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of Food & Wine Magazine, may not be familiar with food blogs, but he appears to be quite well versed in the use of outdated terminology.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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