Asia, highlight the most familiar examples to the American palate, and compare it to the fourth paragraph of Mishan's piece: it's a damn-near photocopy, except that by the end of Mishan's writing, you've subconsciously started ordering your favorite Pad Thai. Engaging, illuminating, hunger-inducing.
"Who Owns Uncle Ben?", Shane Mitchell
This one is a mash-up of several previous entries: part southern-life-racial-undertones autobiography, part craft culture appropriation, part social-studies history lesson, part food memoir.
"Georgetown One-Stop", John O'Connor
Nostalgia meets catfish economics. Worth reading; not much else to say.
"The Teenage Whaler's Tale", Julia O'Malley
If this story hasn't been turned into a Lifetime movie yet, it'll only be because there's no Lifetime: Alaska channel. I recall when this happened, and how egregiously privileged the "passion" of the protestors came off: none of the "save the whales!" folks seemed to understand or care that they were condemning a native population and their ancient minimalist survival, not protecting a voiceless species from marauding poachers. The entire piece is a great reminder that we all live in glass houses in some respect, and that smothering someone else with your values without considering their circumstances is almost never productive.
"The Mad Cheese Scientists Fighting to Save the Dairy Industry", Clint Rainey
A rare insight into the psychological marketing techniques of a fast-food behemoth. The title is actually pretty accurate, if you can see past what feels like straight-up stumping for Taco Bell, or Dairy Management Inc, or maybe Wisconsin.
"The Joy of Reading About Cooking", Tejal Rao
"Oysters: A Love Story", Tejal Rao
These two beautiful, brief prose pieces might be my favorite entries. I'm glad the editors didn't choose one over the other, and also that they put them together. Just go read them.
"Mario Batali and the Appetites of Men", Helen Rosner
The decidedly more even-keel follow-up to Amanda Cohen's exasperated, snarktastic open letter to hypocritical journalists from earlier in this collection. Well-researched, even-handed, and making no apologies for the smarmy assholes it calls out in print, this is the piece to read after Cohen's diatribe.
"Pawhuska or Bust: A Journey to the Heart of Pioneer Woman Country", Khushbu Shah
Full disclosure: before reading this, I could not have told you who Ree Drummond was, even with multiple choices. I had heard of The Pioneer Woman, but there's nothing in her brand that personally appeals to me: though I do live in the midwest, I don't identify with much of anything that you'd label "country". From the outset of this piece, however, it is clear that Shah does not actually want to write it. She basically mocks everyone she meets and makes a point to highlight Drummond's husband's influence as though her contribution is at best "mascot”. If the inclusion of this piece is meant to recognize yet another food demographic, it misses the mark.
“After Oranges”, Wyatt Williams
A great close to this collection: an examination of one of the earliest examples of “food writing”, focusing as much on the food as the writing. Well worth a read. -
This is the first such collection and I’m really glad it exists. The topics range from agriculture and nutrition to food in foreign countries to food history in the US. With all those varied topics, the volume presents a thorough picture of all the ways food affects and is affected by conversations in culture in 2018. It is also a showcase of great writing. I hope to read future editions in this series, and in the meantime, I’m using the contributing authors and publications as a jumping off point to explore more of the great food writing that is happening right now.
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I was never interested in checking out any food writing pieces until I finished this collection. Such a great variety of essays regarding food and eating! I cannot wait until the 2019 edition comes out this year, and I'll be interested to see who the editor for that one will be.
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There were some pieces that were enthralling and others that had me questioning the editor's decision for inclusion.
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This is the strongest "The Best American Writing" edition I have read. I only skipped over 1 or 2 articles. Most of the stories are well written, so even if I didn't care for the topic I was compelled to finish. I also discovered that my sweet spot were articles and essays that combine culture, history, science and maybe some politics. Articles in order :
"Revenge of the Lunch Lady" by Jane Black for The Huffington Post/Highline - 5* article that hits the sweet spot. It's about how Jamie Oliver's attempt to improve the food in schools in Huntington, West Virginia goes into the history of the National School Lunch Program, the shifts in focus in national politics and how it translates locally and how one woman tries to make it work in a small town and her co-workers. It's inspiring and offers a possibility of how the National School Lunch Program could improve to include healthy, locally made food for kids.
Karen Brooks for Portland Monthly - 3* - It's an article about making the case for Portland as a pizza city and describes the different local pizza places and their different approaches, which is more a microcosm of modern food trends (the classic/purist, the local farm-to-table, the punk rock/international mash-up, and the experimental style. It's a 3* I liked the writing and the take on modern food culture, but I was rolling my eyes at the idea of Portland as pizza city.
