Food writing is a literary genre that focuses on the cultural and historical significance of food. It takes in forms including recipes, journalism, memoir and travel writing, and it appears in both fiction and nonfiction, exploring food's overlap with agriculture, ecology, culture, politics and personal memory rather than simply passing along information about food. The American food writer M. F. K. Fisher described her own work as an exploration of hunger, love and the satisfaction of basic human needs, while the writer Adam Gopnik has divided food writing into what he calls the mock epic, which humorously elevates its subject, and the mystical microcosmic, which finds deeper meaning in the experience of food. The term food writing itself came into recognized use in the 1990s, building on earlier works such as Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste, and the field today includes food criticism, food journalism and food history.
Facts
Place of Origin Notable ExampleLa physiologie du gout (The Physiology of Taste) by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin 1 Defining TraitDivided by Adam Gopnik into the mock epic and the mystical microcosmic modes 1 FAQs
Is food writing a genre in its own right?
It is defined by its topic and borrows from many older genres such as recipes and memoir.
Not strictly, according to the source. Because food writing is defined by its topic, it is not a genre in itself but writing that draws on a wide range of traditional genres, including recipes, journalism, memoir and travelogues. It can also refer to poetry and fiction, with Robert Burns and his poem Address to a Haggis from 1787 given as one example. The term food writing is also fairly new. It came into wide use in the 1990s, so describing older works as food writing is a retrospective judgment.
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Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Food writing - Wikipedia
Sources
1. Food writing - Wikipedia
History section
Some of the earliest recipes we have found were carved into stone in Mesopotamia nearly 4,000 years ago.
Definition section, Brillat-Savarin sentence
Classics of food writing, such as the 18th century French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's La physiologie du gout (The Physiology of Taste), pre-date the term and have helped to shape its meaning.
Definition section, Gopnik sentence
Adam Gopnik divides food writing into two categories: the "mock epic," which humorously elevates the subject of food, and the "mystical microcosmic," which poetically delves into the deeper meanings of food experiences.
In Group: Creative and Narrative Nonfiction, Lead paragraph
Food writing is a literary genre that focuses on the cultural and historical significance of food.
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