Picture Analysis

Describe each of the following picture in the most

gratifying way you know.
Jonathan Gold
Jonathan Gold is a Los Angeles
food and restaurant critic and leads
won Pulitzer Prize for criticism in
2007. He helped his readers
understand dozens of cuisines and
helped the city understand itself.
Mr. Gold never saw expensive,
rarefied restaurants as the peak of the
terrain he surveyed, although he
reviewed his share of them.
 Crullers that Bloom in Spring
by Jonathan Gold, 2007
Have you ever seen a strawberry doughnut from the Donut Man?
It is an iceberg of a doughnut, a flattened demisphere big enough to use
as a Pilates cushion, split in two and filled to order with what must be
an entire basket of fresh strawberries, and only in season. The fruit is
moistened with a translucent gel that lubricates even the occasional
white-shouldered berry with a mantle of slippery sweetness, oozing
from the sides, turning the bottom of the pasteboard box into a sugary
miasma in the unlikely event that the doughnuts actually make it home.
The tawny pastry itself is only lightly sweetened, dense and slightly
crunchy at the outside, like most good doughnuts, with a vaguely oily
nuttiness and an almost substantial chew. It is the only doughnut I have
ever seen that is routinely served with a plastic knife and fork. It is
worth every penny of the $2.50 it costs.
 Crullers that Bloom in Spring
by Jonathan Gold, 2007

1. How did Gold describe the appearance of the donut?

2. What were the terms used by Gold to describe the

taste of the donut?
Crullers that Bloom in Spring
by Jonathan Gold, 2007
 Food Writing
and Journalism
 Food Journalism
• We put food into our mouth, chew and swallow it.
These are the usual eating habits that also make us
typically say 'mmmm, yummy' to describe what's
inside our mouth. The taste of food is just one of the
many stories we can tell about it--held not by the
tongue, but by literary mind. Science has shown that
the tongue sends a taste signal that the brain interprets
the flavour. Thus, it is the mind's interpretation when
we say food is delicious.
 Food Writing
• It is a type of writing that focuses on food and includes
works by food critics and food historians.
• It is a writing that uses a wide range of traditional
genres, including recipes, journalism, memoir, and
travelogues.
• Wide range of literary genres is open to writers who
are deeply curious about food and who find it a
peerless– in fact, irresistible – window onto history,
experience, and character.
 Food Writing

According to Dianne Jacob, “Most food writing is

about eating, so your challenge is to express yourself
without resorting to cliché or an endless string of
adjectives... Once you discover a few simple rules of the
craft, you’ll feel more confident immediately. So whether
you’re looking to get started, improve your skills, or
expand the writing you’re already doing, put down your
spatula, pull up a chair, and let’s get cooking.”
 Food Writing
Step 1. Cook up a sensuous feast.

• What makes food writing different from other forms of

writing is its focus on the senses and the pleasure and
enjoyment that ensues.
• While it’s easy to focus on taste, when combined with
smell, the two senses can produce emotions, feelings
of nostalgia, and involuntary memories called the
Proustian effect.
 Food Writing
• This response has a name. It’s called the Proustian
effect, for Marcel Proust’s wistful passage about eating
a madeleine in his novel, Swann’s Way:
 Food Writing
“But when from a long-distant past nothing
subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are
broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more
fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more
persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like
souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, admit the ruins of
all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and
almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast
structure or recollection.”
 Food Writing
Step 1. Cook up a sensuous feast.

• If you remember the punch in the gut you experienced

when tasting or smelling a food that takes you back to
childhood, that’s what Proust means. It’s harder to
communicate this effect so viscerally in writing, but it’s not
necessary.
• He’s saying that using your senses to access food is
evocative. Your goal is to transport readers to a place and
time, to experience a scent or taste for themselves.
 Food Writing
“The first thing I remember tasting and then wanting to
taste again is the grayish-pink fuzz my grandmother
skimmed from a spitting kettle of strawberry jam. I
suppose I was about four.” - M.F.K. Fisher

• At first you may feel repelled by the notion of tasting

“fuzz.” But you’re also intrigued, and transported to a
kitchen from long ago, perhaps your own memory
standing in for hers.
 Food Writing
• Some writers think the least important sense is sound.
But consider how it enlivens the experience in Alan
Richman’s essay, “The Great Texas Barbecue Secret:”

“Because the meat is seldom pricked during cooking,

the fat accumulates, sizzling and bubbling. Slice, and
the drama unfolds. Think of a bursting water pipe.
Better yet, imagine a Brahman bull exploding from the
gate at a rodeo.”
 Food Writing
Step 1. Cook up a sensuous feast.

