Essential Reading for Food Journalists

Apropos our conversation about food books:

In 2002, Jonathan Gold sent Margy this list of what he considered to be essential reading for aspiring food critics. Now 7 years later, I'm sure there'd be additions, but it seems like a good place for us to start. Most of it seems like stuff we'd want to read anyway. As we make our way through, we can post reviews of/comments on each.

Here's his annotated list:

Calvin Trillin, "Tummy Trilogy." As far as I know, the first guy to write about eating instead of about food.

MFK Fisher, "The Art of Eating." Her five best books collected. Food as emotion, described with economy and precision.

Jane & Michael Stern, "Roadfood and Goodfood." A decently written, if overacute, compendium of American regional cuisine, including many of the classic old places as critic should know about. Make sure to get an old edition. The current one, "Eat You Way Across the USA," kind of blows.

Seymore Britchky. Any old NY restaurant guide. Very outdated style, but he taught us all how to describe food.

Angelo Pellegrini, "The Unprejudiced Palate." The most lyrical of the back-to-the-land manifestoes. Very beautiful.

Patricia Wells, "A Food Lover's Guide to Paris" and "A Food Lover's Guide to France." Faith Willinger, "Eating in Italy," Nina Simonds, "China's Food." Restaurant guides. We're supposed to know this stuff. Also Waverly Root's books on the foods of Italy and France.

Joseph Wechsberg, "Blue Trout and Truffles." Solid writing on cuisine between the wars.

Joseph Mitchell, "Up in the Old Hotel." About as good as narrative journalism ever gets, and about two-thirds about eating and restaurants. Essential.

A.J. Liebling, "Between Meals." Food memoir as tightly written as poetry. A thousand leads to steal.

A few cookbooks, including definitely Richard Olney's "Simple Cooking," my favorite cookbook anywhere, as well as possibly Elizabeth David's "Italian Food," Marcella Hazan's "Classic Italian Cooking," "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art--by Shizuo Tsuji, M.F.K. Fisher"

And he or she might as well get Page & Dornenburg's "Dining Out," which is kind of bogus but features extensive interviews with restaurant critics (including me and Ruth) about the basic perils of the profession.

FYI, I have an Amazon wishlist.