On Criteria (or, The Desk Digest, March 2024)
What was published this past month—and an intro on shifting criteria.
It can be difficult to write critically in food media. This is probably obvious, but there’s a constant pulse of niceness that keeps folks from a real interrogation of power. (See: Tim Mazurek’s recent piece “Cookbooks and Criticism”) I’ve received anonymous emails calling me all sorts of misogynistic names for naming hypocrisy or questioning standards, which have bothered me to the point that I try not to be specific at all anymore. As an independent writer, there are no shields for me. It’s simply not worth the risk. I also find it useful to be pushed toward systemic critique—it’s more fertile ground, but something still gets lost to this constant deference to the powerful of our industry.
It’s not just me and it’s not just food media. After I wrote this, I saw a link to a piece at Semafor titled “‘Very Few Have Balls’: How American News Lost Its Nerve,” in which Max Tani writes:
A landscape of gleefully revelatory magazine exposés, aggressive newspaper investigations, feral online confrontations, and painstaking television investigations has been eroded by a confluence of factors — from rising risks of litigation and costs of insurance, which strapped media companies can hardly afford, to social media, which has given public figures growing leverage over the journalists who now increasingly carry their water.
The result is a thousand stories you’ll never read, and a shrinking number of publications with the resources and guts to confront power.
To publish other people critiquing power in food feels similarly vulnerable, but I also think it’s important to look at the ways in which luxury dining and neocolonial economic power influence our conversations around food.
Thus was the case in last week’s Desk Dispatch by Hilary Landa, where she wrote about how Noma’s co-founder Claus Meyer framed his opening of a culinary school and fine-dining restaurant in La Paz, Bolivia, by using language such as “undiscovered” — “undiscovered” by whom? Why is it important to put Bolivian cuisine and ingredients into the shape and environs of recognizable Western fine dining? Why is formal culinary training significant—and who defines “formal”? Is it because it makes a place more desirable to tourism and infusions of outside capital? Whose standards are we asking people to live by, in effect? Are these sustainable standards?
After Landa’s essay went out, Nicholas Gill of New Worlder noted to me that most folks who operate Gustu on a daily basis are Bolivian. Indeed, it’s been a restaurant lauded for the work of its female chefs. This is significant. The 2019 documentary A Taste of Sky showcases its culinary program: “Under the tutelage of Meyer, these young Bolivians are working towards a better future as they attempt to establish their country as the world’s next great culinary destination.”
Still, I think it’s important to ask questions about who’s setting the standards by which we define a “best” restaurant, why we need to create the “next great culinary destination,” and whether the vision of New Nordic needs to be spread around the world.
I go back regularly to James Hansen’s Taste piece “He Cooks, She Cooks. He Elevates, She Relates.” I’m quoted in it, but that’s besides the point: It’s a great essay to use for interrogating not just how gender influences the ways in which we talk about food but also the stature of various nations on the world economic stage. Who needs someone to swoop in? Whose food needs “elevating”? Whose knowledge and tastes are given significance solely because they’re connected to large sums of capital? Why?
This headline from a Sarah Schulman ArtForum piece on the artist Nicole Eisenman is behind me while I work at my desk, and it’s the question that drives me. (There’s also an illustration of Malcolm X with his famous quote, “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”)
March 4: On Memories As Fragments
“I feel more honest when I tell you stories in bits and pieces. Memory is a broken thing, and I am not very good at forcing it into order and narrative. I am not good at lying, is what it is, and storytelling—even the telling of true stories—demands some smoothing-out, some glossing-over in order to make the narrative.”
March 8: Considering Luxury (Paid)
A brief essay on luxury in fashion and how it relates to food. After the paywall: the link and podcast recommendations, February playlist, and a book giveaway.
March 11: Securing the Brand Bag
“It’s a business strategy that works for her, and works for other influencers with millions of followers, but what happens in a crowded space when there’s only one ticket to fat, reliable paychecks? When corporate algorithms control who sees what? And what truths are no longer told when brands need to be appeased in order to keep food on the table? Will the actual investigative journalists please stand up?”
March 15: The Monthly Menu: The February That Was (Paid)
Considering water usage and a rundown of the month prior’s eating and cooking.
March 18: The Desk Dispatch: Seeking Gustu in La Paz
“In preparation for our trip to La Paz, I searched for restaurants to try. The one that kept reappearing in glossy travel articles and food blogs—as it had been named one of the ‘50 Best Restaurants in Latin America’—was Gustu, which purported to strictly use local ingredients. (The restaurant takes its name from the Quechua word for flavor.) Rodrigo and his family had never heard of it nor been there.”
March 22: The Desk Book Club Food in Cuba March Discussion (Paid)
Discussing Hanna Garth’s anthropological text on the consumption habits of residents in Santiago de Cuba.
From the Desk… returns next Monday with an essay on why I don’t write about restaurants anymore.
Paid Subscriber Notes
The Desk Book Club discussion is currently reading Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal by Hanna Garth. Buy it from Archestratus for 20 percent off!
If you’re looking for cooking inspiration, remember to scroll through The Desk Cookbook.
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Reading
You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
A Lifestyle Note
I’m thinking about adding a section to this newsletter for paid subscribers where I blog about lifestyle, consumption, and things considered frivolous from my perspective as a person trying to consume thoughtfully while still leaving room for a good time. It would mean the end of this section but the last Friday of each month, the release of a blog. Would we be into that?
Yes please! You and your writing has always balanced the work, critiques, thoughts with intentional consumption and lifestyle so well. It's not to be filed under "guilty pleasure" or any crap like that. We need writing that does both, because we do both, and we know that criticism doesn't mean existing solely in a joyless land with no fun or frivolity.
Excellent essay! Just wish we could stop equating male genitalia with courage as in Max Tani's title “‘Very Few Have Balls: How American News Lost Its Nerve.” (I had the bad habit myself.) It is more often courageous women, like yourself, who are at the frontlines of speaking truth to power.