What Is Food Freelance Writing?

Food writing may be a career choice to explore if you have a healthy appetite and a way with words. Not only is food research one of the most pleasurable aspects of freelance writing, but you'll never run out of restaurant ideas or free dinners — though you may run out of well-fitting clothes.

You'll need to know how to describe food properly to be a successful freelance food writer. Making concentrated, concrete comparisons is the key to description, at least in classic literature. To see why, consider the following sentences: "It was the nicest shrimp I've ever eaten," or "The lime-pressed garlic shrimp, grilled over applewood, had a texture that was somewhere between the crunch of caramelised sugar and the soft resistance of a medium-rare salmon fillet."

The basic rule of food writing is to make your reader wish he or she could have whatever delectable meal you're writing about, to make the reader feel personally engaged in the food. And the human mind has a unique quirk: when we think about an object or action, we activate the portions of our brain that switch on when we interact with that thing or do that activity. To put it another way, when we think about throwing a baseball, our arm nerves twitch. Our stomachs growl and our mouths moisten when we think about eating a big steak. When writing about food, you want to make your reader feel as if he or she is partaking in the experience of consuming it. Words like "tasty," "delicious," or, worst of all, "very wonderful" will accomplish nothing to elicit positive emotions in your reader. Only phrases and pictures with strong emotional implications, such as those associated to food, will make your readers' lips swim.

Where do you advertise your culinary writing after you've published your articles? You can write for a local newspaper or an alternative publication if you reside in a big city (i.e. the LA Weekly, the Austin Chronicle, etc.). Millions of people read these newspapers on a daily or monthly basis, and many of them read the food section. When someone in a big city needs to book restaurant reservations for a date, business dinner, party, or other social event, they seek for hot new restaurant reviews in the local paper's food section. Keep track of new and closing restaurants in your area. Your "bread and butter" may be new restaurant openings. Local newspapers and city guides are always looking for new restaurant reviews to publish.

Write an article on your favourite neighbourhood hangout that few people are aware of. Send your story to a local newspaper with a good inquiry letter. You may be the first to write about the location, bringing in much-needed business. Finally, the newspaper pays you a good wage, as well as a published clip, a byline, and maybe further work and recommendations.

Writing for periodicals devoted to cuisine, eating, city nightlife, general lifestyles, or the tourist market is another opportunity. If you choose to write for magazines, you'll have a far wider range of topics to choose from. How-to articles, interview pieces, cookware reviews, and so forth are all possibilities. Restaurant reviews are your best choice if you want to write for local tourism guides. Tourists may be unaware of the area's well-known eateries and diners. Tourism guides can help you figure out what's popular and what's not in the region. This implies that your restaurant reviews and other culinary writing will have a continual stream of prospective readers.

It's considerably more difficult to become a food writer if you don't reside in a big metropolis. Although the mom-and-pop café downtown serves some of the finest omelettes you've ever had, how are you going to sell a story if everyone in town eats there every Friday night? Consider submitting your articles to local publications. In some US states, the Department of Transportation publishes a monthly magazine about area news. Local restaurant evaluations are frequently used by the editors of these publications as a source of human interest or as a means of increasing out-of-state tourism to non-traditional areas.

You may also try writing example content for cookbooks, food supplier news releases, or food company advertisements. Good culinary writers are hired by companies and book publishers to help advertise everything from new types of pasta sauce to fancy steak meals. Even a local supermarket may be prepared to pay for advertising space in weekly ad fliers.

Unfortunately for country folk, full-time food writing is almost always a city game. Food is one of those goods that will never go out of style, especially when it comes as part of a great restaurant experience. As a result, food writing ensures career stability and, more crucially, it's just pleasurable writing. So let's get started!