You're here:
Help! I Want To Be A Food Writer
Author: Pamela White
Why Become A Food Writer?
In the last decade, food writing has exploded. Glossy magazines devoted to the culinary arts overflow newsstands. Regional and city magazines review restaurants, report on food events, cover new wine releases, and even interview celebrity chefs. And the number of food-related television and radio shows produced today out number many traditional sitcoms and televised series. In fact, every newspaper in America now includes a food section.
And let us not forget about the Internet. Websites abound with recipes and content covering: ethnic foods, vegetarian dishes, weight loss meals, highly nutritious foods, and specialized areas such as baking and gourmet coffees.
In the last year alone dozens of food magazines launched including CHOW, Cooking Smart, Everyday Food, Cooking with Paula Deen, Relish, and more. Regional dining magazines now cover every corner of the continent.
Whether you want to make food writing your life's purpose or just add it to your cooking or writing repertoire, opportunities abound.
Who Are Food Writers?
Food writers are writers who have found a way to combine their two deepest passions: food and writing. They love to cook, but preparing and savoring culinary masterpieces is not enough. Their mission is to sell their passion for food to anyone who will read their work.
And food writing never gets stale.
New trends, hybrids of produce, and discovering old traditions make writing about food interesting. Food groupies want to know the details. They want to know where they can buy reishi mushrooms, how can they prepare authentic South American tapas, and which stores or mail order catalogs carry the new and upcoming Portuguese wines.
How Do I Get Started As A Food Writer?
What do you want to do with your passion for food and your skill for writing? Are you banking on writing an ethnic cookbook or syndicating a once-a-week cooking column? Do you long to interview chefs and bakers extraordinaire? Or is your dream to review the finest restaurants or research the history of medieval delicacies?
Whatever your dream, the first place to start is at home—with your knowledge and skills.
Start In The Kitchen
Food writers cook, bake, decorate, and eat food. Sharpen your knife, tour the ethnic and gourmet groceries, study cookbooks, and take cooking classes. The more know about the science of food—the study of how ingredients are changed by heat, cold, chemical reactions with other ingredients and digestive acids—the easier it is to develop your own recipes.Attend Classes
You can start by studying journalism in college, or studying creative writing. Take culinary arts classes. In fact, study food journalism in some of the top culinary arts schools if you can.Study Your Market
Do you want to write for Eating Well? Then read the past two years work of quarterly issues. Study the writing style of the contributors, the length of the articles and the type of food covered.
Ask yourself the following questions:- Are the recipes for beginners or gourmands?
- How many recipes are included with each article?
- Does this magazine publish news briefs, food essays or culinary histories?
Earn Writing Credits
If you cannot get the attention of Bon Appetit, then start locally. Write about the local food bank, cooking classes held at a gourmet restaurant, the local chili cook-off or a local baker. Contact local weekly or alternative papers and ask to write for them. At the same time, keep pitching your ideas to your favorite food magazines.Get Writing Guidelines
Visit the magazines' websites or write them for writer's guidelines.
Most guidelines offer where new writers have the best chance of breaking in, usually with recipes or short pieces found in the front of the magazine.Join Food Writing Organizations
Sign up for Food Writing, an online newsletter. The Association of Food Journalists offers memberships to published food writers and holds an annual meeting. Look for local writing groups to join.Attend Seminars, Workshops, And Food Writing Conferences
The big food writing conference, The Symposium for Professional Food Writers, is held at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, every March.
How Do I Find Freelance Food Writer Opportunities?
Food writers typically spread the word through published samples, like magazine features, newspaper columns, cookbooks, restaurant reviews, wine analyses, and researched food histories.
Whatever your talent, the market is out there somewhere—just waiting for you to discover it.
Newspaper Food Editor
The food editor is responsible for choosing food articles from the news wires for each weekly food section. This person is also in charge of hiring local food writers, stringers, full-time food writers and assistant food editors for the newspaper. This job is found at larger daily newspapers (over 150,000 circulation).Newspaper Food Writer
Medium to large circulation newspapers (over 150,000 papers sold daily) hire full-time food writers to cover all areas of food journalism including health and food issues, dining trends, recipes, food production, and restaurant and bakery business news.Newspaper Restaurant Critic
As the general public becomes more obsessed with food, restaurant reviews are good business for newspapers. They provide both entertainment and information. In small newspapers this position is held by freelancers. Imagine getting a weekly paycheck for eating!Magazine Writer
Food writers can turn their skills into a lucrative job with magazines, editing, developing and testing recipes, and snagging a job as Food Editor. Food writers also freelance for magazines, either writing on topics proposed by the writers themselves, or accepting assignments to research and write about topics given by the editors and publishers. Some magazines (Woman's Day, Gourmet) use a combination of approaches, often assigning articles to their own writers while, at the same time, accepting queries from other freelance writers. Food and Wine rarely accepts an article pitch from someone outside its regular writers. Saveur and Cooking Light are more receptive to queries from freelance writers.
Keep in mind, however, that rules and guidelines are bendable. If you live in a location with something unique to offer or know a quirky food person the only factory that makes a food product, the are where saffron is harvested, the inventor of nachos) go ahead and write, email or call to see if you could help the magazine by bringing this person place or thing to the pages of their magazine.Cookbook Writer
Find you food writing niche and develop a book of recipes devoted to your passion. Why do you need a niche? Visit a bookstore and you'll see familiar names on the cookbooks there. The writers are the same people hosting television shows. How do you move past that barrier (assuming you are not a celebrity chef)? Find a narrowly focused theme. Themes could include vegan brown bag lunches, Portuguese holiday foods, cooking game and fish, baking with children, breads.Online Content Writer
Create your own job by publishing a website, e-zine or print newsletter. Write for other websites on food.
How Do I Keep Up With The Latest Trends In The Food Industry?
Food trends can develop quickly, but most stay around for a while. It's easy to find one that suits your personality, cooking style, and personal passions. Read the New York Times food section each Wednesday to keep on top of food trends around the world.
Intricate preparations and easy dinners are currently in demand. Processed foods, boxed meals, fast food, and bland dishes are not. This is why my first piece of advice is to start in the kitchen. Cooks know that easy dinners don't have to be out of cans, boxes and bags. Fresh vegetables can be chopped quickly or ahead of time. Lengthy and difficult recipes can intrigue those looking for a new thrill or a busy cook looking for a once-a-year holiday meal.
Fusion cooking is still popular in many publications and for many audiences. Fusion is combining different ethnic styles into one new dish. Ethnic cooking, especially Mediterranean, Asian, Indian, and African cuisines are part of the mainstream.
Five Winning Tips For New And Experienced Food Writers
Start A Food Adjectives Notebook
As you begin writing about food you will need to find fresher ways to describe them. In your notebook write down a specific food, dish, or ingredient and then follow it with a list of descriptives.
i.e. Strawberry – red, juicy, tempting, saucy, unpretentious, sweet.Eat Out Often
Go to restaurants to learn new ways foods are prepared and how they’re combined with other foods. Take notes, then recreate those dishes at home. Once you’ve mastered them, add your own twists.Create a way to organize and store your recipes.
Eventually you will want to publish a cookbook. If you have developed 500 recipes that are categorized by type of food, you have given yourself the foundation for success.Set Aside Study Time
Set aside two hours each week to study your field. Brainstorm, study magazines, and/or read cookbooks. Do this and you will never run out of fresh, exciting, saleable ideas.Show Your Passion
Always, always, always let your passion for food show in your writing!
Want to tell us what you think about this article?
Email Us | Tweet Us | Comment on FB
Share this page with a friend.