Author’s Intent

The Theory of Food Writing; doesn’t sound very interesting, right? Well without a theory of food writing, reading about food wouldn’t be very interesting. After reading a decent amount of articles and essays about people’s personal stories with food I have noticed several different techniques that are extremely effective in food writing. I have even used most of the techniques in my own writing and I found it not only more interesting to read, but it makes the actual writing more fun. One of the techniques I noticed while I was reading was that authors would take the food they were writing about and related it back to a memory or a personal story. This made the writing seem more personal, and it was interesting to see how a certain food would influence someone. One of my favorite articles that used this technique was “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch” by Michael Pollan. He talked about how Julia Child influenced his childhood; his mother would watch her television show and she would copy what Julia was cooking. He also discussed how the growing popularity of TV Dinners influence his mother’s cooking and how those TV Dinners have influenced the cooking of today. Another technique I noticed, particularly in Pollan’s writing, was the use of quotes from historical figures or previous chefs. In his article he talks about his mother cooking and as a boy he asked her what was the importance of Julia Child and she said that “for so many…she took the fear out of cooking”. It gives us a brief look at what most women in that time were thinking because cooking was such a large feat some of the time. These are only 2 of the techniques I noticed while reading, but I think they are really important because they make the article or essay more personal. Reading something that is all facts and historical data is not always the most enjoyable thing in the world, adding that personal story makes the writing more intriguing.