Tasty. (2017, February 4). Tasty-Cheesy Garlic Bread Meatball Ring. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com

Every time we talk about these GIF/video recipes we see on Facebook, we call them “Tasty Videos,” even though many of these videos come from different outlets now, such as Delish. I picked this particular video because it is the “featured” video on Tasty’s Facebook page—the video that Tasty themselves chose to be the star of their Facebook page. It is the classic video recipe formula. It shows you what ingredients are used, in what portions, in what order, all in a succinct ~1-minute-long format. At the very end of the video, it shows the dish being enjoyed. I think this is a perfect example of the emerging GIF recipe genre that is so popular on social media.

Tasty has over 83 million likes on Facebook, 226 of which are made up of my college-aged Facebook friends. I see a Tasty video on my Facebook every single day. This Tasty video has over 15 million views and over 181,292 shares. For one reason or another, these videos gain absurd amounts of views and more notably, shares—which makes every piece of content they make go viral. Nearly every time I see one of these videos, I stop for a minute and watch the video. I don’t know what exactly is so appealing about these videos and why my friends feel the need to share them, but I do know that these videos are social media hits. I was surprised to learn how many of our classmates had actually made a dish from a Tasty recipe, which shows that these videos are actually encouraging cooking in our generation.

Japanese Mentaiko Spaghetti: Drunk Food So Good, You Can Eat It Sober

Austin Chronicle Restaurant Reviews

For my mentor text I chose a local restaurant review website that is relevant to my audience because as of right now we all live in Austin. I am a strong believer in researching a restaurant and checking out their menu before committing to a meal, so this particular type of text is incredibly close to my own passions regarding the rhetoric of food.

Restaurant reviews vary from author to author, but I appreciate the reviews on this specific website because they present a biased point of view. After reading a review from this site, the reader is able to understand if the author appreciated their overall dining experience, but is also capable of removing themselves from the particular opinion and is left to consider the facts that have been laid out before them. This type of opinionated review is beneficial to me because the imagery created within the article is so vivid that the reader is able to place themselves in the restaurant and assess whether or not they would enjoy the certain environment themselves.

The review I provided of Forthright, written by Brandon Watson, has notable factors that deem this text a superb mentor review to analyze. He begins by establishing his credibility as a long time Austin-ite, reminiscing on the city’s changing food scene over the years. Following his opening statements he declares what ‘restaurant category’ Forthright is most closely linked to and provides restaurant comparisons in hopes that the reader will find this relatable. Watson knows all too well that when assessing a dining experience, you have to address all of the factors involved, so he also successfully lays out a description of the restaurant’s ambiance and environment.  At this point in the text, the visual reader has an image of the atmosphere and is then presented with a detailed review of the menu’s hits and customer favorites. I thought Watson’s inclusion of dish prices was unique and beneficial to the reader if they were considering budget. Another simple aspect that makes all the difference in this review is his final text at the bottom where he includes the restaurant’s location and hours of operation. While yes, any diner could easily Google this information, it is helpful to provide these details with the review itself.

 

Watson, Brandon. “Restaurant Review: Forthright.” The Austin Chronicle. The Austin Chronicle, 28 Oct. 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

Telling, Marie. “19 Lazy But Brilliant Recipes That Won’t Let You Down.” Tasty on BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed, 19 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

 

I chose an article from Tasty on Buzzfeed titled “19 Lazy But Brilliant Recipes That Won’t Let You Down.” This article combines the “listicle” genre made popular by Buzzfeed with the simplistic style of recipes made popular by the Tasty videos. People want content that cuts straight to the point, which is what has made Buzzfeed’s style of writing so popular and has essentially created a new genre. A reader can scroll through a list rather than read a whole article. Combining this with Tasty’s “anyone can cook” attitude has opened up a whole new world of food writing.

 

Our generation wants content that is catchy and to the point. As seen in this article, this type of writing combines bright, attractive photos with grabbing but concise captions. Each photo and caption is accompanied by a link to the recipe, so instead of having to scroll through nineteen recipes, the reader can instead just look through the photos and then decide which look appealing to them. This way the reader does not have to go and search through cookbooks or food blogs, but instead is given nineteen recipes in one article that offer a variety of easy recipes. People, in general, want to see food rather than read about it, but I think millennials are even more demanding of pictures or videos in the digital age.

 

The text is targeted at millennials not just with the format but also the content itself. Millennials are characterized as “lazy” quite often and not even just by other generations but by themselves as well. Each caption is aiming to attract a reader because it is quick, easy or foolproof. The Tasty brand was built on taking popular recipes and showing how they can be made by anyone in their videos.

 

This text is a great representation of the modern style of food writing Buzzfeed and other “social news sites” have created. A reader who wants simple and “lazy” recipes can easily scroll through and find a dish that looks appealing. From there, they have access to the recipe, rather than the reverse when a reader has to scroll through hundreds of recipes to find something appealing.

