A couple weeks ago, I wrote one of my many restaurant experiences on this blog. I hit publish and then proceeded to paste the link on my Facebook wall. Most of my friends enjoy reading of local eats, so I do the occasional share on social networks. A minute later somebody posted this rather passive aggressive Facebook status:
“Unless you know what a mirepoix, paysanne or bain-marie is you shouldn’t write about food. Eating out with a camera doesn’t make you a writer.”
Technically, it wasn’t personally directed at me, but the timing was just too perfect. For the record, I do know what all those things are without looking them up on Wikipedia. I do my fine share of making fried rice, cutting vegetables for stir fry and watching the food network. Anyways, all those things are irrelevant to what makes a blogger.
If you’re reading a food blog, unless it’s a recipe blog, nobody cares if the carrots were julienned. In the Yelp and Foursquare era, people just want to know that things taste good. That is what the food (books and other) posts are for, to give an opinion on something. If you don’t care about my opinion than kindly hit the x at the top right corner (or left if you’re on a Mac). Also, what are you doing here in the first place? I have a modest following of people who do care.
In the internet age, everyone has the right to blog. All food critics probably started out paying for meals themselves and evaluating them. Just like all music bloggers started out paying for concerts and practising their camera shots and reviews. Blogging is not a god-given right to somebody with a pretentious degree in a subject area. In fact I don’t think people would even want to read something with a lot of condescending jargon. Would anybody care if I told you some song had too many parallel 5ths? If you are passionate about a subject, or if you just like sharing things regularly then go ahead and blog.
I lulled on this subject for the past few weeks and then realized. Who cares what one dude thinks? As long as you can maintain readership and a following on your blog (even if it is a few really dedicated fans), then keep writing. You have every right to.
Ps. I love all my followers. Thank you for continuously following my life adventures and nerdism. I promise to bring you a lot more in 2013.
Tiana Feng 
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Well, sort of (not food blogging). Ideas about relative authority and narcissism, at least. Just because you *can* blog, should you? Do we have the right to blog? Should I bother blogging? Tweeting? What’s the value of documenting the minutia? Bah, I don’t know… I’m sure I’ll end up blogging about it, myself :-)
(Sidebar: Saw your Woodpigeon post today. Not a big fan myself, but Calgary – represent!)
Haha, once you start blogging, you can’t stop!
You make some excellent points. Some people probably shouldn’t blog, sharing TMI but whatever, if they can attract readers than power to them! I’m all for freedom of speech etc. I just don’t think background matters when it comes to who should blog about any subject. If you are passionate about it, go for it.
Blogging for me satisfies my OCD need to document everything.
The constant urge to document… yeah, I know what you mean. That’s one of my resolutions this year, taking life back out of the public eye (he says on a public blog) and journaling thoughts (how retro of me).