"Christina Tosi has a Cookie" by Mary H. K. Choi for Easter - Another 5* there's not much on history, but it's the profile of a famous popular baker. I love Tosi's Milk Bar desserts, and I love the author, so it's fun to read about her influences, how she entered the industry and got to where she is now, and her attitude to creating a business and desserts.
"I've Worked in Food for Twenty Years. Now You Finally Care About Female Chefs?" by Amanda Cohen for Esquire. 5* - It's a punk rock screed about how it took #metoo for people to care about female chefs and now it's more about victimization rather than their work. She ends with a list of female Chef in NYC to interview. 5* for being funny and harsh like a true punk rock song (Also, it throws the previous piece in to context of being a model of good food journalism.)
"Secrets in the Sauce" by Lauren Collins for The New Yorker - A piece on Southern food writing, that discusses the local history of an esteemed North Carolina vinegar-based barbecue restaurant that is shadowed by the owner/father's history of being pro-segregation into 2001. The history of race and The South is complex and even his adult children avoid the past rather than grapple with it. 5* and this piece is referenced in two other articles in the collection
"On the Iberico Trail" by John T . Edge - 4* - It's a disappointment because I enjoy the author's work with Southern Foodways Alliance. It's a solid story about a Southern chef going to Spain to study their pigs and pork cultivation. It doesn't quite stick with me.
"Bringing in the Beans" - I skipped it.
"Is Dinner for Two Worth $1,000?" By Jonathan Gold - 2* - no but he rhapsodizes an expensive dinner at an upscale LA restuarant.
"How Driscoll's Reinvented the Strawberry" by Dana Goodyear for The New Yorker - 5* - "Driscoll's sells 60% of organic strawberry, 46% of blackberries, 14% of blueberries, and just about every raspberry you don't pick yourself" This is a VERY sweet spot story. The history of growing strawberries in California, the science of taste and cultivation of strawberries, the future of growing strawberries, and an intellectual property lawsuit between Driscoll's and the University of California. It makes you think about strawberries differently. I want to try a white strawberry.
"Temples of the Seasons" by Alex Halberstadt from Saveur -3* - Another article about eating in an expensive restaurant, but the improves on the story by focusing on shojin ryori, the Japanese vegetarian cuisine associated with temples and religious festivals. The focus on Toshio Tanahashi and his approach to the cuisine elevates the piece.
"The Struggle of 'Eating Well' When You're Poor" by Marissa Higgins - 2* - Good writing but I didn't feel like it was drawn together. Her experience of being raised by her grandmother and her current veganism, lacked a wider sociological angle, so I read it for the writing rather than anything more interesting.
"The NBA's Secret Sandwich Addiction" by Baxter Holmes from ESPN The Magazine 5 * - It's a fun and breezy article about how peanut butter and jelly sandwiches spread through the NBA league as the pregame food of choice. It's a fun story of sports superstitions, the variations on components (organic jellies, nut butters, types of bread, recovery shakes, oatmeal, etc.), and the health and cultural aspects of pb&j. It's fun to read that the Cleveland Cavs offer the opposing team frozen prepacked Smuckers' Uncrustables and the other teams avoid the highly processed snack. There are other fun asides like foreign player learning to love the taste of the very American snack, how an Australian hired to work sports medicine for the Golden State Warriors tried to remove b&js, which led to a rebellion (and he no longer works in the NBA), and Dwight Howard's sweet tooth that made him pre-diabetic.
"The White Lies of Craft Culture" by Lauren Michele Jackson for Eater - 4* - How the craft trend in cooking and sales (of alcohol, barbeque, and coffee) obscures the history of black and modren non-white farmers are erased. Craft culture recast food as lost and "rediscovered" and also ignores many non-white chef, bartender, brewers, baristas, farmers, etc. Even coffee posits the consumer as a (white) savior helping the farmers with each cup.
"Where's the Beef" by Beth Kowitt for Fortune - 4* - The race for lab-grown meat! It explores the companies, their methods, and their funding. I love the ending was pretty much that vegans and vegetarian and meat-eaters aren't clamoring for it.
"In Good Hands" by Francis Lam for Afar - 5* - A profile of an Mamak Malaysian chef, and how she goes back home years after her father's death. She realizes her food is a more about how she remembers her culture's food and American tastes. The writing is beautiful and is part travelog. The description of the food, the culture, the sights, and scents are wonderful. I love that there is also discussion of how the city and country is changing.
