Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Am I A Food Critic?

         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.

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