How To Be A Food Reviewer Pt 2.
I was rambling on why modern day food reviews are terrible, and in a sudden urge to finish the post I went ‘ah whatever, I’ll talk about how in the next post’, and penciled in ‘pt 1’.
That was almost a month ago, and I have been procrastinating.
Because I’ve written myself into a corner.
There’s no way, NO WAY, I can teach you to be a food reviewer in a post.
(And if I could I wouldn’t be doing it for free. And even if I could charge I’m still severely underqualified.)
So baby steps.
Let’s start with the obvious: to be a good writer, one has to read well.
Duh.
But to be a food writer (or simply to write well about food), reading can only take you so far. I’d argue stop reading right this instance, get up and cook, or out of the door and eat. Chew hard.
Those who didn’t get to eat out much (recession bro), dig into memories.
That’s why migrants have an advantage. Like being bilingual, our food thesaurus is already twice as thick as the locals. All Asians cry about their stinky lunch boxes, only to backpedal in twenty years’ time to claim sovereignty in appreciating umami, kimchi, anchovies, stinky tofu etc.
Get out of the door, and eat as far as you can.
That’s why cookbooks are how they are - Nordic foraged salad with lingonberries, ‘recipes passed on by my grandmother who hid jade and gold bars in her hoohaa on the boat for three months’, and everything else in between.
But wait, why am I talking about books? Put the books down.
Out! Get out!
This brings back memory of a dinner along Bourke Street.
The girl was apologising profusely.
Sorry, I chose this restaurant. Sorry I didn’t know it wasn’t good. Sorry it was a bad meal.
This was twenty years ago. We were all students, so no food blogs or review sites or Google stars whatever. Maybe it was her upbringing (she was on her third attempt in trying to get into a medical course, sponsored by her parents) thinking that finding a good restaurant is part of one’s identity, but I remember thinking:
Dude it’s just a meal. Relax. I’m just happy to be out of the house.
At least we know what bad tastes like.
At least we confirmed it’s bad ourselves, and not from someone else.
If you can’t tell good from bad, how can you tell terrific from good?
She stared at me, well, everyone stared at me.
Like I was an idiot.
I’m gonna give you one word.
This one word will carry your food writing very far.
It’s very also wanky.
Once I say it, the wank will go everywhere, and I can’t put it back in the bottle.
Are you ready?
Nuance.
Yes, take it in.
Don’t bother trying to fan it out of the room.
To start, you can drop the word ‘nuance’ here and there in your writing, like white people when they found out about five-spice powder in the 90s. Five-spice here, five-spice there. Five-spice everywhere1.
But what I’m talking about is the ability to identify and describe the subtle distinction of variation.
Let’s do a test. Say you want to warn customers of the spiciness of a Thai dish. You can go:
The pad prik king is sooooo spicy.
or
The heat from this pad prik king will strip the enamel off your teeth.
One was written by an Instagram influencer, and the other by ex-LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold (RIP). No candy for getting it right.
Nuance is basically what wine-tasting, what new-wave coffee is all about.
‘Sour’, ‘acidic’, even ‘fruity’ won’t cut it.
You have to dig in and go raspberry, stone fruits, milk chocolate, palm sugar, dad’s sweaty leather belt your mother used to punish you for not scoring straight-A’s. (See what I did there?)
So back to the beginning.
To understand nuance, to utilise nuance, you can’t just read more.
You gotta observe and experience nuance.
Dafuk Harvard, I know good writing from bad writing, this isn’t some amateur-hour copywriting 101, you say. The point is how to get it across the line, to get the clients/editors to buy it.
Well, in that case, you’re a pro.
You should know that ultimately when your writing is good enough, it’s all about knowing the right people, the right audience, the right time.
Even my daughter knows TPO for everything - timing, place, and occasion.
It’s also knowing when to get celebrity endorsements, to seek higher authority to make a point.
So please welcome our surprise guest, Dani Valent.
Dani is Australia’s longstanding restaurant critic.
Like Gandalf The White casting the Flame of Anor against Nazgul in The Return of The King, her podcast during lockdown basically kept the hospitality industry in good light. Every news about Chris Lucas underpaying his staff or St Ali selling RAT tests for $150, Dani clawed it back with an interview with waiters, dishwashers, Thai restauranteurs, the mushroom guy, Tim from then-Bureaux coffee.
I was fortunate enough to work with her ten years ago for the Melbourne Magazine, months before it folded. (Sometimes, I wonder if my photography has anything to do with it.)
She was there to witness Shannon Bennett’s truffle-hunting dog MJ throw up on me in the backseat of his Audi R6.
Anyway, I arrived at her home with a chirashi bowl after this shoot from Uminono.
In her backyard, I saw three pizza ovens. She just finished doing a comparison write-up on Ooni, Gozney and Ovana. (And she gets to keep them all.)
My plan was to bring some chestnuts and show her my ‘soak in water then grill for 4 minutes each side’ trick, only to see that same stare from those kids twenty years ago. Like I was an idiot.
Apparently, modern ‘easy peel’ chestnuts do not require soaking2.
You learn something new every day.
So Dani roasted chestnuts for me using the Ooni.
With enough time to make a pizza using the Ovana.
I asked her what makes a good food review while she slides the pizza in.
“To me, it's adding context, and perspective. I know you queried people who think that food writing is just about saying ‘this is sooo good, or OMG’. For me it's about why is something the way it is, and how could you connect with this experience. Whether it's with the ingredients or the people, or the atmosphere that they're trying to create, the style of restaurant?”
She rotated the pizza.
“I think good food writing understands that it's about connecting with people first and foremost and, and also having an appreciation for the breadth of what food writing can be. The reason that I love writing about food so much is that I'm just learning every day and it's about, you know, it's history, it's the environment, it's politics, it's social justice, it's the economy. It's got everything in it and everybody has to engage with it.”
The pizza was out.
Within 90 seconds, we made a pizza and she gave me what I need.
“Every new medium that's come along like Vloggers, influencers, to me that's always an opportunity to think about what I do and what I want to bring to the space, I really welcome all those voices, the ‘OMG’ and ‘sooo good’s because it’s an opportunity to think how can I try to be better than I was the day before so I'd say writing is always a work in progress.”
She let me take away the rest of the pizza to my family. And by my family, I meant my tummy on the drive back home. She also gave me salted duck eggs and chicken gizzards3 because her fridge was full of products from suppliers.
Most of all, she gave me extremely encouraging words. She said she receives many newsletters, but only reads mine. (Tee Hee!) When I expressed if I should just make the whole newsletter paid only she screamed, “what? It’s free? Then why am I paying $5 for?”
“I’m kidding, I love spending money.”
We need more people like Dani.
I’m a work in progress.
And I dislike the word ‘toolbox’.
If you’ve done a writing workshop, you must have heard about the ‘toolbox’.
As if writing is a Lego set you can hoard and recall whatever blocks whenever you want. My child has Lego, and guess what, she can’t build shit without a manual.
It’s like telling people they can be a builder just by going to Bunnings4. Look at all the tools! And great, now I’m having a panic attack at aisle five.
I don’t even know why they use such a masculine word to speak to wannabe writers because if we are any good with toolboxes, we won’t be creatives to start with. Why not something relatable like a jewelry box, or a pantry?
Yea, I prefer ‘pantry’ over ‘toolbox’.
Let’s take a step back.
Remember the first dish you perfected?
Maybe you did it for yourself, or maybe you wanted to impress a loved one.
You bought spices, ingredients you’ve never heard of. You failed, failed again.
But eventually, you own it.
Then you make a second dish.
And the next.
I look at my pantry now, and I can name the use of citric acid, cumin seeds, mandarin peels, Sichuan pepper, cinnamon, bonito flakes. Tapioca flour, rice flour, plain flour actually make sense to me. I know when to use normal soy, mushroom soy, usukuchi soy, tamari soy. Fish sauce for stir-frying, fish sauce for seasoning.
It all came with practice.
And it all started with one dish.
So focus on making your first ‘dish’.
You can copy someone else’s recipe.
One from your family. You can rewrite your own.
But make sure you mean it.
Make sure you like it.
One day, you’ll be confident enough to serve it to someone else.
You might want to be a chef, start a restaurant, be a teacher, or entertain guests, those goals come later.
In the meantime, build and understand your pantry.
Make a dish.
That connects.
This really should’ve been two posts, but I don’t want to get stuck with a pt. 3, so I’m box-stepping out of this corner and dashing toward the exit. I gave an actual tip, interviewed an industry leader, and ended with something uplifting and metaphorical. Are you not entertained? Now, let’s move on.
IMHO the five-spice of 2023 is yuzu, sumac, zatar.
I tested with my chestnut guy. Just slice the chestnuts, and chuck them under the highest grill setting. It works. All the wasted water over the months, when we just need fresh, organic, and genetically modified produce.
Wife made yakitori with them.
The Australian Home Depot.
Harvard – I loved this when it came out and I didn't have time to properly comment, so I am belatedly saying, this is truly great! (And Dani is also the best, agreed!)