Why isn’t her name a part of the title of this piece?? She is a well-known food writer already. It’s a shame that “restaurant editor” is the chosen byline for a woman pushing the boundaries.
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I love learning about new food traditions from various cultures but F&W is looking to turn this into another political podium.
Do you think when the current subscriber base gets tired of this approach and leaves, that they will be able to sustain themselves on only their "intersectional" subscribers? Doubtful.
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I can’t wait for her to include more regional diversity by moving from a major market to another major market. Yawn.
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I'm not fond of her writing - I don't find it particularly good - and it's often unnecessarily snarky.
It's interesting that she says she has learned the importance of empathy, but I don't see this reflected in her work. Her profile of Ree Drummond, for example, is intensely dismissive of middle America.
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@Emily But Ree is white, conservative and middle-American, and hence an acceptable target
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@Emily - Agreed. I like to read about food because it is an escape from all the other stories dealing with politics. But I guess Food & Wine feels they cannot survive unless they join the fray. I would think that you would want to write about stories your readership wants to read not what F&W wants them to read.
Oh well, they will find out when they join the long list of magazines that go by the wayside.
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My name is very common though often misspelled because there are many variations. Sometimes I get upset but that is silly of me. I do make sure that it is spelled correctly in doctors offices, motor vehicle department’s credit card applications etc. why is this lady getting so upset about spelling of her name when ordering coffee? Cool it Lady
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@Kaplan Bully for you that you’re so self aware, but “cool it lady?” What the heck is it to you that she wants people to get that right?
Not used to the nastiness I’m seeing in other comments too. Jeez, give her a chance to assume the position and show some range and growth before you so casually dismiss her.
Reading Ms. Shah's childhood anecdote about sandwiches, I got the feeling that first generation immigrant parents might have taken some extra efforts to hold on to their ethnic food culture in America. I got the same sense from a NYT story in July featuring an Indian American cookbook author, who as a child longed for cake (and not Indian dessert) on her birthdays. In my fairly typical 1980s middle class growing-up-in-India experience, sandwiches in the lunchbox were common, and most Indian kids seemed to have cake on birthdays. Anyway, it's nice to know that second generation kids now treasure these traditional flavors despite any stressful experiences in their childhood. Good luck to Ms Shah.
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Well this unnamed media outlet could do well to heed certain important trends like sustainability and climate change. This certain unnamed media outlet has a writer flying to over 50 places in one year.
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"Food is undeniably intersectional" -- a nice philosophical statement.
But the writers of Food Section and their interviewees forgot that today, Sep 18, 2019, is the National Cheeseburger Day, a day "that will live in gastronomic infamy".
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Surprised by how the majority of comments so far are against the ideas expressed in this article ... all I can hope is that the next time my fellow NYT readers eat something from a culture that’s not their own, they stop to think about why they feel so much annoyance with the idea that the people from these same cultures might be editors, writers, and photographers who are respected and acknowledged.
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@White bread: 365 days a year? I'm not seeing any comments that anyone is annoyed at the cultures of editors, writers, and photographers. They're just saying that they don't want that to be the focus of the food articles they read.
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I don’t read food magazines for diversity. I escape politics and society when I read food magazine. I want food, all kinds, well explained, with history and with good recipes. I do not care about how her name is spelled. That has nothing to do with learning new things about food and cooking.
I gave up on Food and Wine a while back. If this is the attitude and the direction the magazine is going in now a lot more people are going to give up and I don’t give the magazine six months.
Thank heavens for seriouseats.com. I don’t know what I’d do without it.
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Best eats in NYC are food trucks.
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I don't care about the sex, gender, religion or race of the restaurant reviewer...I want them to entertain, write well and have a good palate...or at least a consistent one that aligns with my taste.
And please don't bore me with your life...I get enough of that the few times a month when I check Facebook and Instagram!
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@GCT, but food is intersectional.... whatever that means.
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I hope Food & Wine will promote healthy eating and healthy living, not just diversity.
The article mentions that Ms. Shah was raised in a family of Jains, whose basic beliefs include non-violence, which leads to a vegetarian lifestyle that avoids harm to all living things. (Indeed, some “orthodox” Jains wear face masks when outdoors to avoid inhaling gnats or midges.) I hope this background does not mean Ms. Shah will reduce or eliminate F&W coverage of foods and restaurants that include meat, fish and fowl.
I know we are in the age of political correctness, but I fail to understand how the diversity or ethnicity of the photographer or illustrator of a food dish or restaurant could possibly affect the appeal of the items or locations photographed.
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@Mon Ray, as Trump might say, "Where is my M.F.K. Fisher?"
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@Paco Actually, I think anyone who appreciates fine food and restaurants would love to see an M.F.K. Fisher in Ms. Shah’s position.
We can only hope that Ms. Shah, now only 28, might eventually evolve into someone who makes a contribution to food writing as great as that of M.F.K. Fisher.
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I wish her well but I can't say that I am happy with the change. My opinion is that I have always found her writing low-brow and hyperbolic (read her articles for yourself). She is great if one wants to read about fast food. This is yet another example of legacy media making poor choices in appealing to a younger generation. Yet another subscription to cancel.
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Emphasizing intersectionality is not going to bring new subscribers to Food & Wine.
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I definitely want more writers of color and different backgrounds to provide news. But I do not want them ghettoized to be the only ones covering "their" restaurants. I want all writers to be knowledgeable about multiple cuisines. Some degree of specialization is fine for greater depth, but not to the exclusion of an understanding of the world's food as the interconnected whole that it is. Only that way can the general public learn what we need to know as we follow familiar writers while in the process of learning the new writers. It is not "appropriation" when any non-_________ (fill in the blank) writer writes about a cuisine not native to them; it is for their, and our, education.
And I hope that Ms. Shah bans the word, and the false concept, of "authenticity" from all reporting.
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Having an unusual name (different from my handle here) myself, I am always perplexed by the egocentrism of "insisters" like the writer profiled in this article. Spell and pronounce my name however you want! I appreciate when you try to get it right, but also realize the world doesn't always revolve around me.
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Have you ever had your name spelt or pronounced wrong, Evan? I’m guessing not, so you just wouldn’t get it.
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@Pb Evan gets it perfectly well. That's the point of his comment. For what it's worth, I, too, have a slightly unusual name. People misspell it all the time, and they mispronounce it almost as often. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all; I just correct them.
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@Pb
"different from my handle here"
It's a sign of respect, actually reading someone's post before responding to it.
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Food and wine will sink without Jordana Rothman. Without her I will never renew my subscription.
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