If you have a good appetite and a knack for words, food writing may be a career option to consider. Not only is research for food writing one of the most enjoyable freelance writing tasks, but you'll never be short of restaurant recommendations and potential free meals—even if you might be short on well-fitting pants.
To become a successful freelance food writer, you need to know how to describe food well. The key to description, at least in traditional literature, is targeted, concrete comparison. To find out why, ask yourself which sentence sounds more appealing: "These were the tastiest shrimp I've ever eaten," or "Garlic shrimp pressed in lime, grilled over apple wood, had a texture between the crunch of caramelized sugar and the soft resistance of a medium-rare salmon fillet”?
The basic law of food writing is to make the reader want to eat some of the delicious food you're writing about, so that the reader becomes personally invested in the food. And there's a strange quirk in the human mind: whenever we think about an object or activity, we activate parts of our brain that turn on whenever we interact with that object or engage in that activity. In other words: if we think about throwing a baseball, the nerves in our arm twitch. Or, the thought of eating a thick steak makes our stomachs growl and our mouths water. When you write about food, you want to activate the same parts of the brain so that your reader feels like they are sharing in the experience of eating it. Words like "tasty," "delicious" or, worst of all, "really good" won't do anything to your reader's emotions. Only food-related words—or words and images with strong emotional connotations—will get your readers in the mouth.
Once you write your articles, where do you sell your food writing? If you live in a big city, you can write for a local paper or an alternative paper (ie LA Weekly, Austin Chronicle, etc.). Millions of people read these newspapers daily or weekly, and a large portion of those millions read the food section. When someone in a big city needs to make restaurant reservations for a date, business dinner, party, or other social gathering, they look to the food section of the local press for hot new restaurant reviews. Keep track of restaurant openings and closings in your city. Opening new restaurants can be your “bread and butter”. Local newspapers and online city guides are always looking to print new restaurant reviews.
If you have a favorite local hangout that not many people know about, write an article about it. Submit your article with a proper query to your local newspaper. You can be the first to write about that place and throw the necessary deals their way. You end up collecting a decent payday from the paper along with a published clip, a byline and hopefully more work and referrals.
Another option is to write for magazines dedicated to food, dining, urban nightlife, general lifestyle or the travel market. If you plan to write for magazines, your choice of what to write about will be much wider. You can write how-to articles, interviews, cookware reviews, and so on. If you plan to write for local travel guides, your best bet is to write restaurant reviews. Tourists may not know about any of the famous restaurants or diners in the area. Tour guides provide insight and guidance on what's hot and what's not in the area. This means there is a steady stream of potential readers for your restaurant reviews and other food writing.
If you don't live in a big city, it's much more difficult to become a food writer. A mom n' pop cafe downtown might have some of the best omelets you've ever tasted, but how are you supposed to sell an article when everyone in town already eats at that cafe every Friday night? Consider selling your articles to regional magazines. The Department of Transportation in several US states often publishes a monthly magazine on regional news. The editors of these magazines often look to local restaurant reviews as a source of human interest or a way to promote foreign tourism to non-traditional destinations.
In addition, you can try writing sample copy for cookbooks, press releases for food suppliers, or advertisements for food companies. Companies and book publishers hire good food writers to help market anything from new pasta sauces to gourmet steaks. Even a nearby supermarket may be willing to pay for a copy in the weekly flyers.
Unfortunately for country types, full-time food writing is more of an urban game. For urban types, food is one product that will never stop being popular, especially when offered as part of a fine dining experience. So food writing means job security, and more importantly: it's just downright enjoyable writing. So go for it!
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