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Raise your hand if you have heard the phrase "cheese sandwich blog" before. Don't worry if you haven't,
since it isn't as widely used today as it was when it first cropped up back in early 2002.
Pete Wells, of Food & Wine Magazine, may not be familiar with food blogs, but he appears to be quite well versed in the use of outdated terminology. In an article for the magazine this month, he uses the term to slam more than a few food bloggers as being trite and uninteresting, criticizing everything from the photography to the topics blogged about.
The sites he does recognize as being worthy of his notice are excellent, including Deep End Dining and Food Porn Watch, the aggregator that lists hourly updates of hundreds of food blogs. Since the author is based in Brooklyn, he also naturally gravitates towards blogs like the Brunei Digest. Entertaining though it is, the Digest is not a food blog as much as it is a make-fun-of-Frank-Brunei blog, and is largely irrelevent to people who live outside the Greater New York Area.
One of the reasons that the article is interesting is that it seems to be operating under the assumption that all people only find certain types of blogs to be interesting. Not only that, but they are unintelligent enough to get "stuck" reading blogs they don't like - as though to stumble upon a poorly written blog will drag your IQ lower, rather than prompting you to hit the back button on your browser. Mr. Wells, like some other journalists, seems to feel that a website must be incredibly specific to be worth reading and that all people want to read the same thing. Perhaps an example that he could relate to is the fact that not everyone reads Food & Wine. Some people - no doubt more than a few - do not even like the publication and yet Food & Wine has multiple sections in their magazine in an attempt to appeal to the widely varied interests of potential readers.
The best articles about food bloggers and food blogging are always the ones that interview the bloggers themselves. Interviewing people within the community is really the only way for these "outsiders" to get a clear picture of what food blogging is about. It's about liking food and liking to talk about food, a digital means of being a foodie. If you don't like to read about what people ate, particularly if it was a cheese sandwich, perhaps blogs are not for you, no matter how much you "love the idea of food blogging."
For those readers who want a more palatable taste of food blogs, these blogs have all been the recipients of or nominees for blogging awards, such as the 2006 Bloggies or the Food Blog Awards:
And to prove that food blogs do have some talented photographers, check out our Food Porn section. If you have more time to spend, browsing Food Porn Watch is an excellent way to get a taste of many blogs all in one place.
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2-11-2006 @3:31PM Elise said... The annoying thing about this article is that the author really doesn't "get" food blogs. He doesn't understand that most food bloggers blog for a passionate love of food and cooking, not to be the next MFK Fisher. They're highly personal, which makes them even more enjoyable. Sort of like chatting with your favorite neighbor about a great dish you made the night before, or a good deal at the market. And he completely missed the whole phenomenon of the active food blogging community.
He also managed to insult one of my favorite bloggers, Kalyn Denny of Kalyn's Kitchen hostess of Weekend Herb Blogging. That was just down right mean! What in the world does he gain by doing that?
By the way, there is a terrific thread on Food Blog S'cool about this article.
And Kalyn is hosting a What I Find Boring is Snobby Food Writing I'd Rather have a Cheese Sandwich Day on Thursday, February 16th.
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2-11-2006 @3:37PM Elise said... Guess I should have read the instructions regarding links.
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/ - Kalyn's Kitchen
http://foodblogscool.blogspot.com/2006/02/misc-congrats-to-fellow-food-bloggers.html - Food Blog S'cool thread
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-i-find-boring-is-snobby-food.html - What I Find Boring is Snobby Food Writing I'd Rather have a Cheese Sandwich Day
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2-11-2006 @4:03PM Elise said... The last link has changed:
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/02/food-magazines-have-their-place-but-id.html - Food Magazines Have Their Place, but I'd Rather Have a Cheese Sandwich!
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2-11-2006 @4:21PM Kalyn Denny said... Slashfood has done a nice job of reporting on why this article in Food and Wine may get more attention than it really deserves. Obviously people who write magazines don't understand the connections that develop among people who write about food in a more interactive way. Although I was pretty hurt having my blog quoted (out of context) as an example of why blogs are "boring", the supportive comments I've received from so many people (like Elise in the comment above) have helped me remember why I love writing a blog. I'm proud to be a part of such a wonderful and talented group of people.
