This lens focuses on sources of great food writing on the web. I'll point you to my favorite articles, my favorite publications for food and help you shop for the best food related books. Keep scrolling down, you'll find headlines from the better newspapers food sections and headlines from the best food blogs.
Near the bottom you'll find eBay auctions and Amazon used copies of the Time/Life series "Foods of the World". I can't recomend this series strongly enough. It's really the backbone of an really good kitchen library.
I hope you'll find this lens exhaustive without having the kitchen sink thrown at you. (Because standing at the sink is our least favorite place to spend time in the kitchen, you sure as hell don't need someone throwing it at you. Is this metaphor working? I doubt it, just let it go and move on. Good idea.)
Finally, you'll find the astonishing tale of Elvis' late night cross country quest for his favorite sandwich: The Fool's Gold Loaf.
Food Writing on the Web
- Squidoo: Great Food Writing! by Jeff Bergman
- Check out this Squidoo lens for another take on Food Writing.
- Saveur Magazine
- The finest food magazine around. Always the first place I start for any research. Authentic cooking from around the world.
- Slow Food Web
- Round the clock food news review from the folks at SlowFood.com.
- The Food Insect Newsletter
- With articles like "Fried Grasshoppers for Campouts or at Home", "Food Insect Festivals of North America", "Some Insect Foods of the American Indians", "Collecting Ant Pupae for Food" and "Hunter-Gatherers Were Sometimes Very Labor-Efficient" you'll be glad that they don't have glossy photos, but if you're anything like me you'll be utterly transfixed.
- Hungry Magazine
- An upstart online food magazine by Alt-minded foodies who know their stuff.
- Waitrose Food Illustrated
- An unknown gem! Beautiful photos, fine writing.
Here's a little lagniappe:
The History of Italian Restaurants in Britain - The Hungover Gourmet
- The material is funny, smart and just what you'd expect.
Lagniappe:
High Steaks Showdown
by Dan Taylor
Forget scrapple, Tastykakes, soft pretzels and anything with the words "Pennsylvania Dutch" in front of it. The glorious, magnificent cheesesteak is - hands down - the Philadelphia area's main contribution to the American culinary landscape. - Vegetarian Times
- My favorite vegetarian magazine. They go beyond recipes and restaurant profiles. They have real food writing. For example: as I write this there is an Fly-By Food Terrorism
When US troops stormed Al Qaeda's Afghan caves after September 11, 2001, they stumbled onto sobering evidence that the terrorists were thinking of more than flying airplanes into skyscrapers. Hundreds of documents weredevoted to one subject: American agriculture. - Food and Wine
- Of Gourmet, Bon Apetit and Food and Wine, Food and Wine is the only one I enjoy. That might not sound like a ringing endorsement, but it kinda is.
- BBC Food Articles
- Topical food writing on par with The New York Times. As an overall food and cooking portal it's much better organized with sections for recipes, how-to's, celebrity chefs and much more.
- The Food Tunnel
- Defunct archive of food articles from Urban Desires Magazine.
- Chow Magazine
- Bon Apetit for 30somethings, only better.
- Chili Pepper Magazine
- You'd expect Chili Pepper Magazine to be really cheesy, but it's only a little cheesy. The real surprise is that there is usually a pretty damn good article in every issue. And by good I mean that it's interesting and I learn something.
- Cooking for Engineers
- Exactly what you would expect. A no nonsense approach to cooking coupled with inveterate curiousity. The writing isn't always great but the content is.
These are guys who love nothing better than to spend the morning cooking bacon four different ways and reporting back on it.
My Favorite Contemporary Food Writing Books
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
I fell in love this book when it was just a few essays in The New Yorker. I just loaned it to a friend who is reading it as slowly as possible so that it won't end. -M.B.