"To Wash or Not to Watch" by Harold McGee from Lucky Peach - 5* - Remember the discussion of whether of not to wash chicken before cooking it? Well, it started because the US Department of Agriculture started a campaign about not washing chicken to avoid spreading bacteria around your kitchen. This article delves into the backlash, the science (it doesn't spread much bacteria) or lack thereof, and the schism between chef and home cooks and food scientists, which this PR-campaign has strained.
"Born in the USA: The Rise and Triumph of Asian-American Cuisine" by Ligaya Mishan for T Magazine - 3* - Exactly what it says. History and cultures clashes and modern food trends are covered.
"Who Owns Uncle Ben?" by Shane Mitchell from The Bitter Southerner - 5* - Excellent article about the history and science of Carolina Gold rice, the history and culture of rural back farmers, advertising of Uncle Ben, and even modern politics. I was utterly fascinated.
"Georgetown One Stop" by John O'Connor from Oxford American - 5* - It made me want to take road trip to Arkansas to have White River catfish. It covered catfish from geography and the economics of commercial catfishing. There was a bit of personal travelog of visiting Arkansas and enjoying delicious fresh caught fried fish and a small town store, gas stop, and restaurant stays afloat. It was just beautifully written.
"The Country Sausage That's Going to Town" by Chris Offutt - 1* - Like "The Struggle of Eating Well..." It's a personal essay loosely around food. The girl he had a crush on when they were 15 was from a family that owned a local sausage company. It's more about his feeling and the first three paragraphs are about how he is qualified in food writing, which should have been a signal this piece wasn't about food. It didn't belong in the collection.
"The Teenage Whaler's Tale" by Julia O'Malley from High Country News - 4* - Another great article about culture and social media. The writing is simple but good, and the story was compelling.
"The Mad Cheese Scientists Fighting to Save the Dairy Industry" by Clint Rainey from Bloomberg Businessweek - 4* - Yay to more food writing focusing on science! This is a fun article about how food scientist are stuffing more cheese in fast foods. We start with a focus on the Quesalupa and then it talks about the USA surplus of dairy. As milk consumption declines, people eat more cheese via fast food and other processed foods, thus food scientists and the Dairy Management are finding ways to stuff more cheese into food here and abroad.
"Joy of Reading About Cooking by Tejal Rao from NYT Book Review - 1* - It's a five minute read, and I still felt like my time wasted.
"Oysters: A Love Story" by Tejal Rao from NYT Magazine - 2* - Again a five minute story from the same author in a related magazine. This one was more enjoyable, but it's all narrow personal stories related to food. This one was about food.
"Mario Batali and The Appetites of Men" by Helen Rosner from "The New Yorker" - 3* - solid but dry.
"Pawhuska or Bust: A Journey to the Heart of Pioneer Woman Country" by Kushbu Shah from Thrillist - 4* - It's a fun article about the author visiting Oklahoma to eat at the Pioneer Woman's restuarant. It's mostly about culture of her fans and Ree Drummond's empire.
"The World's Last Great Undiscovered Cuisine" by Anya Von Bremzen from Saveur - 4* - The title is hyperbolic, but it's a great exploration of Azerbaijan and its cuisine, which is Persian influenced and very fascinating.
"After Oranges" by Wyatt Williams from Oxford American - 3* - It uses the John McPhee's 1965 novella adapted from a three part series in The New Yorker about Florida oranges. It uses the novella as a way to explore how a greening bacteria is destroying Florida oranges and how the industry has changed in the past decade. It's focus on writing is too strong and a bit dry to me. Interesting, but I was bored. -
Where I used to love the selections of articles made by Holly Hughes in previous years... Ruth Reichel has successfully ruined it. I found myself tolling my eyes after numerous articles and all around bored. Where every other yearly iteration I’ve eagerly stayed up all night reading the day it is released... it’s 9 months after its release and I’ve finally just finished. Gone are the articles that Holly Hughes selected and I’m sad to say I likely won’t be purchasing and future editions if Ruth Reichel is involved.
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I recently read the 2022 version of this and was quite enamored with it. This one isn't bad, but there weren't as many stories that really packed a punch for me. In fact, while I enjoyed reading it in general, I didn't have any that stuck with me and made me resonate back on them. That being said though, it's still an enjoyable read on food, and I enjoy the series in general.
The Best American series take the best articles from publications and compile them for a given year. This year was the first time that they did Food Writing (2018). And maybe it was just that initial getting started, finding the right balance, that was so critical here. While I did find the ones on farming interesting and never knew about the link between professional sports and PB&J, there were others that just kind of drug for me (like the school lunches; while an important topic, it just kind of meandered a bit).
