How I fell in love with food writing

Everything began in a farm to table restaurant in Manchester

The first time I discovered the power of words associated with food I was in Manchester on a business trip. I was having dinner in one of those farm to table  restaurants that were then beginning to appear on the English food scene, a cuisine that was tied to the land, simple, generous. I was young, and I was sitting alone at a restaurant table for my very first time. I dived into the nearby menu to hide my shyness.

A few minutes passed, and I had not to pretend an interest anymore: I was enthralled. Those words were brimming with force and meaning. The menu was not a bare succession of high-sounding terms. It was thoughtfully written, with vivid descriptions of ingredients and producers: short but evocative text, well-paced adjectives, a strong sense of place.

I walked out of that restaurant with a further awareness of the power of a new language. I used that menu as a bookmark for a long time, occasionally re-reading it, savouring the words, rolling them on my tongue. It was a couple of years before I heard the term food writing for the first time.

Again, I was in UK, in London—I was there to attend my first international food blogging conference. It was 2010, and for the first time I discovered that it was legitimate to think about turning your passion into a job. In Italy there was at the time reticence about it, as if by doing it, or even just by dreaming of being able to do it, you could ruin your passion. Not there! They gave you the tools to try and make it. In one of the meetings, the speakers were talking about tone of voice, style, language, audience, stories. At university, those terms were used in literature and creative writing. Now I was encouraged to do the same with my recipes and food stories.

From that moment on, I used all my free days, holidays, and savings to go to London and attend workshops and conferences. Back home in Italy, where we talk about food from breakfast to dinner, where apparently everyone is a self-declared expert about recipes, ingredients and culinary traditions, there was still no sign of food writing. Food was such an everyday topic, so taken for granted, that it had never really risen to the level of literature. If I wanted to improve my food writing skills, I had to refer to Dianne Jacob's blog and book, Will write for food, a synthesis of everything that existed at the time on food writing. I studied it as I did with my university manuals, marking almost every paragraph with an exclamation point, as if to say: why didn't I think of this sooner! Everything—writing, photos, social media, blogs—was finally falling into place, the puzzle coming together before my eyes.

If I was looking for great examples of food writing, I had to read American or British authors, most of them were not even translated into Italian at the time. This is how I discovered Elizabeth David and fell in love with her sensual language, vivid descriptions, and subtle humor, then Ruth Reichl, and Laurie Colwin.

And from there, I went down a rabbit hole, with no desire to look back: Alice Waters, Nigella Lawson, Anthony Bourdain,David Lebovitz, Diana Henry, Nigel Slater, Molly Wizenberg. With them, it was often love at first sight: all I needed was a well thought word and I would fall in love with their writing immediately.

I also grasped why I already loved certain writers well before the revelation of what food writing is. Take Tessa Kiros, for example. Her books were the first proper cookbooks I had bought with my very first salary. The first post on my Italian blog was a quote from one of her books, Falling Cloudberries. I loved the exactness of her recipes and the stories that introduce every recipe. I loved that, whenever I opened one of her books, it felt like home.

Fast forward to nowadays, I was trying to make a list of my favourite food writers, I also noticed a pattern: I am mostly reading food writers who have a similar background, and perspective on food.

This article by Alicia Kennedy helped me realize that there is so much more to read out there, and I’m happy Substack is providing more diversity and different approaches to food.

A lot of people don’t believe me when I say that I’m a food writer. Or they misinterpret this to mean that I’ve put out a cookbook. What are people picturing when they hear “food writer,” I always wonder? Just Nigel Slater in London with snowfall over his garden, or Ina Garten asking “how easy is that?” or Michael Pollan and his omnivore’s dilemma? Maybe it’s Elizabeth David, Patience Gray, Ruth Reichl, Frank Bruni, Tejal Rao, Anthony Bourdain, even? Or is it only M.F.K. Fisher, if anyone? A food writer takes so many forms!

I will also tell you more about Alicia Kennedy’s book, No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating, in one of the upcoming newsletters. I’m an omnivore, but I felt seen and not judged. It also gave me so much to think about. So wait for it. Have you read it?

Photo from Cucina Povera by Giulia Scarpaleggia (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2023. Images by Tommaso Galli.

More food writing

Speaking of food writing, last week here on Letters from Tuscany we hosted a guest post by Sarah Copeland. She is one of my favourite food writers. Her writing is honest, refreshing, vivid, evocative. She is generous in sharing stories and recipes, light and shades of her life as a woman, mother, chef, and recipe creator. The food she shares is the kind of food you crave everyday, food that nourishes and brings sunshine and comfort in your life.