Amazon Price: (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $14.00
Used Price: $0.26
The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
I have to confess that I haven't read this yet, but I can't wait to get my grubby paws on it. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $12.46 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $24.95
Used Price: $2.67
A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines
The street food of Vietnam, killing a pig and eating it, 9 courses at the French Laundry and everything in between, this my hand's down favorite food read. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $14.95
Used Price: $1.97
The Man Who Ate Everything
The title essay alone is worth the price of admission. The essay on making bread is also required reading for anyone who lives in the kitchen. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $15.95
Used Price: $2.12
The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection
I loved Lydia Shire talk about doing a major and very costly renovation on the front of the house at Biba and then realizing how crazy it was to expect the kitchen staff to rise to excellence when they were having to kick the equipment to make it go. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $10.88 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $16.00
Used Price: $1.85
My Favorite Essays
(at least the one's available online.)
- The Bakeoff by Malcolm Gladwell
- First published in the New Yorker, this essay tells the story of two teams of commercial food development experts trying two competing approaches to developing a successful, mass-producable healthy cookie. Also available in PDF.
- The Ketchup Conundrum by Malcolm Gladwell
- First published in the New Yorker, this essay looks at why no one's been able to improve on Heinz 57 Ketchup. Also available in PDF.
If you really what to improve as a cook, read this article and learn to love the concept of "Amplitude".
Amplitude: know it, love it, live it! - Q & A with Adam Gopnik on Fergus Henderson and Alain Passard
- New Yorker critic Adam Gopnik discusses two chefs with two very different approaches to their cuisines.
- The Food Critic at the Table by Adam Gopnik
- New Yorker Critic Adam Gopnik looks at the genre of food writing.
- Girardet After Girardet by Colman Andrews
- Saveur editor Colman Andrews chats and dines with the world's greatest chef as he heads into retirement.
Recipes here. - An English New Year by RW Apple Jr.
- Saveur takes on a proper New Year's feast with Falstaffian wine dealer Bill Baker.
. . . I guess I had better stop and talk a little about bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as ''mad cow disease''. It was already a topic of discussion in Britain last New Year's, though it had not yet come to rival the weather and the serial infidelity of the royal family as the mainstay of conversation. I called Bill, a contrarian and a paragon of political incorrectness, at the height of the mania and asked what he was having for dinner that night. ''Beautiful sirloin, old boy,'' he replied. ''Got it for nothing.'' He views the British beef crisis the way modern investors view a 200-point drop in the Dow-as a buying opportunity.
Recipes - Red Velvet Cake and the Neiman Marcus Cookie Hoax
- Patricia Mitchell looks at an old urban myth that has shown up as a new urban myth and tosses in a fine, well written Red Velvet Cake recipe into the mix.
The Ravenous Blog
My daily journal of recipes, musings and the day's most interesting food writing.
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The Mega Monster Group Food Blog
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Exploring cookbooks, one recipe at a time
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Trust the title. Good blog.
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Reporting from Pim, food blogger and free lance food journalist.
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The New York Times restaurant critic's blog.
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New York Times critic Eric Asimov's beverage blog
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Nutrition Headlines from the Times
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The Sun Also Rises
This might be where I really learned to start savoring eating and drinking. - M.B.
Amazon Price: (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $15.00
Used Price: $0.01
Out of Africa (Modern Library)
The description of her cook whipping egg whites into stiff peaks with a trowel is a classic moment in food writing. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $13.57 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $19.95
Used Price: $5.85
Paris to the Moon
There are a number of bits and chapters on food, but the sweetest is when the regular dinners protest in solidarity with the garcons at Balzar. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $15.00
Used Price: $0.01
Giving Good Weight
McPhee's essay on the fine dining restaurant in rural Pennsylvania by a husband and wife team is truly inspiring. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $13.26 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $17.00
Used Price: $3.11
Roald Dahl/Charlie Boxed Set (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator)
On the subject of chocolate it can't be topped. - M.B.
Amazon Price: $21.05 (as of 10/13/2008)
List Price: $31.90
Used Price: $16.65
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