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2-11-2006 @9:05PM Alicat said... I just wanted to chime in and say that I support Kalyn and agree that it was just rude and mean to pull quotes from unsuspecting bloggers and label them as boring. I could pull any quote from Peter Well's article and give a rant about how boring it is -- but that would be stupid and ill informed to my readers. I guess he doesn't have standards like I do. ;)
I tend to agree with many comments on Food Blog Scool (linked above) that food bloggers are now food magazines competition, and this was a weak attempt at best to turn magazine readers off of food blogging. I will venture to guess that the reason he didn't link to the blogs he quoted was because they are vastly more interesting than his own drivel! If you can Kalyn, take it as a compliment that this pompous man was threatened by a great food blogger and know that we all love and support you!
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2-13-2006 @6:49AM Silverbrow said... I find the reaction to the F&W article very strange. Blogs allow us to air our views and many of us do so freely, whether that is in support of something or critical of it. The beauty and horror of blogging is that it is so public. That means that if we're doing a great job we get support and if we're not we get criticised. Why is Pete Wells being slated for airing his opinion? If he'd praised the blogs and lifted quotes from them in that context, the blog authors would be (rightly) congratulated and there would be plenty of posts and comments saying this proved the coming of age of blogs, even more acceptance of what we do. Look at all the excitement around Pim's Menu for Hope II or Kate at Accidental Hedonist's Food Blog Awards. Why is there an assumption amongst bloggers that they only deserve praise? If you do anything in public, you need to be prepared for the positive and negative criticism.
Personally I thought his comments were fair enough. It is bizarre to argue that he should have written an article but not mentioned any blogs by name. Some bloggers seem to have a view that because they are private individuals, not pros, who do it for the love, they are immune from criticism. That's simply not true. What we do is public. Hopefully it's liked, but very often it won't be. Different views, approaches and opinions are what make blogs so interesting. The same is true of print journalism.
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2-16-2006 @10:07PM Dave Barnhart said... Mr. Wells' tone reminded me of the way I imagine the railroad tycoons talked about the automobile and airplane eighty years ago.
Wells has barely scratched the surface of the blogosphere. If he dug deeper, he would find virtual communities teaming with intelligent life. Something profound is going on here. The linking between blogs, the camaraderie between bloggers, and the conversations across multiple blogs form the metaphorical protozoa of a whole new kind of network or communications medium. Blogs and the Internet are to traditional mass media as the telephone is to television. Blogs are the people's network.
In Wells' world of Mass Media, the communication is one-way. The tycoons decide what we shall read, hear, and see. We mere mortals have no voice except for the Letters to the Editor page. Well, screw that. On the Internet we come together around content that interests us, and if we can't find an outlet for content that interests us we'll create our own outlet.
Wells scoffs at bloggers talking about cheese sandwiches, but the blogosphere is a microcosm of the rest of the world. If bloggers are talking about cheese sandwiches then clearly people are interested in cheese sandwiches. If Wells thinks that cheese sandwiches are not worthy of discussion in his exhalted publication, then it's his loss.
The iron horses of today are Mass Marketing and Mass Media, and blogs and e-Zines are the equivalent of the automobile and airplane. Only this time the tycoons don't have sixty years.
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2-20-2006 @2:19PM Joe Gray said... "Interviewing people within the community is really the only way for these "outsiders" to get a clear picture of what food blogging is about."
This comment is illogical and points out the basic flaw in the critique of Pete Wells' article. Of course a person can get a clear picture about food blogging by reading the blogs! That's all that matters! While it is nice and perhaps interesting to interview a blogger about motivation and so forth, all of that should be coming through in the blog.
Wells is correct that there are a great many boring food blogs out there, just as there are a great many boring blogs on politics or pop culture, etc. The great freedom of blogging, that there are no editors, also leads to a downfall: Just because someone wants to write something doesn't mean that it should be published.
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