11/07/2026
âSHARED APPETITEâ (Eat In Style & Be Seen) by Chef Mcjon Mosenene
FOOD WRITING - THE ART OF PRESERVING THE STORY OF CULINARY ARTS
Food writing regards food not only as a substance, but also as a cultural phenomenon. Food writer John T. Edge explains how the genre views its topic: "Food is essential to life. Itâs arguably our nationâs biggest industry. Food, not s*x, is our most frequently indulged pleasure. Foodâtoo much, not enough, the wrong kind, the wrong frequencyâis one of our societyâs greatest causes of disease and death."
Food writer Mark Kurlansky links this vision of food directly to food writing, giving the genre's scope and range when he observes: âFood is about agriculture, about ecology, about manâs 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 s*x.â
Because food writing is topic centered, it is not a genre in itself, but writing that utilizes a wide range of traditional genres, including recipes, journalism, memoir, and travelogues. Food writing can also refer to poetry and fiction, such as Marcel Proustâs âĂ la recherche du temps perduâ (In Search of Lost Time), with its famous passage in which the narrator recollects his childhood memories as a result of sipping tea and eating a madeleine.
Often, however, 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.
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. Food writer Adam Gopnik divides such 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.
Examples of contemporary food writers working in this mode include Ruth Reichl, Betty MacDonald, and Jim Harrison.
As a term, âfood writingâ is a relatively new descriptor. It came into wide use in the 1990s and, unlike âsports writing,â or ânature writing,â has yet to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary. 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-Savarinâs âPhysiologie du GoĂťtâ (The Physiology of Taste), predate the term and have helped to shape its meaning.
Welcome to our food entertainment column, âSHARED APPETITEâ, with its pay-off line, âEat In Style And Be Seenâ. Through the column we will share with you, culinary industry news, recipes and all that matters in the culinary space.
A read by: Chef Mcjon Mosenene â¨đ¨đźâđł Executive Chef Consultant at Mighty Infinite Services