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/marietelling/lazy-but-brilliant-recipes-you-need-to-add-to-your?utm_term=.qm9Kgv70q5#.bvoRbED5OL

“Easy Teriyaki Chicken – How To Make The Easiest Way”. YouTube. N.p., 2013. Web. 22 Mar. 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RXjIz9hCJI

For my mentor piece, I decided to choose a teriyaki chicken instructional video made from “Chowhound”. I like the idea of using videos for recipes because I know many audience members enjoy watching more than reading.

Whenever somebody is interested in how to make something, Chowhound is most likely going to have your answer. Chowhound not only describes how to make food but also lets us in on videos providing us with information on cities foods, tools and even reviews! One of my favorite things about these videos is how short they are yet, they give us all the information we could want/need. The videos are easy to follow and definitely manageable to watch and make at the same time. Chowhound supplies us with easy instructions that first time makers can follow without hesitation. While watching the video, it is interesting to see how professional it seems. A YouTube channel with just a few minute long videos really grabs your attention and looks like an expert. The actress in these videos make watching very nice and relaxing as she is confident and has a big smile on her face the whole time. My specific video I picked has a great amount of specific detail that the audience would enjoy. I especially appreciate how the speaker knows what problems may occur and she describes what to do in those situations. The video is very simple, well done and contains a great amount of important detail to make the process easy.

This page has hundreds of thousands of subscriptions and millions of views. The channel gets paid by views and due to the high amount of viewers, Chowhound is able to keep producing great videos for rookie and professional cooks. In my opinion, video recipes are fantastic and more enjoyable to do. Being able to watch in amazement instead of staring at words on lines seems more interesting to me and I enjoy the vast majority of food videos I watch. Chowhound provides us as the audience with simple step by step processes to make the delicious food that we have always wanted to make!

 

Wells, Pete. “The Art of Flavor at Flora Bar in the Met Breuer.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Jan. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

 

I chose a restaurant review for my mentor text. Guy names Pere Wells, the restaurant critic for the New York Times. He wrote a review of his visit at the restaurant names floral bar, a new restaurant and café located on the lower level of the Met Breuer. He starts talking about his favorite restaurant, and says the restaurant was the “inverse relationship between prettiness and deliciousness”. Which means that the plate was unpretty but highly delicious. This was his introduction to show why he found Floral bar restaurant, spending time to find a restaurant that has pretty and delicious plates. Wells talks about where the Floral bar is located at, which is inside the Met Breuer Museum and briefly talks about the outlook of Museum.

The first dish Well introduced was tuna tartare, which he described it was nothing like anywhere else’s. Tuna was topped with toasted flax seeds with fried shallots but it was not too much to hide tuna’s own taste. The next was steak. Wells explained that there must be something special thing added to make the steak extraordinary but it is not visible. He does not compliment everything. Shrimp cocktail was expensive, he said, being $29 but worth the price.

Wells then mentions the name of the bar. Despite its name, Floral bar is more like a restaurant than a wine bar. However, in small portion compared to other steak restaurants. He briefly explained the purpose or goal of this restaurant, which is that it is not intended to be a cheap grab and go place. That work goes to the coffee shop next door.

Wells then descripted the interior of the restaurant. “It’s an exceptionally dramatic one, with marble surfaces and banquettes of dark leather and windows the size of billboards that look out on Breuer’s bridge across the moat below Madison Avenue. A sculpture garden when this building still housed the Whitney Museum of American Art, the moat is now an outdoor extension for Flora Bar.”

Then he went back to the menu, talking about the raw fish dishes and to the deserts. The desert was also in a dish shape, like he mentioned before, a signature design for Floral bar.

It looked like a good restaurant review for me. Even though he was more in positive attitude, I liked how he wrote it like he was there for the first time and what people generally think that this restaurant doesn’t. I thought it will be a goo review for people who are planning to go to this restaurant for the first time and need some advise advance to visiting. I also thought it was a good idea to include short video and some photos of inside of the restaurant and the kitchen also. I could imagine how the foods are going to be and how the restaurant’s mood was like.

What is the mentor text of choice?

I decided to analyze the Heat Map from Eater.com (an online source that delivers food news and dining guides from across the country through reviews, videos, articles from a variety of writers, etc.).

 

What is a Heat Map?

The Heat Map is a list curated by Eater of, “what’s new and what’s hot.” According to Eater, the Heat Map “reflects the city’s freshest restaurants where people are flocking to right now.” The Heat Map is updated monthly and it representative of particular cities.

 

What is included in the Heat Map?

The Heat Map includes a curated list of restaurants, the all-time favorites or go-to orders on the restaurant’s menu, the address of the restaurant, the direct link to the restaurant’s website (if one is available), directions to the particular spot, and most importantly, the Heat Map includes a visual of a map where each restaurant sits in a particular city. The restaurants are listed numerically, so they are easily distinguished on the visual map.

Eater includes that the restaurants are listed in a numerical order that is dependent on where they are located from North to South on Austin’s map… It is not a ranking.

 

So what?

