th Art of Eating: Established Writers on Newer, Younger Writers Where Are We Going from Here?

excerpt:

Alan Richman on the very phenomenon of being a food writer today —

In my younger days I was in the military, and to me old food writers were comparable to regular army troops with mess halls and laundry service and all the comforts of war, whereas today’s food writers are the guerrilla forces, living off the land. I don’t know how they do it, and I am in awe. I reserve special praise for modern recipe writers, because most restaurant cuisine has become so incomprehensible I have no idea how they find a way to document it. About three years or four ago I did a piece for GQ about this new restaurant food, which I called “egotarian cuisine,” food that had nothing to do with honoring the past or even
pleasing customers but resulted from the ambition of chefs. I believe this trend has gotten worse. How do you write recipes about food that exists only in the minds of cooks and has nothing to with the conventions of dining? Boy, did we have it easy in the old days.

Alan Richman, a correspondent for GQ magazine, has won 14 James Beard awards for journalism; he is the author of Fork It Over.

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Thanks, wonderful magazine.

The quote is very real for the trend of egotairan cuisine.

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Not at all what I was expecting to read, but interesting, nonetheless. Thank you for finding and posting this.