The Best American Food Writing 2020

December 4, 2020
Like American food, food writing in America keeps getting better and better amid a host of challenges. Traditional newspapers and magazines no longer monopolize the field, and online sources such as Eater publish excellently sourced and reported articles by skilled writers. The 25 pieces in this series entry were published in 2019 and selected by restaurateur/editor L�pez-Alt in February of this year. Even before the Black Lives Matter movement resurged in nationwide prominence in 2020, concerns about the lack of minority owners and patrons in the most lauded restaurants were surfacing. In Mother Jones, Tim Murphy pointed out that the culture wars were already brewing in the last century with the battle over New Coke. More traditional food writing still appeared with exceptional profiles of luminaries on the order of Jacques P�pin (by Joshua David Stein) and Jamie Oliver (by Kim Severson). As other pieces explore, in 2019, farm-to-table cooking became a clich�, but regional specialties such as Nashville hot chicken exploded into nationwide presences. Investigations into nutritional labeling and health concerns brought Americans face-to-face with ever-recurring controversy. This is a well-edited addition to the ongoing series, and augurs well for future volumes.

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