T his is a piece I wrote in younger years when I had to flesh out why I wanted to be a food writer…or how food and writing had happily married in my life. Enjoy the read from a girl who speaks food, obviously…
I speak food. I always have. Growing up, I was fluent by an early age and am on my way to becoming a scholar. But what does this all mean? Food cannot be spoken, you say, it may be eaten and thought about but not spoken. The non-believers need to step back and consider the written language of food…words passionately put onto a page about how to make a recipe using delicate fresh pears or how the sweet onion relish danced on top of a succulent rib eye at a local restaurant. Most people speak food, and many others wish they spoke food, but only few can actually write food. What makes these people food writers? Did they just stumble into a kitchen, restaurant, or produce aisle armed with pen and paper? Or did this love always burn inside their hearts, though their careers might have been more traditional?
Growing up, I was always allowed in the kitchen. My mother, being a math teacher, saw measurements as a delightful way to teach her children basic fractions. I never disagreed with helping to whip up a batch of cookies. Pulling up a chair to stand on, I mixed my way into not only a concise math lesson, but a passion still with me now. As I read my children's books, food was a typical subject, as I saw what the caterpillar ate through day by day and what happened when I gave a mouse a cookie. Even the Berinstein Bears inspired me to cut my apple slices into rings and make cookies for a neighbor. At the time, I had no idea, I was falling in love with written language of food. I recall flipping through my family's red and white checked Better Homes and Garden's cookbook from the 1950's. Though I could not comprehend recipes yet, I knew the words brownie, cookie, cake, etc. and was intrigued with the simple descriptions. "A delicious and moist cake, everyone will want seconds!" This language was food and reflected the culture as a whole at the time, a phenomenon we see through each time period and generation in the realm of food writing. I still like to buy old cookbooks or magazines from this era, not so much for the recipes but to see how the language of food has evolved and how it spoke then versus now. Words then were more about the costs and efficiency of foods, and which ones would provide adequant, nourishing meals for a family in the post war society of America then. Other period cookbook mirror their own days in the spotlight, such as in the late 70's and 80's when the microwave was glorified in word and practice. Many a book and magazine printed in that time can be found to have at least one mention of a microwave and the mystical things it can do with simple foods…all the while, these are definitions of time are carried by words: the language of food.
In my adolescent years, I mastered my favorite recipes and would scan the food section of the local paper (which came out every Wednesday, thank you) or women's magazines my mother may have picked up at the store. I would try many recipes, though not all were successes from the get go. I recall my tender six year old self the day after Christmas, sitting on the kitchen floor assembling my favorite present. The first brownies I slide into my new easy bake oven, exploded on the spot. As I watched the "viewing window" be splattered by the partially cooked brownie batter, I knew this may not be the best oven and laid my trust into the big powerful "adult" oven. This prompted me to reach for more advanced cookbooks and vow to make everything from scratch, no more easy bake oven mixes for me. I was ready for real cookbooks. Real recipes. The real oatmeal cookies off the top of the Quaker canister. Even my cereal boxes offered bits of food writing that piqued my interest, not only in their subject matter but the information they provided. As I would munch my cereal, with the box propped up directly in front of me, my eyes would drift from the "fun games" section to the health studies about whole grains and lowering cholesterol with their product. A contest might even hide in the corner prompting you to eat more cereal, be healthier, and win a new bike. The cereal became soggy with milk and as I refilled my bowl, I saw a recipe glistening on the side of the box. Something simple and kid friendly, but always using the cereal. Yet another prime example of the language of food being spoken even on the thin cardboard sides of a meager cereal box. In fact, one Pillsbury article in a little mini-cookbook off a grocery store shelf enchanted me into the kitchen as a 6 year old, and I preceded to make a cookie pizza to take to school for my birthday in the first day. I was happy, proud, and still read that little brochure, though still covered in the small splatters my young hands made so many years ago.
