Everything I Need To Know About Good Food Writing I Learned from A.J. Liebling

I was enjoying a mezzatini on the patio at Chadra the other day with my friend, June Naylor, when I had to confide in her that I just don’t really understand how to write about food and dining. I’m not sure which I’m more embarrassed to admit — that I was sipping a pink cocktail or that I can’t write about a subject that it seems so many can do so well.

The mezzatini is a great local cocktail, and June, of course, is a fantastic food writer who I am happy to say is finally blogging. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the best blogs in Fort Worth are food-related, including Food and Fort Worth, Fort Worth Hole in the Wall, Eat This Fort Worth and Fort Worth Foodie. People love reading about food almost as much as they do eating it. After all, everyone has to eat and everyone has an opinion.

However, writing about food as it’s own art form is a much more elusive discipline in my opinion. In an effort to improve, I read a lot about food. And one of my favorites is A.J. Liebling. I just finished reading Between Meals, a compilation of his food writing called that I picked up at a recent estate sale. I can whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who loves good food and good writing.

Part of the reason I’m drawn to Liebling is his ability to write about several different subjects incredibly well — food and wine, boxing, war and the media. Although all of his work makes for worthwhile reading, I am particularly interested in his writing about dining in France from the mid-1920s during the Lost Generation days through the 1950s. As a lover of French food and good wine, it’s hard not to be drawn to a passage such as this:

“The Proust madeleine phenomenon is now as firmly established in folklore as Newton’s apple or Watt’s steam kettle. The man ate a tea biscuit, the taste evoked memories, he wrote a book. This is capable of expression by the simple formula TMB, for Taste > Memory > Book. Some time ago, when I began to read a book called The Food of France, by Waverly Root, I had an inverse experience: BMT, for Book > Memory > Taste. Happily, the tastes that The Food of France re-created for me — small birds, stewed rabbit, stuffed tripe, Cote Rotie, and Tavel — were more robust than that of the madeliene, which Larousse defines as “a light cake made with sugar, flour, lemon juice, brandy, and eggs.” (The quantity of brandy in a madeliene would not furnish a gnat with an alcohol rub.) In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world’s loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiners Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shell crabs, a few ears of freshly picked corn, a thin Swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island duck, he might have written a masterpiece.”

This hefty shellfish and duck buffet may not be everyone’s idea of a smashing meal, but even if you disagree with his food choices, it’s hard to find Liebling’s enthusiasm anything less than contagious. And that’s just the first paragraph of the book. Re-reading these words also got me to thinking. This passage touches on a couple of things that I have learned about food writing from Liebling:

There’s lots of little lessons in Liebling’s writing. In his love of gamebirds, shellfish and Languedoc, I have found a kindred spirit. Does that move me any closer to being a better food writer? Maybe not. But Liebling’s work gives me plenty to chew on.