Eat better, drink less. Messages of this ilk bombard us during January, blaring from pages and screens. It is a loud time for food media, a panicky time. Fail to make changes now and you probably never will, or so the tabloids warn.
While this noise is a pain to put up with, it does a fantastic job of illustrating a year-round phenomena: instead of joy, food media is driven by worry.
It is no coincidence that food and “foodie culture” has the ability to make us feel uniquely inadequate, as if the knowledge of our own preferences is somehow insufficient. We feel this way because we’re constantly told that our food could always be tastier, healthier, more authentic. Just read the articles, venture into the chatrooms. You’ll soon learn there’s always a better way to cook the perfect steak.
These articles are crafty, many disguise fear mongering as helpful advice while twisting every culinary choice into a potential faux pas. They also work. In our hurry to avoid those “common mistakes” we’ve forgotten that taste is the most subjective of all senses and that the right way to cook something is exactly how we like it.
Of course, food media is not the only branch of journalism that produces content which worries, divides and overcomplicates. But its impact is one that hits us all equally hard by destroying the joyful, celebratory role food should play in the lives of everyone who has a secure source of it.
Instead of being a means of enjoying ourselves and demonstrating our love for others, eating, drinking and cooking become a practice in damage limitation. We are forced to contort, Twister-like, around the numerous rules and mistakes our feeds have gleefully fed us. Having friends over for tea has never been so exhausting.
A certain type of publication is to blame for the majority of this content. I should know, I’ve written for them. That being said, just about every media brand is in on the act, pitching us worry in the form of food 365 days a year. In terms of baiting clicks, worry is simply too good to pass up.
For us Northerners, the effects of worry-laden food media are even more pronounced. Regional journalism has been gutted in the digital era. As a result, nearly all local newspaper titles have been absorbed into vast parent companies that spew out the same worry-laden clickbait across all sites in an effort to maximise revenue while minimising costs. With “national” newspapers rarely highlighting the North and its food-related news, many Northerners have no choice but to dive headfirst into the slurry.
Thankfully, there are some brands which offer respite. Publications like Pellicle and Vittles do a wonderful job of celebrating food, drinks and their associated ceremonies (Northern and otherwise) while also having meaningful discussions about the social, cultural and economic weight they carry. Content of this type is impactful, important, sometimes difficult, but never unduly worrisome.
Time and again these publications prove that, if the correct writer is given the opportunity, even the scariest topics can be reported on without resorting to panic. Unfortunately, there isn’t much incentive for mainstream media to change its ways. It is, after all, both the fabricator and beneficiary of this worrisome writing.
Alas, us readers are the victims, given no option but to sift through the slew of cheap, anxiety-inducing headlines every time we unlock our laptop or phone. I suggest you get good at it; the trick with food media, as with life, is learning what’s worth your worry.