Best Food Writing 2022
My personal compilation, compiled from the official compilation of the best food writing, of articles that are from from 2021, published under the name 2022, because publishing books is slow. I guess.
Megan gave me a copy of The Best Food Writing collection in 2019. I wondered why I’d want to read a bunch of restaurant reviews. But that’s not what the book is! It’s everything and anything anyone writes about food all year long. I loved it then, and now I look forward to its release every year.
Here are my six favorite pieces from The Best Food Writing 2022. Most of the articles were originally published online, so I added their links below. You can read the articles without having to buy the book, which is nice. Or you can trust that the book is a great time, realize you’ll like some articles that didn’t make my list, and get a copy for yourself.
I Recommend Eating Chips
by Sam Anderson
I read this essay when it was published on the New York Times; it’s the only one I’d read before. It floored me. It was published in January of 2021, right after the holidays had been ruined by Covid, right before the one-year anniversary of lockdown. The pace of the writing is amazing. I’m impressed that Anderson wrote about eating an entire bag of chips without sliding into shame or guilt. The hortatory subjunctive (let’s) really helps there—he’s inviting the reader to eat the chips with him. I knew it would end up in this compilation. I’m glad it did. (read here)
Fruits of Empire
by Willa Glickman
This was the first time I’d realized how important plants were during European colonization. My default brain thinks that plants are kinda lame. Auxiliary. Decorative. I’m working on challenging that—living through all four seasons each year in Chicago, the concept of bioregions in How to Do Nothing, the idea of eliminating lawns as a social expectation. But I digress. In the context of traveling to another land and conquering it, a plant is a physical talisman of your conquest of that land, quite literally a piece of it. Before refrigeration, globalization, and photography, seeing a new plant from a new place would have been astonishing and inspiring. Owning that plant would be an incredible way to brag about your wealth and well-traveled crew. This article made me sad for reasons and also was excellent. (read it here)
The Queen of Delicacies
by Shane Mitchell
It’s peaches, if you’re wondering. Mitchell travels to a farms run by a fifth-generation family of peach growers, the University of Georgia, Clemson, and tastes varieties of peaches that only exist on a single farm on one single tree. She writes about the history of the peach and the Allman brothers and the Miss Georgia Peach pageant. She does a great job weaving together lots of different components of the topic of peaches. I loved how she focused each section around the humans involved—it made the piece come alive. And (this is true for all of these articles) the accompanying photographs aren’t in the book, so this was the first time I’d gotten to see them. Gorgeous. (read it here)
Revolt of the Delivery Workers
by Josh Dzieza
Did you know food delivery workers have e-bikes that are required for food delivery and so expensive they’re regularly stolen? This piece reads with intrigue. I loved Dzieza’s focus on introducing us to individual leaders in the e-bike delivery community. I didn’t even know there was an e-bike delivery community! The opening scene—the workers waiting for enough friends to arrive to cross the bridge together to be safe to go home—I had no idea. The gig economy is many things; this article will remind you they’re not all good. (read it here)
The Gatekeepers Who Get to Decide What Food is “Disgusting”
by Jiayang Fan
Join Fan in a (virtual) visit to the Museum of Disgusting Foods in Malmo, Sweeden, where you can see and taste foods you’ve never heard of. Be reminded that we like what we grow up with, which is a limitation, albeit a totally natural one. Learn what American foods are gross if you didn’t grow up with them. Fan is a Chinese woman who lives in America, and when she begins to analyze the philosophy and social elements of disgust, the piece really hits its stride. (read it here)
“It’s Hospital Soigné”
by Chris Crowley
What makes working in a hospital kitchen a step up for ex-fine-dining kitchen workers? Solid pay, low stakes, and predictability. (read it here)
And a few less-favorite favorites:
The Man Who Didn’t Invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos
by Sam Dean
Years ago, someone showed me the inspirational story of the inventor of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos on Twitter. Imagine the tweets: “Frito Lay was desperate for new ideas. They welcome any employees to contribute. A janitor sees a hole in the market for spicy chips. He met with the CEOs and became a VP. He achieved the American dream! via embracing his culture!” It felt simplistic to me then, but I focused my mental critique on the janitor part: This story can’t be scaled because corporations now outsource their cleaning work to independent commercial cleaning companies. Turns out it also wasn’t scaleable because it wasn’t accurate! The author handles competing stories deftly and with nuance. I’ve been glad to feel our culture realizing recently how shaky memories truly are. This piece is a fascinating exploration of that topic in a really specific, interesting area. (read it here)
Margaritaville and the Myth of American Leisure
by Jaya Saxena
The image of a pool ten stories above Times Square has stuck in my head. Saxena’s descriptions are vivid. Fascinating place, NYC Margaritaville. (read it here)
The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment
by Jaya Saxena
Saxena injects nuance into a narrative that was original and then became rather flat. A good read. I love nuance! (read it here)
That’s all for now, folks! I hope you loved a few of these, because I picked them out and my ego depends on everyone around me reflecting my exact tastes and preferences.
Or . . . yeah.
Bye!