• It might sound overdone, but you’ve got to give

Richman credit for imaginative writing about what
could otherwise be a dull topic. He is, after all,
describing what happens when he cuts into a sausage.
Yet Richman excels at translating his excitement onto
the page, and has won more than a dozen national
awards for his essays in magazines such as GQ, where
he is a contributing writer.
 Food Writing
Step 2. Throw in a pinch of adjectives, the smallest
possible amount. Or none.

• You might start out with strings of adjectives in an

early draft. That’s normal. Examine them all and see
what happens if you select only one. You’ll find that
your sentence becomes more powerful when pared
back to the essence of the dish.
 Food Writing
Step 2. Throw in a pinch of adjectives, the smallest
possible amount. Or none.

• What if the only adjective you allowed yourself, to

describe the pear, was “silky?” It reads better than “the
brown buttery silky pear.”
 Food Writing
Step 2. Throw in a pinch of adjectives, the smallest
possible amount. Or none.

• After so many adjectives, readers get confused. They

have to parse all those descriptors and try to imagine
what the pear tastes like, deciding which adjective is
most important. “Silky,” on the other hand, gives them
one clear and concise word. Less is more, when it comes
to adjectives.
 Food Writing
Step 3. Describe the dish with specifics.

• Just as it’s best to be judicious with adjectives, you’ll

also a huge improvement in your writing when using
specific language.
 Food Writing
Step 3. Describe the dish with specifics.

• One of the food journalist's pet peeves is the word

“delicious.” It’s a vague way to describe what you’re
eating, and tells the reader nothing, other than you
really liked it. Other words in this category are “tasty”
and “yummy.” Most of the time you can just edit these
words out of your drafts and you’ll have a more solid
piece of writing immediately.
 Food Writing
Step 3. Describe the dish with specifics.

• Look for vague or general words in your draft and

replace them with more specific ones, such as
“kitchen” for “room.” Even when it comes to
adjectives, “salty” or “velvety” gives the reader a
better idea than “delicious.”
 Food Writing
Step 4. Stir well with action verbs.

• Another way to keep food writing from becoming a string

of description is to go for action. Do not focus on how the
sausage tasted, but on what happened when one cuts into it.
• If you slow down and describe what’s happening as you
consume food, you create a mini movie in readers’ minds.
 Food Writing
Step 4. Stir well with action verbs.

• Here’s how authors Jane and Michael Stern describe

slicing into a piece of apple pie:

“The crust is as crunchy as a butter cookie, so brittle

that it cracks audibly when you press it with your fork;
grains of cinnamon sugar bounce off the surface as it
shatters.”
 Food Writing
Step 4. Stir well with action verbs.

• They’ve slowed down the action so you can picture

what happens when the fork cuts into the pie. Action
verbs like cracks, press, bounce, and shatters go a
long way towards painting a vivid picture. The authors
haven’t described how the apple pie tastes yet, but I’ll
bet you’re salivating.
 Food Writing
Step 5. Spice up the sauce with a few similes.

• Since describing food is a big part of food writing, you

need as many tools as possible to get the job done.
Similes compare two unlike things, using “like” or
“as.” They’re fun and imaginative, giving you the
chance to insert images that might seem a little
incongruous, but work well anyway.
 Food Writing
Step 5. Spice up the sauce with a few similes.

Here’s an example from New York Times dining editor

Pete Wells:
“First we’ll get the grill going hotter than a
blacksmith’s forge…as usual, the tongs won’t be long
enough to keep my hands from scorching like bare feet
on the beach parking lot.”
 Food Writing
Step 5. Spice up the sauce with a few similes.

• You might not know how hot a blacksmith’s forge gets, or

even what the heck a forge is. It doesn’t matter. You
understand that the forge is red hot, and that’s all Well needs
to make his point. Similarly, you might not think of bare feet
on a beach parking lot when grilling meat. But suddenly,
you’ve got a pleasant if slightly painful memory. A simple
story about grilling becomes an evocative look at a fun part a
summer everyone can relate to, a little piece of our collective
past.
 Food Writing
Step 5. Spice up the sauce with a few similes.

• Similes are a little different than metaphors I mentioned

in Step 2. Similes compare two things (burning bare feet
and grilling), as opposed to referring to the object
directly as something else. In the Richman example, he
says a cut sausage is a bursting water pipe, as opposed
to saying it’s “like” a bursting water pipe. The pipe is
the metaphor for the sausage.
 Food Writing
Step 5. Spice up the sauce with a few similes.