I'll still look forward to reading through the rest of the years available; there's always something innovative or poignant going on in the food world!
Review by M. Reynard 2023 -
First, I am a huge fan of the The Best Food Writing series, edited by Holly Hughes, and remain puzzled by the disappearance of that series of books the last couple of years. So, I wasn't sure about this new entrant in the Best American series, but, finding nothing from Ms. Hughes, decided to go ahead and read it.
I was disappointed. From the perspective of this reader, there weren't any compelling pieces in this collection. There were some articles mentioned at the very end of the book, titled "Other Notable Food Writing of 2017," that did not make the cut here. That collection of less fortunate articles did seem to have some very readable and memorable possibilities, that I will seek out on the Web.
As a result of this reading experience, I am rather hesitant to buy the 2019 and 2020 followups in this Best American series.
Q: Is there a Food Bat Signal that can be used to track down Ms. Hughes? -
This is sort of a Weekend Edition type experience. You know you're in good hands (hello, Ruth Reichl!), and there's a lot that's exactly up your alley, but the radio/book also brings some unexpected, somewhat unwelcome material into your day.
The good: there were some wonderful and unexpected pieces in here. I especially appreciated The Joy of Reading About Cooking, Pawhuska or Bust, and The World's Last Great Undiscovered Cuisine.
The less-good: there's some heavy material in here that's not bad, just not exactly what I thought I was getting with this book.
So- maybe skip around, pick and choose, don't read it cover to cover like I did. I got it in Kindle format and find it harder to be assertive like that with my Kindle books, anyone else? -
I'm so glad my aunt recommended this book, because I would have never picked it out without her! I'm amazed at some poor reviews that lament stories about the politics of food, but they entirely miss the whole point. Food is never just about food. How it's grown, who prepares our food, our enjoyment of eating food, all of it is entirely imbued with culture and the human story, which is all inherently affected by politics and vice versa. I can honestly never go grocery shopping the same again. The only downside to reading this book is making sure you're fully fed every time you pick it up.. don't make my mistake of reading about Azerbaijan cuisine on an empty stomach!
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So happy that this new series has started! My favorites had to do with the intersection of race, gender, and class with food: Revenge of the Lunch Lady, the Amanda Cohen essay about female chefs, Secrets in the Sauce, and The White Lies of Craft Culture. I also really liked two of the honorable mentions that I found online: Celery Was the Avocado Toast of the Victorian Era and My Life in Domestic Goddesses, which gives a shout-out to the series editor Ruth Reichl.
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such a great read — food is always political but I appreciated the perspective on how the 2016 presidential election affected the restaurant industry and image, even still in 2018. Favorites were: how Driscoll’s invented the strawberry, NBA’s secret sandwich addiction (S/O Georges Niang), The Teenage Whaler’s Tale (great perspective), Mad cheese scientist fighting to save the dairy industry, Pawhuska or Bust: pioneer woman country (this one made me LOL), After Oranges was PRISTINE 🍊
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I am fascinated by all the niches of the food industry. Special sauces. Cereal in cakes. Catfish farms. Meat chemistry. The study of the stretchy-ness of cheese. It's unbelievable. This was a great collection of essays. It was fun to follow-up on some of the essays with episodes of Chef's Table. I'm so grateful people are passionate about taste so I can benefit from it. I read this on my way to and from a trip to Italy- it definitely helped the appetite.
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This was such a great collection! If you, like me, love to track/read/hear about food in all of its fabulous iterations, I definitely recommend this book. It was a great look into all parts of the sector- from
agriculture, to science to restaurants and a good look into the how and the why we eat the things we do. Looking forward to the next one! -
I gave up social media for Lent and needed something to alternatively fill the snippets of down time throughout the day. I loved the mix of food and food-adjacent topics covered including eating, travel, humor, social commentary, even sports, and was happy to spend 40 days filling my brain with something more stimulating than the latest Instagram photo.
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So interesting
I didn’t know about these books - the best of - before I read this one. I’m obsessed! Thought provoking articles written by a wide range of authors on an obscure range of topics with one thing in common - they were all very well written and drew the reader in. Looking forward to more in this series! -
Another fine collection of essays about food, sometimes capturing the voice of restaurant chefs, farmers producing food and trying to make a living profit from it, and some about the craft of writing about food, harking all the way back to the 1960's with John McPhee's seminal "Oranges", a book about the fruit that ranges across more than you would have believed could be said.