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"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight."–M. F. K. Fisher (1908-1992)
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Age changed little in the realm of what I loved (baking…,) but I was also drawn to other avenues of food writing. As I read "Little House on the Prairie," I found my favorite sections talking about what the family was cooking or what Ma was baking…how it tasted, how it looked, how it smelled. I wanted nothing more than to make maple syrup candy on fresh snow and bake five little cakes for Laura on her birthday. In fact, when my 3rd grade class put on their annual "Little House" play, I applied and got the part of ma during Laura's birthday celebration and was able to make my five little cakes. The most interesting thing to me was the food side to whatever I was studying or reading in school. Second grade, we read Squanto: I wanted to know about Native American foods and was more interested in what I could cook for our mock feast than why John Smith had come in the first place. We read Johnny Tremain, and though his hand was severely handicapped, I wanted to know more about what kinds of scones would have been served at a typical English tea (this due in part to the perio this story took place, which was during the colonial separation from England and the Boston tea party, all of which was mentioned in the book.) My family was no stranger to the local library and I spent much time reading books or looking through cookbooks as I got older. I recall finding the Martha Stewart "Entertaining" book; her first and most classic Martha book. I sat, mystified at the words glorifying my passions…food and baking. Her words were instructive, beautiful, and meaningful. I also came to know that one of Martha's biggest inspirations was Julia Child. Child happens to be one of the greatest food writers of our time, though she did not initially plan on such a career. Child wanted to make elaborate French cooking feasible for the home cook, and show that everyone could cook such delicious and awe-inspiring dishes. Martha also dabbles in food writing with numerous cookbooks, which usually contain food guides concentrating on menus or the combinations of flavors. But her goal is not to be a food writer, as she is a successful and powerful business woman. How do these all connect and why did I love it all so much? Why does part of me long to write a cookbook or articles for Bon Appetite?
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"Food is our common ground, a universal experience."
–James Beard, O Magazine, November 2003
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As I moved into a new apartment this past August, I made the conscious decision that I must get a bookshelf…a bookshelf to house my growing collection of cookbooks, baking magazines, and all sorts of files filled with my recipes and scribbles about ingredients or methods. Cherished from the moment I carefully brought them home from the store, these books are my hobby, my past time, my love. Bursting with information, each one is special in its' own light to me, as I go through them tenderly, dog taging corners and sticky noting recipes to experiment with. Some are recipes I have loved since childhood and am still recreating, always capturing a different taste, emotion, or experience. I read and reread my cookbooks and baking catalogues, always looking for something new to study. That's what I call them, "studies." Studies are when I have a typical baked food, say biscuits or pancakes. Millions of recipes and opinions exist on these… most sitting in the words of cookbooks and in the pages of magazines written by the professionals I hold in such high esteem. My study would consist of days, or weeks, or years (as with biscuits) of reading and collecting information, as well as processing the recipes or the manifestation of the recipes and literature I have undertaken. All the while I am being exposed to new forms of my passion through writing. Eventually, I would be much more knowledgeable about the study subject, and carried there through food literature.
Upon entering college, I had aspirations of becoming a writer, part of my heart was seduced by the articles in magazines and wanted to be a part of those. Journalism or something encompassing writing seems a feasible academic venture, as "baking" is not a recognized, or even allowed, major at Vassar College. Since the age of ten, I have kept a journal and found writing to one of the most powerful things a person can learn to do. It gives one a voice, a friend, a counselor, and a whole world you can craft as your pen creates trees that talk or relationships that always end up just right. Those are two major parts of who I am. I write and I bake. If given a self evaluation, I would take the most pleasure and appreciation in my ability to write and my gift of baking. Though, that greatly simplifies me in terms of who and what I am, it does serve as a reason behind how food writing has come into the forefront of my mind. Obviously, food writing fits into my life. I read it, I produce it (on a personal small scale, of course,) and I am inspired by it.
