Writing About Food

Written communication to express our relationship with food has existed since ancient times. In Mesopotamia or Ancient Greece, the written word dedicated to what was eaten occupied the writings of some people who enjoyed the pleasure of eating or discovering dishes from other latitudes. However, the act of writing about food changes depending on the era and the ways in which eating and our relationship with food are visualized. Thus, written expression about food goes beyond descriptions of dishes, ingredients, or cuisines: it also speaks to our relationship with the environment and the important socio-historical events that shaped the way of thinking about food and, therefore, communicating thought.

Writing about food in Ancient Greece, for example, had a hygienist character, since the focus on food was generally given based on the relationship between what was eaten and the effects it could have on the body/spirit. Obsessing too much over food was considered a trivial act, so speaking about food in an epicurean tone was seen as something superfluous.

If we could speak of a "genre" of written food communication, we would find that, in reality, there are many ways to approach what we eat since ancient times. Sometimes, for example, through chronicles that later served as historiographical sources, such as those written by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún to explain and bear witness to what was eaten at Emperor Moctezuma's banquets. We know little about whether the friar was aware of the extent to which describing the way dishes were presented was merely a response to his surprise in a tone of cultural shock, or if he was truly conscious of what this implied as a historical document.

Similarly, in France, for example, with the emergence of restaurants and the elevation of gastronomy to a discipline, Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin, who in his time could be considered a bon vivant, left written testimony not only of what was eaten, but also of an entire social protocol, customs and usages, beliefs and perceptions generated around the table in a specific time and society. In the twentieth century, the access of households to different technologies as well as the massification of media helped, in a certain way, for food writing to encompass other genres beyond customs and usages, placing special emphasis on the way of describing dishes and experiences to readers so they could at least mentally recreate the experiences of gastronomic critics. Food writing at the beginning of the twentieth century also included cooking advice accompanied by lessons about gender roles through the way in which instruction about cooking was given.

Food writing is, therefore, a vast genre that goes beyond the use of synonymous adjectives to describe the succulence of a dish: it also speaks to our relationship with the environment, its main issues, and permeates ideologies about identity, usages, and social norms. Writing about food thus carries an intrinsic responsibility beyond enjoyment.

— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.