The Best American Food Writing 2022

by Sohla El-Waylly (Editor), Silvia Killingsworth (Editor), Quyen Ngo (Read by), Ashley Bryant (Read by), Dani Martineck (Read by)

Overview

A collection of the year’s top food writing, selected by guest editor Sohla El-Waylly and series editor Silvia Killingsworth. 

Culinary creator, writer and community advocate, Sohla El-Waylly selects the best twenty articles published in 2021 that celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our country.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212038515
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Series:	Best American Series
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Culinary creator, writer and community advocate, SOHLA EL-WAYLLY selects the best twenty articles published in 2021 that celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our country.

SILVIA KILLINGSWORTH is the digital editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and a former editor of The Awl and The Hairpin. Prior to that she was the managing editor of The New Yorker, and wrote regularly for their magazine and website. She lives in Westchester County, New York. 

Pun Bandhu is an award-winning actor who has worked on Broadway, off Broadway, in TV, and in film. He is the recipient of the Colorado Theatre Guild’s Henry Award for Best Supporting Actor and New Dramatists’ Bowden Award for his distinguished collaboration on new works.

Amir Abdullah (he/him/his) is an actor, playwright, and audiobook narrator residing in Los Angeles. He has been seen on stage at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, The Geffen Playhouse, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, California Shakespeare Theatre, A Noise Within Theatre, and other theaters around the US.

On screen, Amir most recently appeared on Chicago Med and on the last season of Empire and has been seen on other network shows and films. As a narrator, he is a four-time Golden Earphone Award winner and an ALSC Notable Children's Recording recipient. Most known for narrating the YA series Tristan Strong, he has lent his voice to dozens of other prolific authors' works such as Ibram X. Kendi, Kwame Mbalia, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois, Eric Jerome Dickey, and more. You can hear him as the voice of Yasir in the videogame Abo Kashem and in the HP Lovecraft Society Radio Plays and as a regular on the Open Door Playhouse. He can be seen and heard in commercials for Ford, Adidas, Kaiser Permanente, and Facebook, as well as many others.

As an actor Amir won Best Actor at the Movieville International Film Festival for his work in the film The Untimely Concurrence. Amir's playwriting debut, Pray to Ball, had its world premiere at Skylight Theatre Company in Los Angeles and won the Ovation Award for Best Set. He graduated with an MFA in acting from Pennsylvania State University and a BFA in acting from the University of Miami.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction xv

If Silence Is the Cost of Great Ramen, So Be It Nina Li Coomes 1

From The Atlantic

The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment Jaya Saxena 5

From Eater

Starving Toward Deliverance Julia Sonenshein 14

From Catapult

The Man Who Didn't Invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos Sam Dean 24

From Los Angeles Times

The Gatekeepers Who Get to Decide What Food Is "Disgusting" Jiayang Fan 39

From The New Yorker

Fruits of Empire Willa Glickman 55

From The New York Review of Books

Chronicles of a Bubble-Tea Addict Jiayang Fan 63

From The New Yorker

Let Them Eat Fakes Ligaya Mishan 71

From The New York Times Style Magazine

The Queen of Delicacies Shane Mitchell 78

From The Bitter Southerner

Ghost Acres: Tulare Lake and the Past Future of Food Tom Finger 95

From Pipe Wrench

Revolt of the Delivery Workers Josh Dzieza 109

From New York Magazine

How Vietnamese Americans Made San Jose America's Tofu Capital Adesh Thapliyal 128

From KQED

I Ate Like a Boy to Avoid Being a Queer Man Logan Scherer 135

From Bon Appétit

The Humble Beginnings of Today's Culinary Delicacies Ligaya Mishan 138

From The New York Times Style Magazine

After a Century of Dispossession, Black Farmers Are Fighting to Get Back to the Land Tom Philpott 146

From Mother Jones

Innovation and the Incinerated Tongue: Notes on Hot Chicken, Race, and Culinary Crossover Cynthia R. Greenlee 157

From The Counter

A Year of Cooking with My Mother Eric Kim 165

From The New York Times

Other People's Kitchens Bryan Washington 169

From The Cut

Margaritaville and the Myth of American Leisure Jaya Saxena 174

From Eater

"It's Hospital Soigné" Chris Crowley 184

From Grub Street

The Wild and Irresistibly Saucy Tale of the Curry Con Man Mayukh Sen 188

From Vox

Tokyo Convenience Store Chicken Gizzards Saved My Life Andrew Keh 198

From The New York Times

I Tasted Honda's Spicy Rodent-Repelling Tape Liz Cook 202

From Haterade

The Grapefruit Spoon Makes Life Easier Rachel Levin 206

From Eater

I Was a Lifelong Vegetarian. I Decided to Taste What I Was Missing Rajesh Parameswaran 209

From Bon Appétit

In My Childhood Kitchen, I Learned Both Fear and Love Hannah Selinger 216

From Bon Appétit

I Recommend Eating Chips Sam Anderson 220

From The New York Times Magazine

Contributors' Notes 225

Other Distinguished Food Writing of 2021 229

Editorial Reviews

[A] wonderfully satisfying assortment of food for thought.” — Publishers Weekly on Best American Food Writing 2019

From the Publisher

11/01/2022

The best food writing of a year will capture something about that year as well as something universal, as the experience of eating is. "The Best American Food Writing" series has existed since 2018, with a series of well-known guest editors. This year's editor, El-Waylly, is experienced in communicating about food in social media and video in addition to being a chef and food writer. It is that multimedia experience that we have with food that makes good food writing stand apart. The selections in this volume all were written in 2021. Reflecting or reporting on the events of 2020 either directly or by allusion, they are powerful portraits of what food means in relation to racial justice or pandemic life. Few pieces indulge in uncomplicated nostalgia, but what could otherwise be too heavy is lightened with selections such as a paean to eating chips to escape everything else. VERDICT Everyone who eats will find some entertainment here, but it's a must-read for readers of food writing who will not want to miss any of the insights found in these selections.—Margaret Heller

Library Journal

Narrators Amir Abdullah, Pun Bandhu, Ashley Bryant, Dani Martineck, Ouyen Ngo, and Jacob Patalive make a talented ensemble who give lively renditions of this collection from a variety of talented voices in food writing. Together they represent the wide range of writers gathered together in this annual collection, which asks foodies to reflect on their culinary journeys. The wide range of narrators is up to the challenge of recounting the writers’ diverse experiences, which range from first ramens to failed soufflés. They are as flexible and creative in their deliveries as the writers are in their craft. M.R. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

Narrators Amir Abdullah, Pun Bandhu, Ashley Bryant, Dani Martineck, Ouyen Ngo, and Jacob Patalive make a talented ensemble who give lively renditions of this collection from a variety of talented voices in food writing. Together they represent the wide range of writers gathered together in this annual collection, which asks foodies to reflect on their culinary journeys. The wide range of narrators is up to the challenge of recounting the writers’ diverse experiences, which range from first ramens to failed soufflés. They are as flexible and creative in their deliveries as the writers are in their craft. M.R. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile