Did
you know that there are over 1.3 million blogs in the Internet? Right?
Surprising number, isn’t it? Hola! Welcome back to my blog, I hope you had a
fantastic weekend. According to Technorati.com, the Internet had over 16,588
food blogs in the year 2012; one can only imagine the number of such blogs existing
now. Those food blogs ranged from food recipes, chef interviews, community
based food and restaurant reviews. I have picked an article published by a
well-known food critic named Robert Sietsema in Columbia Journalism Review. This article brings focus into the
various reforms that took place over the past few decades in the food reviewing/critiquing
industry. My blog is entirely based on reviewing restaurants; therefore, it was
interesting to read different techniques
Robert Sietsema was the food critic
for the Village Voice for ten years.
According to Wikipedia, Sietsema is currently a member of the Organ Meat Society, and a contributor to
the Gourmet magazine. According to my
expert not-the-creepy-kind-online-stalking skills, he has over 16500 followers
on twitter. He often posts pictures related to food and shares his experiences
at various restaurants, and voices his thoughts and opinions through tweets. According
to grubstreet.com, “In addition to winning awards
and contributing to Gourmet and Lucky Peach, Sietsema wrote a
number of cover stories for the Voice, including one that blew the lid
off of the made-for-TV theatrics of Iron Chef”.
Robert started his career as a food critic in the year 1993, and the article
I’m reviewing has been published in January of the year 2010 – giving him a
good seventeen years of experience in the subject of the material he has
written about. This article was published in Columbia Journalism Review: “an American magazine for professional
journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism” (Wikipedia). Columbia Journalism Review
has audience varying from college students to old people. This magazine
was founded in 1961, and is published six times a year. According to the main
website (cjr.org), their main mission is to “encourage excellence in journalism
in the service of a free society”, and “CJR.org
weighs in daily, hosting a conversation that is open to all who share a
commitment to high journalistic standards in the US and around the world”.
Robert Sietsema
titled his article Everyone eats.. but
that doesn’t make you a restaurant critic. The title speaks for itself, and
his entire article is based on the reforms and changed that took place over the
past few decades in methods and techniques of restaurant reviewing. The author
starts off by giving a small background about himself, and his experience with
food in New York City. He compares the “food scene” in the year 1977 to that of
the year 2010 by mentioning that “farmers-market movement had barely begun”. He
further introduces six food critics - Craig Claiborne, Duncan Hines, Gael
Greene, Mimi Sheraton, Ruth Reichl, Danyelle Freemanfrom -the New York Times and Times magazine in time
period 1950s-2007. He mentions
that each critic had his or her own distinguishing trait in the form of
reviewing restaurants and supports this claim by providing examples of the
traditional reviewing system of Craig Claiborne, and the trendy, hyperbolic
style of Gael Greene. He explains how Craig laid a framework for restaurant
reviewing where he makes reservations under a false name to remain anonymous,
and visits a restaurant at least three times to test for its consistency. As
the time went by, critics developed their own framework and style of language.
For example, Ruth Reichl was photographed
and had to dine as a celebrity sometimes, therefore removing the entire
anonymous aspect of the review. Further, Sietsema stated that Ruth “turned the restaurant review into a bona fide literary
form” His main argument lies towards the end of the article where he
claims that the digital age has provided various people all around the world to
post their reviews on popular sites like Chowhound
and Yelp; but he believes that “when it comes to cultural criticism, there is a strong
case to be made for professionalism and expertise”. He further states that
Craig Claiborne, and his followers, lifted the restaurant review out of the
“realm of marketing” and made it a public service – which we are apparently in
a danger of losing.
Being a part of
this digital media, I questioned myself whether my freedom of speech gave me
the right to proclaim myself as a critic. Since my blog project is based on
visiting different restaurants, and writing a short review on them, this
article fit into my topic, and further gave me an insight of the methods and
frameworks of the traditional critics. Comparing my system of reviewing to that
of the critics’ helped me realize the differences, and provided a scope for
improvement. For example, Claiborne visited a restaurant three to four times to
test consistency, and dined with four people to try different dishes for
maximum evaluation; whereas, I’ve just visited each restaurant once, and
reviewed maximum of two dishes from the same restaurant. But my method of judgment
for most of my blog posts was based on comparison rather than focusing
primarily on restaurant itself. This, I feel, is unique and something the
traditional critics haven’t tried before. Further having college students -like
me- as my intended audience, I believe that this method of comparison of can be
of great help for indecisive students. So, I asked myself the same question
again – am I a food critic? Maybe not according to the traditional standard,
but as a source of guidance to college students, yes!
With this I’m
concluding my project, and I will be discounting it since I’m very low on
budget (totally saw it coming). But it’s been a fun run and I’ve had wonderful
experiences thanks to this project, and moreover, it was great sharing my not-so-expert
reviews with you guys! I hope you enjoyed reading the posts as much as I’ve
enjoyed writing them. This is I, Nithya Geereddy - the self-proclaimed student
critic – signing off. Adios!
CITATIONS:
"Columbia Journalism Review." Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
Sietsema,
Robert. "Everyone Eats . . ." Columbia Journalism Review.
N.p., Jan.-Feb. 2010. Web. 04 Mar. 2015.
"Robert Sietsema Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.