Do you miss in-depth food writing? Do you long for writing that addresses the way food fills your dark places? Or your light places? Please take a moment to consider this new magazine devoted to the role food plays in all our lives – In Search of Taste. It doesn’t try to fill every niche, every content-driven demand of advertisers. It allows for a lot of opinions and many innovative ways of looking at the incredible world of food these days. Caveat, I do have a dog in this fight, as there’s an article about moonshine lurking there. But, forgive me, if you’re like me, you probably want something more than a list of recipes to try, a list of foods to avoid, and the latest bandwagoning.
Cynthia Bertelsen posted in Elizabeth David & Company
Culinary journalism is alive and kicking. Is it education or just pleasure? It’s expanding to include better writing and more interesting articles than ever before. There maybe a place for magazines like Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, or Food & Wine, but look out for gems that appeal to more of your senses. Super Chef snagged a copy of the first issue of In Search of Taste. Editor-in-chief Keith Reeves has created a masterful magazine that is both stylish and visually rich, and completely engrossing.
Here is a taste of the articles in the first issue. Gardener Jane Stevens describes “An Evening of Innards in Piemonte Italy” with great pluck and enthusiasm. ‘The whole meal picked away at that bit of the brain that wants to identify and catagorise shape and pattern, like a small child sorting triangles and squares. The kicking piles of frogs legs broke through that particular charm. But anyway, by that point, who needed food?’ She and ten other Italian companions devour a Fritto Misto that includes both dolce e salato: meats (brain, testicle, sweetbreads) as well as fruit (apple, plum) and vegetables (cauliflower, borage leaf). She admits to not being quite reliable since the meal finished at 1:00 am, but that is beside the point. It is her queasiness at spinal cord (mad cow disease), her inability to find this kind of Fritto Misto in books that make the meal so memorable. It is precisely how we eat and remember.
Journalist Patricia Fieldsteel provides an essay on Boudin Noir that is an octogenarian farmer, Francis, and a mission to pick up hay and inspect his animals. One pig (with another looking on) is butchered and turned into boudin, jambon cru, roulade, pate, rillettes, and caillettes as she narrates the day’s visit. A full-page black and white photograph by Andi Sapey of the head of a pig on paper, still wearing whiskers, accompanies the story. It is the kind of day that is both remarkable, and commonplace. It is full of the beauty and matter-of-factness of raising food in France. It is hard to resist any essay on boudin noir, but this one is especially thoughtful.
There are excellent stories on Italian bread, Greek food, and terroir. On the back page of the magazine (with no advertisement throughout the issue) is written: In Search of Taste is a new publication written with fire, wit, imagination and depth, dedicated to examining traditions where affinity between food and wine is born.
Spend time reading, learning, and enjoying these smart articles and photo essays.
Juliette Rossant. Editor and Publisher of Super Chef
Hi Keith, Just received the magazine. It’s lovely! Really terrific artwork and tastefully done. I look forward to reading more of the articles and we’ll keep it as a centerpiece on our office table. Thanks so much!
Evelyne White. CEO at SixPlus
Well, ‘mag’ is a pretty derogatory word for the beautiful tome that I received today. Well done Keith and very good luck for the future. A combination of beautiful pictures, and at a glance, really brilliant writing. I’m sure you have a world-wide market to lap it up. I’m sure the time it took to produce will be worthwhile.
David Adlard. Michelin Chef
It is gorgeous! A provocative blend of the best that has gone before and the new, unique and satisfying. If one publication could demonstrate the precise moment at which good food writing has arrived, In Search of Taste Issue 1 would be that publication. I am so thrilled to be a part of it. You have done an amazing job of losing no time in creating your own distinctive aesthetic — out of the brow of Zeus! Big congratulations to you and to everyone else involved.
Elatia Harris. Food Writer
Very many thanks for my copy of the First Edition. Seriously, there are not enough superlatives in the English Language to describe my ‘customer’ reaction. It really is a literary masterpiece, and I have only had time to dip into it whilst enjoying this morning’s coffee. A good job it’s quarterly, I shall need time to read it thoroughly. Best of all – no advertising!!
Michael Pomroy. Financial Controller
Yes! Just arrived! Bravo! Looks bountiful on all levels. Pics, photos, stories, clear information and lots of surprises…and such great reproductions. Something to keep. I never realised it would be so substantial. It has a feeling of being something very special – way ahead of regular mags. In fact, it is not so much a magazine as a pathway through lots of ideas and research around food, culture and the world in which we live. Something to collect. Really looking forward to having a closer look. It must have taken ages to
put that lot together?
Congratulations to your team and hope all takes off as it well deserves to
do so.
Ron Haselden. Artist