• No matter which technique you employ from this list, and no

matter which medium you choose to tell your story, food
writing is similar to other kinds of narrative writing. It
focuses on evocative storytelling and context, rather than on
exactly how the spaghetti sauce tasted. While that’s certainly
part of the story, it’s more important to evoke an emotional
response in the reader by making them imagine a bucking
bull or a hot day at the beach.
 Food Writing
Step 5. Spice up the sauce with a few similes.

• Think of food writing as a type of cooking: you try a

little of this a little of that, and soon you have a dish.
By consistently driving your story forward with the
techniques outlined, you’ll find creative new ways to
express your thoughts about food, and cook up an
audience that can’t wait to read more.
 Food Writing
Choose Your Style of Food Writing

• Food writing is not just the provenance of national

magazines like Bon Appetit, nor limited to the
cookbook department of bookstores. It’s everywhere,
appearing in thousands of blogs and websites,
newspaper and magazine features, e-newsletters,
recipe databases, and fiction writing.
 Food Writing
Food writing also takes many shapes, including
• Memoir and personal essay
• Restaurant reviewing
• Recipe writing
• Food history
• Food politics
• Profiles of chefs and farmers
• Travel writing and guides
• Food reference
• Cookbook reviews
 Food Writing
• Ways to Describe Taste
• Ways to Describe Texture
• Ways to Describe Preparation Method
Task: True or False

False 1. Food writing is different from other form of writing

since it is only focused on the sense of taste.
2. A proof of creativity applied in nonfiction is the
True permission to use similes and metaphors in food
writing.
False 3. Food writing involves using vague and general
descriptions of the food and experience.
False 4. When making a food review, one should put as many
adjectives as possible for effective description of the
food.
5. Proustian effect is when the sense of scent inspires
True vivid memories and emotions.
Task: True or False

True 6. There are a variety of genres in food writing which the

writer is able to make choices.
7. Since food writing refers to describing food, there is no
False need for action words.
False 8. One acceptable adjective to describe the food is “tasty”.
9. Food writing may take the forms of food history and food
True politics.
True 10. The goal of the writer should be to make the reader
feel and experience the writer’s experience.
Worksheet: Food Review Writing
Instructions: Having learned the characteristics of food writing, write a short
article about the dish you have tasted. Ask your parents/guardians to allow
you to go to Robinson’s Sans Rival on Friday for a food writing immersion.

Guidelines and Mechanics

• Order two dishes from the menu: one main course and one dessert (cake)
• Each dish should be photographed. Make sure that the photo gives justice to the
taste of the dish.
• Each photograph will be captioned with the name of the dish and its description in
a phrase. See examples below:
Worksheet: Food Review Writing
Guidelines and Mechanics

Wood-Fire-Grilled Pork Chop

Double-cut, bone-in Berkshire pork chop, sweet & sour braised cabbage, apple cider juice.

5-Layer Chocolate Cake

Espresso-soaked chocolate sponge cake, milk chocolate ganache filling, raspberry coulis,
and fluffy whipped cream.
Worksheet: Food Review Writing
Guidelines and Mechanics
• Each dish will be further described in at least five sentences using evocative
language. Describe the food with the use of the senses. See examples below:

The crust is as crunchy as a butter cookie, so brittle that it cracks audibly when you press it
with your fork; grains of cinnamon sugar bounce off the surface as it shatters…
Cooked-to-order tuna is lightly drizzled with bold wasabi aioli and served with a smoky,
farm-fresh charred vegetable medley. Taste its velvety, buttery cream and let it melt in your
tongue as it allows you to reminisce those sweet, delightful moments of your childhood.
Let your eyes feast on a flash-fried chicken cutlets served on a fluffy Belgian pastry with a
side of polenta and maple syrup.
Worksheet: Food Review Writing
Guidelines and Mechanics
• Use the first-person point of view (POV).
• Here is a list of words and phrases to help jump-start your creativity:

aromatic complex drizzled encrusted fit for the gods

grass-fed house-made infused juiciness knead
local meticulously nosh organic pan-seared
quintessential roasted seasonal time-tested unbeatable
vibrant wild-caught velvety zesty
Worksheet: Food Review Writing
Guidelines and Mechanics
• Book Antiqua, 12 with 1.5 spacing on a short bond paper.