Food writing encompasses far more than the restaurant reviews you see in the New York Times. Granted these do make up a very influential section of the written language of food, true food writing can be anything from cookbooks, to reviews, to articles on the scientific studies of food, to the indirect writing about food present in much of our classic literature. Hemingway wrote of drinking and dining in "A Movable Feast," highlighting café life. Dickens noted traditional Victorian Christmas treats in "A Christmas story," with the huge turkey Ebenezer purchases and the more typical sweet breads and delicate fruits of the season. Even Shakespeare wrote about food many times in his plays for its dual purpose of not only being an understandable subject, but to convey a deeper meaning. In the brief overview of my childhood and how I grew into this love of the written language of food, you see multiple literary moments where food and books intermingled and danced in my head. However, these are not what people think when you say "food writing." Today food writing is more defined by the hundreds of critics sneaking notebooks into restaurants and holing up in tiny booths, only to sample many courses and offer their opinions in the form of a paper or editorial. Restaurants dread these. Waiters fear their jobs with the evaluations. But where do the words meet the experience of the food? The articles might be lyrical or more analytical, depending on the writer in question, as well as the purpose of the piece. Here, we see the classic ideals of journalism beginning to show themselves, where sentence structure and syntax come into play. Word choice becomes an art, a grammar study, yet is also a mere means of defining a complicated seafood dish or multi-dimensionally flavored chocolate tart. Classes are being offered in "How to be a Successful Food Writer." Instructional books have been published to show people how to take their words and blend them into something completely new and delicious as a way to describe the foods they critique. Some people now have set aspirations to be just that: food writers. Yet, this is the kind of food writing that I never could get my head around. I had no desire to critique another's craft and give their creations my words. Though I speak the language of food, I value more the creation and sharing of my knowledge, not the sampling of others and the rigid constraints of traditional writing for new journals and publications. I speak to people. The people who speak food.
If I were to write my language of food, I would choose the avenue of my very own little cookbook or special magazine, designed and crafted by me. The colors and lay outs reflecting my views of the dishes presented or that will be described in an article. When I write I have always started with a feeling or motivation, such as hope, desire, loss, etc. which I think is key to convey to reader, but cannot be overtly expressed. I want my audience to feel what I feel, see the world I'm seeing as I write, know the people and places I know. Not surprisingly, this is how I cook. I cook with love, with a heart brimming over with her cooking passion, and I want that very feeling of love and warmth to be experienced by any one who might happen to eat my baked goods. Once again, its me, presenting something I have experienced and created to an audience and wanting little more than them to experience the same experience I did in the process of producing the end good (be that a sassy little book on cookies, or a beautifully sliced double layer chocolate torte, glistening with ganache.) If and when I ever choose to write something about my food, I will not be a journalist turning to food writing. The love started with baking and cooking, and will never change from that. If I were unable to write, I would still have the recipes bouncing around in head, being shared through a more oral tradition and they were for years before cookbooks were even introduced.
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"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers."
–Laurie Colwin
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As early as colonial times, the settlers came with their recipes from home. Though crude and somewhat vague, these recipes were based on local ingredients and usually passed down orally. The first written recipes were guided more by the actual writing and word choice than more modern day recipes which only list ingredients and steps without description or elaboration. "The size of an egg" is much more literal and almost poetic than "1 Tablespoon." The first cookbook written by an American, was American Cookery by Amelia Simmons in 1796. Fannie Farmer produced a cookbook in 1896, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, which is still famed today. She noted the importance of measuring ingredients for success in the recipes. For me, this noted the beginning of food writing for instructional and informational purposes. I can hardly begin to cover the myriad of books and magazines since published which would fall into the category of food writing. Classic cooking magazines come to mind, such as Gourmet, though Gourmet was not originally meant to be a magazine known for its incredible food writing. Initially, it was a magazine meant for the finer things in life and intended for those who could live such an existence. As discussed in her article "Food Porn," Molly O'Neill follows the birth of food writing: from where it has come to where it is now… and even a little into where it's going. She has observed how many of the people who line up at her cookbook signings are not avid cooks but rather readers who use her books as entertainment and an escape into the delicious world of food they would never prepare themselves. O'Neill makes an interesting point when she says, "Food writers have always walked the dangerous lines between journalism, art, and their role as handmaiden to advertising. But we have not wobbled quite so regularly in nearly a half century as we do today." Her insight into the roots of food writing is informative and it is intriguing to see how such a mass industry of our common day started so humbly, with most of the greatest food writers not ever starting out to be food people. Upon reading this article, that was the very fact that somewhat shocked me: that she herself never had any desire to be a food writer. She wanted to be a grand journalist. This only came to a surprise to me because I am somewhat blinded by my own passion, and could not understand how someone who didn't even have a love for the art of creating food could be so successful when writing about it. Then I recalled something I read over the years in one of my many explorations for recipes, which said there was a difference in food writers. There are cooks and there are critics. Though the rest of the thoughts on these two categories escape me now, and the article is long lost in my mental jumble of recipes and books, I cannot fully explain this except in my own terms. As already set forth in this essay, I am a cook and will never be able to be a critic; just like many critics will never be cooks and are beyond satisfied with this existence. It does seem interesting to me to note that if I do ever become a food writer like Molly O'Neill, I will be one of the those people who never intended to be a food writer. Coming to this conclusion, I came to Vassar College with the intentions of honing my writing skills as a way to branch my love of cooking with my love of writing.
