Anthony Bourdain responds to a question about whether foodies are too precious:
Yeah. It could be silly, it could be annoying and I like to make fun of bloggers. But when we’re researching a show some place, chances are, it’s bloggers we’re reaching out to first. It’s not the restaurant review in the newspaper that’s going to determine [a place’s] future. The Internet is a big bathroom wall with people writing on it all the time. At the end of the day, some consensus will be reached. You know, 3,000 words on a hot dog, why not? What better thing to write 3,000 things on? How many tens of thousands of words has been written about Kate Gosselin for f—‘s sakes. Or the Kardashians. So I don’t see anything out there…what better than a hot dog or a chef?
I think a world where millions of people can publish 3,000 words on any subject they’re passionate about is a wonderful world. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
May 3, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Ebert was just talking about this, okay, it was about movie reviews:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/the_golden_age_of_movie_critic.html
Although I think “preciousness” is a quality not necessarily related to the topic or volume of writing on a subject. But I certainly don’t find food blogging – which, despite being kind of into food, I don’t really read at all – as a genre innately offensive on that score. I could relate some recent blog posts on programming I’ve read recently that were far more precious (and actually I don’t read that much blogging about programming, being more interested in things I don’t know as much about… well that was sort of a precious remark in itself, wasn’t it?)