Food is highly personal. Talk with anyone about food, their favorite restaurant or the best thing they ever ate, and their eyes light up with excitement. As they detail the taste, the dish, the setting, their “food voice” emerges. Coined by Annie Hauck-Lawson, a professor at the City University of New York, “food voice” is the way you engage with food to assert aspects of your identity. You develop your food voice as you create new recipes and dishes and try different cuisines.
For instance, how do you like your hot dog? Cincinnati-style with chili, onions and cheddar cheese? Coney-Dog-style with yellow mustard and diced white onions? Chicago-style with giardiniera? Your preferences reflect much about who you are, where you’re from and where you’ve been.
So, how do you develop your food voice — particularly when you’re writing about food?
Kelly Senyei, who wrote Food Blogging for Dummies, said there are ways to develop your food voice in writing: project confidence, be authentic and envision your brand. Even if you don’t talk about food much, everyone has to start somewhere. Leave the worries behind, and focus on what you want to say and what is important about it to you.
For example, if you liked that cheesy pizza you made the other day or customized at Blaze Pizza, what makes it different from other pizzas you’ve had? Was it the quality of cheese? The San Marzano tomatoes? And why should your readers care about the pizza? Sure, we all love pizza, but we’re more interested in the story behind it. This leads to seeing your food voice as part of your brand, a consistent platform in which you project your personality and personal tastes. Even if you aren’t interested in writing food blogs, being able to talk about it smartly will earn you respect from your peers and colleagues.
Food voice is the way you use food to communicate your identity, whether in your food habits, during conversations or in your writing. What is your food voice? Go forth and bravely try new foods, combine new flavors and ingredients (bananas with chicken, anyone?) and broaden the range of your food voice. And don’t forget to share your experience.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 4/2/2015 under the headline “‘Food voice’: What it is, how to get it”]
