Are You Going To Finish That?

I’ve been reading with interest Ann Bauer’s provoking story at Salon, “Food Slut.” More interesting than the piece, to me, has been the somewhat predictable but volumous flamewar that has erupted among readers who are arguing the finer points of food criticism as it appears in most modern glossy magazines, many of them sawing on their tiny violins for the dyspeptic Bauer.

Bauer has a special talent for writing stories that polarize readers. She tends to take noxious positions that reflect somewhat poorly on her person, but she is such an elegant and intimate stylist that she usually edges out a win with the tie-breaking sympathy vote. Personally, I’d love to see her write about something other than herself, and I did enjoy many of her less narcissitic food and restaurant pieces in Minnesota Monthly.

It’s telling, I think, that she seems to have a special taste for reductions. All writers, about food and not food, try to reduce the cacophony of their little corner of the world into a trickle valve of distilled meaning, but they must be careful not to let it be curdled by the acid of falsehood-by-simplification (or its herbal cousin, the composite character or event), and I worry that Bauer indulges sometimes in this kitchen shortcut, much as she doesn’t have time to thaw her hamburger before she pans it.

True, when the cold-pressed virgin truth you are supposed to arrive at is “Write positive reviews about our advertisers, dammit!” “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, dammit!” it leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.