All about food op-eds

[Carrot Top]

I am curious about the subject of food as it is; could be; or has been used as a subject of Op-Eds by writers.

Do you know of any op-ed piece that has had food (and its many manifestations) as its subject? (Beside the Julie Powell piece which is discussed in another thread. . .)

If so, what was the specific argument being made on the part of the writer, and was it, finally, successfully made for the most part?

Although there are many books that I can think of that have points-of-view on food being espoused, I just can not gather any ideas of any numbers of op-ed pieces that have been done. . .can you direct me as to who does this (if they do) and where?

I am wondering if, in the final analysis, food might be a difficult subject to strip down enough to easily do a successful op-ed, which by its nature, must be in a rather short form.

What do you think?

Edited August 11, 2005 by Fat Guy (log)

[Busboy]

I don't think that food is particularly more complicated, or even as complicated, as many of the the subjects covered on op-ed pages every day: war, peace, the economy, the health care system, the Plame Case, Our Energy Future and what have you -- even farm policy.

When you say "food," do you mean as in trade agreements, third world development, poverty, farm policy and federal regulations? I think that stuff gets printed pretty regularly.

Or, do you mean "softer" subjects -- the joy of organics or the importance of family gatherings over food?

I think the reason you don't see too much food on the op-ed pages (except at my breakfast table) is that it's just not that controversial --outside of places like eGullet -- and that things that might end up on the op-ed page end up in the food section, for not being "hard nes."

[bloviatrix]

This Op-Ed piece by Dan Barber (chef, Blue Hill Stone Barns) ran in NY Times sometime in last 2003. Basically he compares the differences between buying local fruit and that which travels cross country.

[Busboy]

And I just started this thread, for a piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal today.

Note that both he and Powell pegged their pieces to recent "events" -- the Greenmarket entering high season for Powell, and the death of the inventor of TV dinners for Stracher. Stretches in both cases, but effective nonetheless.

[Carrot Top]

I don't think that food is particularly more complicated, or even as complicated, as many of the the subjects covered on op-ed pages every day: war, peace, the economy, the health care system, the Plame Case, Our Energy Future and what have you -- even farm policy.

When you say "food," do you mean as in trade agreements, third world development, poverty, farm policy and federal regulations?  I think that stuff gets printed pretty regularly. 

Or, do you mean "softer" subjects -- the joy of organics or the importance of family gatherings over food?

I think the reason you don't see too much food on the op-ed pages (except at my breakfast table) is that it's just not that controversial --outside of places like eGullet -- and that things that might end up on the op-ed page end up in the food section, for not being "hard nes."

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Yes, you could be right about the fact that "food" is not as complicated as the subjects you speak of except for the part of it that is more. . .sigh. I don't have the right word. . .personal? Ethereal? Un-sort-out-able in ways that people think of it?

It is the "softer" part of food that makes it a squiggly sort of thing to think about when going beyond the preparation, policies of all sorts, or specific cultural meanings.

Several discussions lately seem to have revived my own interest in this concept (which always lays latent. . .food to me is not just a past profession, or not even just a burning interest for the most part. . .moreso to me there is something conceptual about it and the ways people think and feel about it that consistently fascinates me). . .the "Food as Religion" thread and the Julie Powell thread both re-opened questions in my mind as to. . .well, to really try to figure out what it is that I am trying to say!

I don't exactly mean the softer subjects such as the joys of gathering around the table either. . .although these are certainly "starter" subjects, as are the "harder" subjects you mentioned before.

I'm just curious to see what is covered in this format of op-ed and how it has been done. I like ideas and like to see how people put them together. . .and if I ever figure out what it is that I myself want to say about "food as concept" it would be great to see what "worked", what didn't, and what ideas have been used in the past to back up the concepts that the op-ed writers have offered up so far.

Heh heh. Clear enough?

I have to run off to drive to the Shenandoah Valley so can't focus in on making this any clearer, but am so looking forward to anything that anyone can suggest as reading material in this form!

And bloviatrix, thank you for that link. . .will definitely read it a bit later!

Karen

[ingridsf]

Op-eds are open forums. They are one of the few places anyone can submit a piece for publication and be considered. The keys are to have a fresh message, a well-supported argument, and tight writing.

Anyone should give it a try if you have something that you think needs to be discussed.

The Progessive Media Project http://progressive.org/?q=pmp_about says, “The second most widely read section of the newspaper, it is where American citizens mull over the arguments about the way the world should be.”

