A friend in Hong Kong recently sent me a picture of a local magazine cover carrying the headline: Death to Foodies, Are amateur reviewers the scourge of the dining scene? Anyone keeping a food blog is used to a bit of abuse but death to foodies, really? The article itself for those who would like to read it can be found here though it's a lot less incendiary than the cover suggests, even fair at times. Running a headline like that, it is with irony that the article accuses bloggers of attention seeking. Also worth noting, HK Magazine like most blogs, delivers its content for free.
It would be wrong however not to recognise that there is at least some hostility to food blogs. In our experience, the criticism takes three forms: first, that food bloggers are trying to compete with the professionals, second, that food bloggers don't know what they are talking about, and third, that food bloggers are somehow damaging the industry.
The first point, that food bloggers are trying to compete with the professionals, is simply laughable. The Sunday Times for example has a readership on 2.6 million adults. We have little idea how many unique users the average food blog gets but assuming it's 2,000 per week, that is a measly 0.077% of The Sunday Times readership base. To put this in perspective, if The Sunday Times readership was a journey from central London to New York, the average blogger from the same starting point fails to reach Earls Court. Hardly competition.
Critics appear to make the assumption that food bloggers are trying to compete with the professionals simply because they work hard on their blogs to the best of their ability, the argument is no truer than amateur dramatics groups trying to compete with the RSC simply because they put a lot of effort into their own production. It seems to be hardly recognised that blogging is done by amateurs as a hobby rather than a surreptitious plot to displace Giles Coren from his weekly column.
When it is recognised that blogs are kept by hobbyists, it's done with contempt. Lotte Jeffs in the Evening Standard sneered: ‘Anyone with a camera and a couple of synonyms for delicious can be a food blogger these days’. The message here in the broader context effectively condemns any person who seeks to enjoy a hobby. Give someone a football and they think they can be a footballer? Don’t try and play the piano, you’re no Rachmaninov. Why stop there, anyone who puts on make-up thinks they’re a super model surely? Displaying some consistency however, Ms Jeffs, knowing that she will never be Socrates, appears to have given up thinking.
Then of course there is the issue of the quality of blogs. One might reasonably expect food blogs will cover the spectrum of very good to very bad. But is it an unreasonable assumption to believe that readership might correlate even loosely with quality? It's hard to imagine that a truly terrible blog has a massive or loyal readership. A bad review by a blog that no one reads is like the tree that falls in a forest when there is no one there to hear it: does it make a sound?
Are professionals the sole guardians of real truth and real understanding of food? AA Gill recently wrote in the Sunday Times of The Ledbury:
The cooking is refined and calm. It resists unnecessary exclamations or startling contradictions. It doesn't test your palate or demand attention.
Not so said fellow professional Andrew Neather of the Evening Standard previously:
Graham's food is both bold and complex. It's hard to imagine many of these dishes as a conventional main course... these plates composed of small parcels of contrasting flavours.
Is it 'refined and calm' or 'bold and complex'? Can food that 'resists startling contradictions' really be considered 'parcels of contrasting flavour'? Only one can be right surely, but both are professional reviewers. Perhaps there's not a single truth possessed by the professionals that is unavailable to the amateur blogger. Plurality of views is surely a good thing and having read contrasting views of The Ledbury's food by two professionals, blogs allow interested readers to delve a little further.
Bloggers are also accused of trampling the English language. Possibly so, but we are not alone. In a review of The Honours in The Guardian, the dessert is described thus:
Chocolate délice though, was unimpeachable, albeit its honey ice-cream wasn't very honeyed and its preciously named "crème vièrge" tasted oddly like plain old whipped cream, but its slim-line serving was so slight as to be borderline mean.
Since my dictionary defines unimpeachable as 'not open to doubt or question', how did she manage three criticisms of an unimpeachable dessert? Bloggers don't have the luxury of a full time editor; this did and still got published. If a blogger had written that, well.
Ironically, what's allowed food bloggers to thrive is the absence of attention paid to food by those who most scorn bloggers: the professional reviewers. Back in 2009, AA Gill reviewed the Edinburgh restaurant 21212. What did we learn in that review? As well as an account of his taxi ride from the station and Edinburgh traffic levels and roadworks, we learn that:
I was up here to see my daughter Flora play at the festival. She was Jocasta in Oedipus. An awkward part on so many levels. They did quite well, as the average Fringe audience is six; they were attracting 50 or 60 for each matinée, and she was captivating, having learnt that most elusive and winning of theatrical skills: stillness.
