Do you love to write about food? Great writers are great readers. Learning how to read helps you become a better person. You think and write better. Your perspective broadens as you learn new things and appreciate different cultures. You’re less depressed. You talk better with an increased vocabulary. And, you also can describe food better. Whether you’re a home cook or a food writer, you can quickly become knowledgeable and be seen as an expert by learning how to read food texts.
Reading all types of food writing in book-length, from novels to murder mysteries to children’s books based on food, gives you examples of successful plots and titles, so you can create your own style of voice and point of view. In Chocolat, Joanne Harris writes about a woman who opens a chocolate shop in a rustic French village and angers the church by appealing to the pleasures of the church members. In Friendship Cake, by Lynne Hinton, five seemingly different women bond over cake with seventeen recipes woven through the novel. In Spoon, a children’s illustrated book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Scott Magoon, Spoon learns he is special and unique for only what he can do; not cut like Knife or go with everything like Fork, but he can measure out ingredients, hold liquids, and go places by himself. As you can see, reading food-themed texts is a great way to get ideas and tap into your imagination for your own writing.
Here are tips to help you get the most out of your time reading from cookbooks to magazines to restaurant reviews and blogs.
1. Take notes.
Highlight or underline key phrases, jot in the margin key terms, or copy and extract the passage with an app. Figure out a system to keep track of your notes. Taking notes, while it takes longer, gets the most out of your reading.
We love the interactive element as well; each note we write in the margin feels like we’re creating a dialogue with the author and the next reader who picks up the book.
2. Connect your experiences and thoughts with the reading.
What thoughts or memories did the reading bring up? Did you have a similar experience to that of the restaurant review you just read? Did a magazine article about scones remind you of a bakery you loved in San Francisco? Did a recipe for tiramisu with mascarpone remind you of a mocha ice box cake your grandmother used to make?
Jot down these connections and you’ll remember things better by creating a ‘priming’ effect. An experience related to a past one will be remembered more quickly. “Brownie” is recognized more quickly following “Dessert” than following “Tree” for instance.
Plus, you’ll gain a bigger understanding of the world.
3. Summarize the article in one paragraph, about 3-4 sentences.
Writing short forces you to focus on the main idea. Write clear, precise, and in words that make sense to you.
Here’s a challenge. Write the thesis in a tweet! 140 characters. Use this to count your characters.
Here’s the thesis for this post:
Read food texts better by taking notes, connecting past experiences, and writing a summary.
This is only 90 characters!
Read a variety of food writing genres to expand your food writing skills.
Cookbooks
Here’s a brief list of some excellent recipe writers:
- Julia Child, Madhur Jaffrey, Shirley Corriher, Mark Bittman, Deborah Madison, Alice Medrich, Harold McGee
Magazines
- Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Saveur, Cook’s Illustrated
Restaurant Reviews
- NY Times food section
Food Writers
- Read the classics- MFK Fisher, James Beard, Edna Lewis, Elizabeth David
- A.J. Liebling, Ruth Reichl, Amanda Hesser, Gabrielle Hamilton, Barbara Kingsolver, Francis Mayes, Calvin Trillin, Jeffrey Steingarten, Alan Richman, Laurie Colwin, Molly Stevens
Food Fiction: Classic Literature
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes summer parties out on the famous lawn.
- Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust- Read a nostalgic passage about a madeleine and the famous passage about the relationship between food and memory.
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy- Taking a cup of tea drives the plot
- Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Food Industry
- Food Politics by Marion Nestle
- Fiction about food writer. Heartburn by Nora Ephron
- Cheese. The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman; It’s Not You, It’s Brie: Unwrapping America’s Unique Culture of Cheese by Kirstin Jackson
- Television producer. My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki
Food Anthologies
- The Best Food Writing Anthologies by Holly Hughes
- A Slice of Life: Contemporary Writers on Food. By Bonnie Marranca
Food Media and History
- We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans by Donna Gabaccia
- Watching What We Eat by Kathleen Collins
Food Blogs
- Subscribe to a variety of blogs, big and small, on your favorite subject, whether it’s baking, gluten-free, or Chinese.