An op-ed states a position, (Ex. from one I’ve written, sorry to blow my own horn: “For people with disabilities, voting alongside our neighbors should be a right not a privilege.” http://progressive.org/?q=media_527).

Ideally, your first sentence, the lede, IS your argument. The rest of the op-ed is backing it up. I was impatient with Powell's op-ed because it was lacking in any relevant data.

Because op-eds are of necessity brief (400-750 words standard range) the writer must limit her/his argument. Essay writers have considerably wider latitude.

[Daniel Rogov]

Staff writers also have the privilege of occasionally submitting Op-Ed pieces. I have done so on several occasions, almost always relating to some proposed law or another that would impact on what I consider our culinary freedom of choice. In one case, for example, the Israeli knesset (our equivalent of parliament or congress) was considering a law banning the advertising of wine products; on several occassions I have written about the overtly greedy business aspects of kashrut.

The piece of this nature I liked the best (and so did my readers considering that my newspaper got hundreds of reactions (angry at me, in support of me, cursing me, one going as far as to suggest that by writing the piece I had condemned myself to eternal hellfire and brimstone). Writing the piece was inspired about twelve years ago when the knesset was rather seriously considering a law that would completely ban the raising and sales of pork within Israel. Thankfully, that ridiculous little law was not voted into being!!! That piece follows......

Pig, Let Me Speak His Praise

Daniel Rogov

Pig is ill and, because it is in bad taste to speak ill of the

dead or the dying, this may be an appropriate moment to reflect on

some of the kinder things that have been said about him.

According to historian Carleton Coon, pigs were first domesti-

icated in the area of Iran and Iraq about 9,000 years ago. Thus,

oddly enough, the people to first learn the pleasures of dining on

pork were the inhabitants of the Middle-East. Until the advent of

Mohammed, pork remained the most prized meat of the region and

dining on spit-roasted suckling pig was a culinary activity

equally adored by peasants and royalty. The joys of roast pig

spread rapidly to Greece and Turkey and, by the time of Homer,

some 2,900 years ago, roast pork was so popular that the great

poet would probably have had a hard time describing the feasts of

Odysseus had he ignored the pig.

Nowhere, however, was pig more appreciated than in China. In

his diaries, Marco Polo described a piece de resistance that was

served while he was visiting the palace of Kubla Khan. After a

pig had been stuffed with dates, it was encased in a coating of

wet clay and roasted until the juices were sealed in, the skin

soft and the clay dried out. The shell was then broken off and

the skin removed and pounded together with rice flour and water.

The pig was coated with this mixture and then deep fried until it

was a crisp golden brown.

Finally, the meat was cut into slices which were placed on a

bed of herbs and steamed for several hours. After tasting the

dish, Polo wrote that "the pig was as soft as the best Genoan

butter, exquisitely aromatic and the purest delight to eat". Even

though this recipe is over 4,000 years old, it has never lost its

popularity, and was one of the dishes prepared when Richard Nixon

was feted in the Forbidden City.

North and South American Indians never domesticated pigs, but

held the flesh of wild boars in high esteem. They considered pork

especially appropriate to celebrate births, marriages and vic-

tories in battle. Because wild pigs were so readily available on

the Noth American continent, the Europeans that later settled

there made it one of their favorites. In 1725, William Byrd II

wrote that "in Virginia, especially, pigs seem to find the climate

and foods so congenial, that many southern larders appear ready to

burst at the seams with pork and hams".

The pig also found a niche in literature. In his Dissertation

Upon Roast Pig, which appeared in 1822, Charles Lamb held that "in

the entire realm of edible things, roast pig is the most deli-

cate". Dr. Boswell pronounced that he "could linger long and

lovingly over the succulence of pig"; and Samuel Pepys concluded

that "there could be nothing better for the digestion and the

spirit than pickled oysters, a young roasted pig and good, heavy

ale". In the realm of fiction, the characters of Tom Jones,

Gulliver and Gargantua would have been much diminished without

ribs of pork as a major part of their diets.

Even modern writers have found pig much to their taste. Ernest

Hemingway found fried pork chops with sauerkraut "a delight .. a

marvellous feast for a damp autumn evening"' James Joyce considered

them "fit fare for kings"; and Lawrence Durrell thought them "par-

ticularly succulent and delicious, especially when taken with an

appropriate quantity of light beer".