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“The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.”
–A. J. Liebling
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This past semester of my sophomore year, I was given the chance to work with the Poughkeepsie Pulse and The Weekly Beat. After wandering down the hall and glancing at the field work office, a woman invited me into her office. "What do you like to do?" I had not even really considered field work, but being a credit short and knowing I wanted to do this at some point, I jumped at the opportunity. "I bake… and I like to write…" I said as her pen feverishly scribbled down my contact information. By that afternoon, I had an interview at the Pulse and was well on my way to an internship for the fall of 2005. I appreciated her promptness and willingness to place me in the field of writing. The internship went as internships do: I did odd jobs around the office from time to time and sometimes helped type the letters to the editor. I was a jack of all trades, like most entry level interns. I was given articles at first as well, and quite enjoyed learning about these topics as I churned out short pieces on everything from the garlic festival to Decay of the Angel, a multi-media dance production. Having a car, I also had events to cover given their nature, time, and location. I enjoyed taking pictures of the local high school rivals' hockey game and the community event, "It's All about the Kids." This also became a very common theme in my assigned work: taking pictures. Many articles the paper was publishing needed pictures to go along with them and I was just the girl to send on the job. I enjoyed the experience, but felt it had nothing to do with my initial personal reason for taking the internship, which was to write. This was not a problem because after the first few articles I wrote, I began to realize this might not be exactly the right field for my writing. The paper pieces had to follow guidelines and be worded in a certain manner because they were being published in a local paper. I felt I lacked in writing for them solely because I was unaware of how I should word certain things in regards to this area and the community I was addressing and writing to. I have never studied true journalism as a discipline, as I was too busy studying cookbooks and recipes. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that writing in itself will be helpful to me if I intend to ever produce a cookbook or the like, but newspaper journalism is not for me. I will say it was a great experience none the less, which I appreciate and enjoyed. It gave me the knowledge that writing is not as one-dimensional as some may think. There is writing in journalism, fictional writing, biographical writing, historical writing, and, as highlighted in this essay, food writing.
The course of my life has caused me develop a love and passion for creation of edible goods and the joy that comes with being able to share those recipes. Baking and writing are both creative arts that have an active life in the published form. Food writers are a special blend of people who are able to take the language of food and bring it to life in the pages of a cookbook or restaurant review. Though I have yet to figure out what all my passions and experiences will eventually lead to, I know that I will continue to write and bake as I always have. Perhaps now I will focus more on how those hundreds of food writers who came before me crafted their cookbooks and made the language of food work for them. However, the amazing gift of food writing is that is can change with every writer, just a recipe will differ from cook to cook, and the voice behind winning articles and books will differ from writer to writer. My voice will be my own, a blend of the heart of a baker and the mind of a writer. The language of food, though always sounding a little different, will always be alive through people like me and the many others who speak food.