For sure, we all love reading about AA Gill's children and undoubtedly he is a brilliant writer, but his column has simply ceased to be about food in the same way that his good friend Jeremy Clarkson's column has ceased to be about cars. In Gill's review of 21212, my wordcount function suggests that of the 1,318 words written in the column, only 445, just 33%, are actually about 21212. Since some people do want to read about food, the door was left wide open and ultimately bloggers filled that role, even if they are amateurish about it.
In fact, if bloggers are palpably so bad but apparently so widely read, it points to an astonishing failure of the professional media in not giving readers what they want - proper food journalism, not ego-centric soap boxes. It's a huge failing on the part of journalists and editors and now they rue their mistake.
Finally, there's the supposed power of the blogs, a power that is assumed will ruin restaurants and even the industry as a whole if bloggers are left unchecked. Utter nonsense. Former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks in testimony to the Leveson inquiry said of the power of The Sun newspaper:
Your power is your readership - it's not an individual power. Everyday the readers can unelect us as newspapers
If the Murdoch stable of newspapers can deny having individual power, how then can journalists from these very newspapers claim that blogs with just 0.077% of their readership have the ability to wield so much power? The HK magazine that says that amateur reviewers are the scourge of the industry talks of any 'blowhard with a camera' having a 'potentially powerful voice'. If that is true, it would achieve something that Ms Brooks under sworn testimony claimed that even The Sun newspaper (readership 7.2million) never achieved.
We occasionally receive comments on our website that start off 'I hate food blogs...' Why then do these people spend their time reading them? It's hard to come across food blogs by accident, you have to seek them out, but if you do happen to unwittingly find them, you don't have to stay. Not even a food blogger is stupid enough to believe that everyone will like food, restaurants or their blog but most expect some toleration. The definition of a bigot is 'a person who holds an opinion obstinately and is intolerant towards those who do not'. 'Death to foodies', 'I hate food blogs' when left as a comment on a food blog and the 'anyone with a camera...' sneer, these are the very words of bigots.
We have already suggested that bloggers have no power; the very worst of them presumably have no readership either. But all bloggers are amateurs enjoying a hobby, trying hard to write well (even if they fail to do so) and many blogs do give some pleasure to whatever readership they do have. If food blogs are not your thing, don't join the bigots, rather, spend your time on things you do enjoy and you will undoubtedly be a happier and nicer person. Death to foodies is not the answer.
Follow on post: Are you sharing the restaurant with an annoying food blogger?
It would be wrong however not to recognise that there is at least some hostility to food blogs. In our experience, the criticism takes three forms: first, that food bloggers are trying to compete with the professionals, second, that food bloggers don't know what they are talking about, and third, that food bloggers are somehow damaging the industry.
The first point, that food bloggers are trying to compete with the professionals, is simply laughable. The Sunday Times for example has a readership on 2.6 million adults. We have little idea how many unique users the average food blog gets but assuming it's 2,000 per week, that is a measly 0.077% of The Sunday Times readership base. To put this in perspective, if The Sunday Times readership was a journey from central London to New York, the average blogger from the same starting point fails to reach Earls Court. Hardly competition.
Critics appear to make the assumption that food bloggers are trying to compete with the professionals simply because they work hard on their blogs to the best of their ability, the argument is no truer than amateur dramatics groups trying to compete with the RSC simply because they put a lot of effort into their own production. It seems to be hardly recognised that blogging is done by amateurs as a hobby rather than a surreptitious plot to displace Giles Coren from his weekly column.
When it is recognised that blogs are kept by hobbyists, it's done with contempt. Lotte Jeffs in the Evening Standard sneered: ‘Anyone with a camera and a couple of synonyms for delicious can be a food blogger these days’. The message here in the broader context effectively condemns any person who seeks to enjoy a hobby. Give someone a football and they think they can be a footballer? Don’t try and play the piano, you’re no Rachmaninov. Why stop there, anyone who puts on make-up thinks they’re a super model surely? Displaying some consistency however, Ms Jeffs, knowing that she will never be Socrates, appears to have given up thinking.
Then of course there is the issue of the quality of blogs. One might reasonably expect food blogs will cover the spectrum of very good to very bad. But is it an unreasonable assumption to believe that readership might correlate even loosely with quality? It's hard to imagine that a truly terrible blog has a massive or loyal readership. A bad review by a blog that no one reads is like the tree that falls in a forest when there is no one there to hear it: does it make a sound?
