Gabrielle Hamilton - The Best American Food Writing 2021

Copyright 2021 by HarperCollins Publishers LLC

Introduction copyright 2021 by Gabrielle Hamilton

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Best American Series is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers LLC. The Best American Food Writing is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, HarperCollins Publishers LLC is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. Address requests for permission to make copies of HarperCollins material to HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

marinerbooks.com

Cover Image: Foxys Forest Manufacture/Getty Images

ISSN 2578-7667 (print) ISSN 2578-7675 (e-book)

ISBN 978-0-358-52568-4 (print) ISBN 978-0-358-53186-9 (e-book)

v1.0921

Stewed Awakening by Navneet Alang. First published in Eater, May 20, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Vox Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, LLC.

Good Bread by Bill Buford. First published in The New Yorker, April 13, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Bill Buford. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Cecilia Chiang by Jade Chang. First published in The New York Times Magazine, December 23, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Jade Chang. Reprinted by permission of Jade Chang.

Who Will Save the Food Timeline? by Dayna Evans. First published in Eater, July 8, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Vox Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, LLC.

All Brandon Jew Wants Is for Chinese Restaurants to Know Their Worth by MacKenzie Chung Fegan. First published in Resy, August 25, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Resy. Reprinted by permission of MacKenzie Chung Fegan.

SF Restaurants $200-Per-Person Dome Is Americas Problems in a Plastic Nutshell by Soleil Ho. First published in The San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2020. Copyright 2020 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Close to the Bone by Amy Irvine. First published in Orion, Autumn 2020. Copyright 2020 by Amy Irvine. Reprinted by permission of Orion/Amy Irvine.

Making Reservations by Foster Kamer. First published in Gossamer, Volume Four, January 6, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Gossamer. Reprinted by permission of Gossamer.

Get Fat, Dont Die by Jonathan Kauffman. First published in Hazlitt, April 28, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Jonathan Kauffman. Reprinted by permission of Jonathan Kauffman.

How to Feed Crowds in a Protest or Pandemic? The Sikhs Know by Priya Krishna. First published in The New York Times, June 8, 2020. Copyright 2020 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Waterworld by Katherine LaGrave. First published on Afar.com, October 28, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Afar, LLC, San Francisco, CA. Reprinted by permission of Afar.

Youll Probably Never Get into This Restaurant by Beth Landman. First published in Eater, January 13, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Vox Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, LLC.

The Fed-Up Chef by Sheila Marikar. First published in The New York Times Magazine, October 21, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Sheila Marikar. Reprinted by permission of Sheila Marikar.

What Its Like to Self-Quarantine with a Michelin-Starred Chef by Kaitlin Menza. First published in Grub Street, March 24, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Kaitlin Menza. Reprinted by permission of Kaitlin Menza and Grub Street.

What a 1944 Starvation Experiment Reveals About 2020 Food Insecurity by Kelsey Miller. First published in Elemental, April 29, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Kelsey Miller. Reprinted by permission of Kelsey Miller.

Once the Disease of Gluttonous Aristocrats, Gout Is Now Tormenting the Masses by Ligaya Mishan. First published in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, November 13, 2020. Copyright 2020 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Soli/dairy/ty by Liza Monroy. First published in Longreads, February 2020. Copyright 2020 by Liza Monroy. Reprinted by permission of Liza Monroy.

This Is the Dumbest Foodie Battle of Our Time by Rebecca Onion. First published in Slate, Febuary 20, 2020. Copyright 2020 The Slate Group. All rights reserved. Used under license.

The Nazi Origins of Your Favorite Natural Wine by Leah Rosenzweig. First published in GEN, May 8, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Leah Rosenzweig. Reprinted by permission of Leah Rosenzweig.

A New Orleans Chef Navigates Disaster by Helen Rosner. First published in The New Yorker, August 28, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Cond Nast. Reprinted by permission of Cond Nast.

The Queer Legacy of Elka Gilmore by Mayukh Sen. First published in Eater, June 26, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Vox Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, LLC.

How a Cheese Goes Extinct by Ruby Tandoh. First published in The New Yorker, August 2, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Cond Nast. Reprinted by permission of Cond Nast.

The Chef Restoring Appalachias World-Class Food Culture by Eric J. Wallace. First published in Atlas Obscura, January 10, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Eric J. Wallace. Reprinted by permission of Eric J. Wallace.

Incubated Futures by Britt H. Young. First published by n+1, November 29, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Britt H. Young. Reprinted by permission of Britt H. Young.

I still think that one of the pleasantest of all emotions is to know that I, I with my brain and my hands, have nourished my beloved few, that I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish, to sustain them truly against the hungers of the world.

M.F.K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me

Good writing, like good food, is easy to devour. It is also satisfying to produce not only because it is a craft at which one can improve over time but because it can comfort and delight other people. It can transcend mere diversion and encourage deep reflectionperhaps even commitment to memory. (For someone who forgets so much of what she reads, putting together this collection has taught me a lot about both discipline and Google Sheets.)

But for some reason, it is rather more acceptable, depending on how brave you are, to ask what someone thinks about your cooking than it is to ask the same about your writing. Did you like it? Was it satisfying? Was there enough salt, or perhaps too much? When you cook a meal, you get to watch and listen as your guests enjoy it, or at least politely pretend to. Shouldnt writers be allowed a bit of that voyeurism and instant gratification? Except for workshops in academic settings, the closest thing writers have besides book sales is trawling Goodreads (and thats only if youve published a book) or obsessively scanning Twitter, which can leave you feeling empty.

This past year, one of the most anomalous in at least a century, anyone who managed to publish anything at all deserves recognition. As with writing, so too with meals: So what if you didnt cook your way through a best-selling cookbook and blog engagingly about it? So what if some nights dinner consisted of frozen chicken nuggets? That you managed to put one foot in front of the other day after day is reason enough to celebrate. If you happen to know someone who appeared to thrive, rather than merely survive, please congratulate them earnestly and swiftly. If you read something you liked, find a way to tell the author. In the meantime, awards and anthologies like this one serve as postdated feedback.