I decided this would be an interesting genre to discover because it is unique in the sense of how much it offers on one simple website page. I initially discovered the Heat Map during the annotated bibliography project; I used a review from Eater, and after some light browsing, I found this fascinating guide and suggestion list of restaurants. Including the visual of the map and the restaurant’s location on the map, Eater supplies reading with a detailed description of where they could potentially be going to eat. I think this genre is so interesting because the map would drive readers to actually going to the restaurants, as they can visualize their commutes.

 

Chaudhury, Nadia. “The Hottest Restaurants in Austin Right Now, March 2017.” Eater Austin. Vox Media, 02 Apr. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

 

http://austin.eater.com/maps/best-new-austin-restaurants-heatmap

 

Wells, Pete. “Filipino Food Worth the Wait at Bad Saint in Washington.” Review of Bad Saint in Washington, D.C., The New York Times, 29 November 2016.

I chose to read a restaurant review written by Pete Wells, the restaurant critic for The New York Times. He wrote the review for a Filipino restaurant called Bad Saint in Washington, D.C.. Wells set the scene by describing the line he had to wait in and what he did while he was waiting in line. I could picture what the place looked like; he wrote how regular customers brought their own folding chairs and drinks to make themselves comfortable while they waited. He also described how he “tried not to eavesdrop” on other people’s conversations and chatted with Black Elvis.

Once Wells was seated at the restaurant, he gave a description of what the interior of the restaurant looked like. Tables at the restaurant seat four people maximum, which helps give potential customers an idea of what to expect if they were to come in with a party of more than four. Although Bad Saint is a small restaurant, it makes use of the tiny space and Wells writes how it is easy to talk with others while sitting in the open kitchen styled restaurant. This helps readers picture the restaurant and feel included in the experience of Wells at this restaurant.

Following this, Wells talks about the Filipino food offered at the restaurant, giving short descriptions of the food. He explains what an adobo is, and how Bad Saint’s adobo of squid is “still astonishing.” He includes some recommendations for dishes to order; here, he says the oxtails and bok choy stirred in peanut sauce is an amazing dish to try. Wells writes how his guests were doubtful that pancit canton, a supposedly bland lo mein, would taste good, but were delightfully surprised when they tasted it.

Wells gives a brief background about the restaurant owners and the inspiration for their food. He talks about how the owners are Filipino but were born in the US, and some of the cooking “has a homey simplicity.” Laing is made differently in the Philippines, but the way the chef makes it at Bad Saint is “so luxuriously flavorful,” it’s clear that he knows how to incorporate the local ingredients to make this dish.

Wells wrote this restaurant review to share his experience and help other people decide whether or not they should try out this restaurant. I think this is a good example of a restaurant review because it is written by someone who has a lot of experience writing reviews and since it’s in The New York Times, a well-known newspaper, it should be quality writing.

 

I’m doing a Tasty Video as my rhetorical piece. Tasty Videos are a new phenomenon that combine recipes, blogs, ~aesthetics~, and mindless TV into one quick and easy watchable and make-able piece. The purpose of Tasty Videos from a production standpoint is to have as many views, likes, and comments on Facebook.

The Tasty Videos make use of Facebook’s autoplay feature on videos by being short 30-60 seconds and being easy to follow. None of the videos have incredibly complicated recipes and most use basic ingredients that the novice cook knows how to use. It cuts out all the prep work of a recipe that is mostly time consuming in video format. The cuts to pre measured and time jumps to frozen or cooked foods lets the viewer follow the recipe without being fully engaged.

While food blogs and Tasty Video page both are fully about recipes the Tasty Video cuts straight to the chase. There is no ‘about’ section or intro; instead just straight video of the food being made. That is part of the appeal; you can watch it without looking for something to make. It pops up on the Facebook timeline after a friend has liked or shared it. Much like reality TV you don’t have to be fully engaged in the ‘episodes’ to understand and follow the recipe.

Most viewers and likes of Tasty Videos never really intend on making the food. It is the aesthetics of the video that appeal to most viewers. It is quick break to scrolling through timelines. The videos are short and the images clean. The viewer never sees chopping, dicing, or other prep work unless directly needed for the recipe. The indigent are neatly put into bowls and added to the pot or bowl as necessary. The background clean of debris and relaxing music playing in the background. To me at least this is the ideal cooking situation; most of the hard work done for you, and no mess. All together this makes for lots of views and returning viewers on the multiple posts a day.

Tasty Video as a corporation is under the Buzzfeed umbrella with different versions sprouting up both from the company and independent. Currently there is Buzzfeed’s Tasty, Tasty Junior, Proper Tasty, and Bien Tasty; all looking at different groups in terms of recipes. Outside of Buzzfeed other groups have propped up mimicking their recipe of Tasty Videos; some of these are Jewishlish, Delish, and Cooking Panda. Each of these groups have a slightly different market in mind in terms of audience; some are categorized by age, region, or even religion but they all aim to get views.

The video should have someone making the recipe, as you pour the ingredients say what and how much you are putting in. And be edited to be short with good music. The video I chose does all of these things and makes me want to make the recipe; and yes I did ‘like’ it.