It is true that not all people delighted in the succulence of

pig. Fiji Islanders kept them as house pets (pigs can be easily

housebroken), but did not eat them, believing that souls in

transit to heaven found temporary resting places in the bodies of

pigs. Jews and Moslems consider pigs unclean; Carib Indians

avoided eating pork believing that it would give them `pig eyes';

and for many centuries Trobriand Islanders did not eat pigs be-

cause they feared that dining on pork would rob them of the power

of intelligent speech.

Pig, as we said, is sick. It is up to the members of our

knesset to decide whether or not he will become healthy once

again.

Edited July 30, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[Bux]

This Op-Ed piece by Dan Barber (chef, Blue Hill Stone Barns) ran in NY Times sometime in last 2003.  Basically he compares the differences between buying local fruit and that which travels cross country.

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I believe Dan had another later piece focused on the production of healthier food. My recollection is that he made the point that some foods, e.g. free range hens, were simply healthier to eat than battery hens and that the increased price per pound might well be offset, or at least reduced by the increased nourishment per pound. In a similar vein, broccoli raised on a small organic farms is far more nutritious than that produced in a monoculture with the use of heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides. More product per acre may not mean more food, or at least not more nourishment per acre.

[Fat Guy]

The New York Times regularly devotes space to Op-Ed pieces about food. Jacques Pepin had the "Howard Johnson's, Adieu" piece in April. The Zagats had at least two Op-Eds in the Times in 2004. There was the "Dining with the Enemy" piece, recommending restaurants to Republican National Convention delegates, and the "Eating Our Way to New Frontiers" piece, which was a trends/observations piece about New York's dining culture. Ian Kelly had the "Hamburger Helper" piece about the end of the era of classic French restaurants in New York. Julie Powell and Dan Barber were mentioned above. Jeffrey Steingarten had a wonderful Op-Ed a few years ago, "Food Is Not the Enemy," about food scares and fearmongering (apparently it is common to use "Enemy" in food-related Op-Ed headlines). In June 2005 alone, two "editorial observer" pieces were devoted to food: one on barbecue and one on foie gras. These are just a few. They come around regularly.

[Carrot Top]

Looks like I'll have to do a back-search of the Times as well as reading from the links you all have posted.

Sigh. I try to avoid reading newspapers often, especially on-line, because nothing else gets done, including reading the endless piles of books here (that I really prefer to read!)

And of course eGullet cuts into time for everything. . .maybe even including cooking a decent meal!

Thanks, all.

Karen

[alacarte]

I think of eGullet as one big op-ed essay on food.

[Fat Guy]

Carrot Top, I'm glad you started this topic. It brought the idea of food op-eds to the front of my mind and a couple of days ago, when Thomas Keller announced he was switching from tipping to a service charge at Per Se in New York, I said to myself, "You're posting about how the New York Times runs all these food op-eds, so why don't you write one?" So I sent one in on Tuesday morning and they ran it in Wednesday's paper. I don't know that op-eds stay live on the free part of the Times site for very long, but it's here for now.

[russ parsons]

Staff writers also have the privilege of occasionally submitting Op-Ed pieces.

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there may be a bit of a cultural difference here. in the us, staff writers and reporters are usually forbidden from writing op-eds. it sounds paradoxical on the surface--why wouldn't you want the people who cover the topics on a daily basis contributing their expertise. but since op-eds are usually arguments in favor or opposed to topics (as opposed to analyses, which are more balanced), the general theory in the us is that reporters are supposed to be neutral relayers of fact and to write an op-ed would be to step out of that role in a way which could influence future coverage.

[Carrot Top]

So I sent one in on Tuesday morning and they ran it in Wednesday's paper.  I don't know that op-eds stay live on the free part of the Times site for very long, but it's here for now.

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Wow. . .very cool, FG. That certainly happened quickly, didn't it! That must have been a very nice surprise to wake up to today!

Nice tidy summary of an op-ed, too, with some amusement in there to boot. (I particularly liked the line about opposing tipping maybe being a little "French" ).

And I would say that you have challenged some of my assumptions about how and why I myself tip. Lazily, I was assuming some things about my own behavior that just plain were not true. When closely examined, they had to be re-thought, most particularly the fact that I held onto that there was inherent power over quality of service in the standard scheme of tipping as we have it here. I had to ask myself what power there was, really, in a system where I basically never exercised it!

And of course pooling tips is becoming so much more common than it was. That changes the whole ball game.

Finally, after thought, I've decided I like what they are trying on at Per Se. It gives a new respect to the professional service staff that work there, and should be a boon to teamwork if implemented in the right sort of way. . .i.e. in the managing of the change and of the personalities that might get flustered by such a move, particularly in the kitchen.