Are professionals the sole guardians of real truth and real understanding of food? AA Gill recently wrote in the Sunday Times of The Ledbury:
The cooking is refined and calm. It resists unnecessary exclamations or startling contradictions. It doesn't test your palate or demand attention.
Not so said fellow professional Andrew Neather of the Evening Standard previously:
Graham's food is both bold and complex. It's hard to imagine many of these dishes as a conventional main course... these plates composed of small parcels of contrasting flavours.
Is it 'refined and calm' or 'bold and complex'? Can food that 'resists startling contradictions' really be considered 'parcels of contrasting flavour'? Only one can be right surely, but both are professional reviewers. Perhaps there's not a single truth possessed by the professionals that is unavailable to the amateur blogger. Plurality of views is surely a good thing and having read contrasting views of The Ledbury's food by two professionals, blogs allow interested readers to delve a little further.
Bloggers are also accused of trampling the English language. Possibly so, but we are not alone. In a review of The Honours in The Guardian, the dessert is described thus:
Chocolate délice though, was unimpeachable, albeit its honey ice-cream wasn't very honeyed and its preciously named "crème vièrge" tasted oddly like plain old whipped cream, but its slim-line serving was so slight as to be borderline mean.
Since my dictionary defines unimpeachable as 'not open to doubt or question', how did she manage three criticisms of an unimpeachable dessert? Bloggers don't have the luxury of a full time editor; this did and still got published. If a blogger had written that, well.
Ironically, what's allowed food bloggers to thrive is the absence of attention paid to food by those who most scorn bloggers: the professional reviewers. Back in 2009, AA Gill reviewed the Edinburgh restaurant 21212. What did we learn in that review? As well as an account of his taxi ride from the station and Edinburgh traffic levels and roadworks, we learn that:
I was up here to see my daughter Flora play at the festival. She was Jocasta in Oedipus. An awkward part on so many levels. They did quite well, as the average Fringe audience is six; they were attracting 50 or 60 for each matinée, and she was captivating, having learnt that most elusive and winning of theatrical skills: stillness.
For sure, we all love reading about AA Gill's children and undoubtedly he is a brilliant writer, but his column has simply ceased to be about food in the same way that his good friend Jeremy Clarkson's column has ceased to be about cars. In Gill's review of 21212, my wordcount function suggests that of the 1,318 words written in the column, only 445, just 33%, are actually about 21212. Since some people do want to read about food, the door was left wide open and ultimately bloggers filled that role, even if they are amateurish about it.
In fact, if bloggers are palpably so bad but apparently so widely read, it points to an astonishing failure of the professional media in not giving readers what they want - proper food journalism, not ego-centric soap boxes. It's a huge failing on the part of journalists and editors and now they rue their mistake.
Finally, there's the supposed power of the blogs, a power that is assumed will ruin restaurants and even the industry as a whole if bloggers are left unchecked. Utter nonsense. Former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks in testimony to the Leveson inquiry said of the power of The Sun newspaper:
Your power is your readership - it's not an individual power. Everyday the readers can unelect us as newspapers
If the Murdoch stable of newspapers can deny having individual power, how then can journalists from these very newspapers claim that blogs with just 0.077% of their readership have the ability to wield so much power? The HK magazine that says that amateur reviewers are the scourge of the industry talks of any 'blowhard with a camera' having a 'potentially powerful voice'. If that is true, it would achieve something that Ms Brooks under sworn testimony claimed that even The Sun newspaper (readership 7.2million) never achieved.
We occasionally receive comments on our website that start off 'I hate food blogs...' Why then do these people spend their time reading them? It's hard to come across food blogs by accident, you have to seek them out, but if you do happen to unwittingly find them, you don't have to stay. Not even a food blogger is stupid enough to believe that everyone will like food, restaurants or their blog but most expect some toleration. The definition of a bigot is 'a person who holds an opinion obstinately and is intolerant towards those who do not'. 'Death to foodies', 'I hate food blogs' when left as a comment on a food blog and the 'anyone with a camera...' sneer, these are the very words of bigots.
We have already suggested that bloggers have no power; the very worst of them presumably have no readership either. But all bloggers are amateurs enjoying a hobby, trying hard to write well (even if they fail to do so) and many blogs do give some pleasure to whatever readership they do have. If food blogs are not your thing, don't join the bigots, rather, spend your time on things you do enjoy and you will undoubtedly be a happier and nicer person. Death to foodies is not the answer.
Follow on post: Are you sharing the restaurant with an annoying food blogger?