Have you had the chance to read her postcard from Hungary, her husband’s home land? It comes with her story about foraging in the Bakony Mountains of Central Hungary, and an Apple Bread Pudding recipe to sweeten your day.

Sarah also shared a review of Cucina Povera and the recipe for Gnudi in her newsletter, Edible Living. I think I’ll be printing her words for when the impostor syndrome kicks in, or for when I need a dose of self-confidence. Thank you for your beautiful words, Sarah!

In a world of very loud books, I have a heart for books full of storytelling and quiet wisdom—books that don’t demand our attention but rather earn it. They have longer legs to me—the kind of book I find myself wanting to dip back into months and months after they land. These books tell me about a life I can sustain for generations. Giulia’s Cucina Povera is such a book.

POSTCARD FROM TUSCANY

Yesterday Sarah shared also the recipe for the Apple Olive Oil Cake from Cucina Povera (it is paywalled), probably my favourite apple cake recipe, ideal for the baking season.

This is a cake I’ll be cooking for years. I have a weird future fantasy that when my grandchildren ask me about their Nagymama’s (grandma’s) apple cake one day, I’ll have a lovely story to tell about why our family apple cake is Italian, not Hungarian or American at all. But I quite like that. The best books, stories, and recipes can make our world smaller and remind us that we’re all so much closer to one another than we ever believed.

APPLE OLIVE OIL CAKE

More articles on Food Writing

• The evolution of (my) food writing. It took me almost two years to find my voice on Substack because I had to make up with the idea that I was not cheating on my blog when I was sharing my recipes and stories here rather than on Juls’ Kitchen.

• Don't underestimate a recipe. We have seen that a recipe is a blend of poetry, science, and political activism. So what does it take, then, to write a recipe well? Any well-written recipe will have at its core these three components, which will vary according to the type of recipe, the aim, the sensibility of the person writing and sharing that recipe, and his or her style. There is, however, one element that is always there, whatever approach is chosen to tell the recipe, generosity.

• On testing and writing recipes. I am a home cook who writes for other home cooks. The major mental shift that changed my approach to recipe writing happened when I stopped writing a mere report of what had happened in my kitchen, and started focusing on what could happen in your kitchen.

---

Do you know we have an e-course, Food Writing: Share Home Recipes with the World on Domestika? If you have a passion for food and a desire to share your culinary creations with others, this course is perfect for you.

In this course, we'll dive deep into the art of food writing, exploring techniques to engage your readers and evoke their senses through words. I'll share my personal tips and insights on how to write compelling recipe introductions, engaging stories, and clear instructions to attract your readers into the kitchen.

What I’m cooking now

My days are still filled with cooking classes, and our menus are slowly moving towards Fall flavors, even though temperatures are still closer to summer.

I roast trays of seasonal vegetables—this is that special moment when eggplants and butternut squash meet on the market stalls and in my recipes—, make fresh pasta with semolina flour and water, bake ricotta and pear cake (this will be on Friday’s exclusive newsletter for subscribers!)

• Pasta e fagioli, bean and pasta soup, from the blog archive. Of the many pasta and pulse dishes in the Italian culinary tradition, something that unites the whole peninsula, from North to South, pasta e fagioli, the comforting bean and pasta soup, is perhaps my favourite.

• Baked apples, from the blog archive. I bake six or eight apples, depending on the size. I remove the core, place them side by side in a pan, add a handful of raisins, a dusting of cinnamon, a spoonful of sugar or a drizzle of honey, a splash of water or lemon, and then they go in a hot oven, until the peel becomes golden and wrinkled, the inside soft, melting.

• Tagliatelle with dried porcini and a seasonal pesto. I associate the early days of the fall season with squash, porcini mushrooms, and a return of nuts and more intense herbs, such as sage and rosemary, that are finally taking the place of basil, which dominated the summer without any competition among tomatoes, pesto, and quick pasta bowls.

• Sausage and stracchino crostoni (paywalled recipe). Even during my winter cooking classes, this is one of the most appreciated appetisers, loved equally by children and grown-ups: you won't ever make enough of it.

• Dried porcini risotto (paywalled recipe). Why a dried porcini mushroom risotto? Because fresh porcini have an extremely short season, are expensive, and are often difficult to find. I like to have a backup recipe for when I feel like having a rich, comforting risotto with mushrooms, but no fresh porcini at hand.