When FOH and BOH can consider each other as equal working parts of the equation (which this concept is helping to approach in my opinion) everybody benefits, including the customer.

Well okay then. I'll stop ranting on, myself. Congratulations, again. . .I am very pleased for you!

[Fat Guy]

The point about "To oppose tipping, it seems, is to be anticapitalist, and maybe even a little French" definitely goes into my very small but triumphant book of "I can't believe they printed it!"

It was no surprise this morning. I sent the piece in figuring it would get rejected, so a few minutes after I sent it we headed up to New Haven to visit the in-laws. As we were passing through Milford, the op-ed page editor called on my cell phone and said they wanted to go to press with the piece that night. So we begged, borrowed and stole computers and fax machines from family friends in New Haven and I spent the afternoon working on revisions, fact checking, etc., with the folks at the op-ed page. At about 6:30pm the piece was finalized and sent to the proofreaders, and that was that (am I bad person for pointing out that the proofreaders introduced an error in the first paragraph?). We went for pizza at Sally's and, a few hours later, there it was in the paper.

[Priscilla]

Great piece, great placement, etc.!

Only, wowee but what was with the leaving out of the word? Newspaper of record. Pfui.

[Fat Guy]

It's amazing how spoiled you get when you write online. In newspapers, they spend the last hours of the day obsessing about "Do we fit?" In other words, they're trimming and altering text based not on any concept of merit but, rather, whether they can fit everything on the pages the way they want to. After I had signed off on final copy and gone off to eat pizza, they had to rewrite a couple of sentences in the op-ed to make it fit, and somebody lost a "to" in the process. I'd have to guess it was corrected in later editions and will be fixed on the Web site eventually.

[Jason Perlow]

My copy that gets printed in the NYT NJ food section is HEAVILY trimmed... everything has to fit into 350 words. Occasionally the meaning of certain things get radically changed in the process.

[Priscilla]

I know I know I know I just find simple stupid mistake more irritating than big smart ones.

[cakewalk]

... We went for pizza at Sally's ...

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Did you leave a tip?

(Congratulations!)

[Fat Guy]

Just a quick administrative note here: there's a topic in progress on the Per Se/tipping issue. A couple of posts here that got into the substantive issues on that other topic have been moved over there. Here we're just talking generally about the subject of food op-eds. Thanks!

[Carrot Top]

It's amazing how spoiled you get when you write online. In newspapers, they spend the last hours of the day obsessing about "Do we fit?" In other words, they're trimming and altering text based not on any concept of merit but, rather, whether they can fit everything on the pages the way they want to. After I had signed off on final copy and gone off to eat pizza, they had to rewrite a couple of sentences in the op-ed to make it fit, and somebody lost a "to" in the process. I'd have to guess it was corrected in later editions and will be fixed on the Web site eventually.

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That was one of the questions that was raised in my mind about the Julie Powell piece. . .it seemed that there were some parts of that just did not hold together as well as they should, not to mention some facts that seemed to need a lot of back-up to be considered factual if they could be considered so. (Ouch. Trying to be nice can make for a bad sentence. . .)

I wondered if the piece had been edited without her knowledge or involvement. . .but your experience shows otherwise. . .if your experience is standard procedure for the Times, and I would imagine that they do follow standard procedures as a pretty hard-and-fast rule. They would have to, wouldn't they. . .

[Fat Guy]

Op-eds and other opinion pieces are edited differently than articles in the rest of a newspaper. Because the op-ed is the opinion of the author, the op-ed page editor has a unique challenge: he has to try to help the writer make it better, but he has to let the writer stay in charge. This is pretty standard at any newspaper, I think -- though I've only had op-eds in a very few papers (three or four, maybe, plus syndication).

The editor I worked with was excellent at what he did -- it's always a pleasure to be edited well. He prefaced all his comments with the explanation that I could take them or leave them -- I in turn took all of them. He made me document the facts -- numbers, names, etc. -- with references to sources he could see online or that could be faxed, but when it came to the arguments he tried hard not to tamper, while helping me to recraft a lot of sentences and paragraphs to make them better. The final piece was true to the spirit of what I had submitted, but it was better written.

In addition to his editing, the piece went at some point in the afternoon to the copy desk, where they do a general edit and make comments. We addressed those comments and closed on a final version. At that point, it went through proofreading and layout -- that was after I as the writer stopped being involved in the process.

For a news article, things would have been different. The newspaper asserts much more "ownership" over those. Editors often get heavily involved in pieces, from conception through execution.