Accidental Hedonist - Dissonance thy name is Batali

Dissonance thy name is Batali

06/14/07, by Kate Hopkins

2587 views • Categories: Food Blogs, Personalities

There's a very interesting post over at Eater from Mario Batali, where he details why Food Blog are Evil.

What caught my eye were the following two snippets.

Many of the anonymous authors who vent on blogs rant their snarky vituperatives from behind the smoky curtain of the web. This allows them a peculiar and nasty vocabulary that seems to be taken as truth by virtue of the fact that it has been printed somewhere.

And then later in the post:

If you follow the blue bold link, it takes you to the original piece driven by a factoid written by the hapless NY Post real estate/food hack Braden Keil who has hated me for as long as I can remember, not that he has any value to journalism anyway.

Call me crazy, but it seems that if one is going to criticize folks for using "peculiar and nasty vocabulary", one shouldn't engage in said practice three paragraphs later.

Meanwhile, I have a working theory in regard to food blogs. There are essentially two different worlds of food bloggers - The first is those in New York who fixate upon the admittedly unique and gossipy restaurant scene. The second is everyone else.

I could be wrong. It is only a theory after all.

Permalink • 11 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Paul Herzberg [Visitor]

· http://pherzb.blogspot.com

I don't read any restaurant review blogs, but I do read one or two film review ones and I hope the same can be said of both and that's that I look for a reviewer that has similar tastes to mine but broader and better and hopefully more adventurous, a little passion for the subject doesn't go amiss either -- I look for reviews to expand my tastes and perhaps try things I otherwise wouldn't whilst at the same time looking afresh at what I already enjoy. Given how many bloggers there are out there you are bound to find at least a handful who this description fits.

For mainstream reviewers their taste has only to chime with that of their editor or whoever has to defend their views.

So it seems to me that the blogger has the advantage, they may only get 100 views a day (or much more, or less), but if you search you can find one that's a good fit for your wants. Whereas newspaper reviewers you get with your paper whether you like them or not.

There is no "truth" in taste only what you like and blogs are much better positioned to provide you with what you like.

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 10:09

Comment from: Cris C. [Visitor]

· http://cris.livejournal.com

I think your dichotomy between NYC blogs and everyone else can apply to all blogs -- not just food ones.

There are the New Yorkers who think that theirs is the center of the universe and that the most trivial piece of gossip is terribly important ; and there's everyone else who remembers that this is, after all, the world wide web.

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 10:14

Comment from: Brian [Visitor]

· http://www.urbanbohemian.com

He definitely should have taken the high road in his own entry. I guess I'm in the non-snippy food blog reader camp. I much prefer to find out about new stuff, recipes, etc.

However if by "snippy" he means food bloggers that are giving honest reviews of restaurant experiences that were just horrible, then he needs to get over himself. Sometimes the truth isn't pretty, and if your ego can't take that you might be in the wrong business.

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 10:17

Comment from: Rebecca [Visitor]

· http://www.moovetoamerican.org

Interesting discussion! Although I do love New York, once you are there you do get sucked into the whole thing and sometimes forget that there are things happening off the island!

I'm also working with MoovetoAmerican.org, a group asking Americans to "moove to American" and support 100% US beef . I appreciate your cause and view point. Thanks for the great post!

Rebecca
www.MoovetoAmerican.org
Join the Moovement! Support American Beef.
Mark Your Calendar for June 28th Moovement

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 13:13

Comment from: tut-tut [Visitor]

· http://inside-the-shell.blogspot.com

Good lord. Did you start to read the comment thread??

I don't read restaurant-driven food blogs, and I guess that's why.

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 13:15

Comment from: david [Visitor]

· http://www.davidlebovitz.com

"Smoky curtain"?

Who does he think he is, saying my laptop screen needs a good cleaning?

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 13:53

Comment from: Barbara [Visitor]

· http://www.tigersandstrawberries.com

I guess he has never read the blog of folks who use their real names on the blog.

Which is pretty much all the food bloggers I read.

But, yeah, I don't read many of the New York restaurant gossip blogs, so he and I may be reading different stuff.

Permalink 06/14/07 @ 17:24

Comment from: Ian [Visitor]

Actually, I thought the two types of food bloggers were:
- those in New York who fixate upon the admittedly unique and gossipy restaurant scene
- those in northern California who don't understand why everyone in the country isn't a localvore devoted to organics yet.

Permalink 06/15/07 @ 06:21

Comment from: Kalyn [Visitor]

· http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com

Interesting, but I think the man obviously has no idea of the influence of blogs, or he would have taken a bit more time to write something more meaningful and less personal-interest slanted. And I agree with other commenters here, he doesn't seem to have read too many blogs. I think the fact that some food bloggers have become so famous for their cooking skills and even written popular cookbooks without any formal cooking training (gasp) may be a bit threatening to someone who considers themself to be a professional. Too bad. Everyone needs to eat, and there are plenty of food lovers to go around.

Permalink 06/15/07 @ 06:45

Comment from: anon [Visitor]

Silly me, I always thought peculiar and nasty vocabularies -- much less snarky vituperatives -- were sort of cool.

Permalink 06/17/07 @ 15:34

Comment from: Kirsten [Visitor]

· http://homecookkirsten.blogspot.com

Yes, I see there being some "camps" in food blogging.

I am happy to be (i think) in the camp that Kalyn mentions which is the non-controversial one. :)

I just cook and write about it!

Permalink 06/20/07 @ 11:09

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