I know that the rhetoric of food is not all that serious. It is blog posts and videos along with both profiles recent reviews and yelp comments. It is meant to help you enjoy food and share food with your friends and family. It connects people through shared types of food and has no real style that you have to stick by. It can come in recipes or short stories, in Tasty Videos and ‘people react to __ foods’ videos.

Writers express their ideas about food in a couple of different ways. The first is straight instructions; this can be how to make the ultimate/best type of food with clear guidelines of how to make this. An example of this would be a recipe; this could be in basic text form or in a video format. The next can be how they relate to the food; this takes form in stories of how they discovered or experienced it. This could be an essay about the hunt for the perfect Tamale. The third is how they view food in regards to larger society or how society views the food. This can be seen in Tacopedia where the lens of Taco’s is used to view Mexican culture.

Throughout time the rhetoric of food has been used to communicate any of the above and more in regards to food. History the rhetoric of food has been more focused on the making or preparation of food. With recipes for canning and preserves being mainstays of the early days; over time as restaurants evolved food critiques popped up. Today with blogs, videos, and books the rhetoric of food is shifting more towards the consumer.

The different food cultures that are important to us differ person to person. There are a few basic food cultures: region, community, and health. The region in food cultures can be a countires’ type of food or the specific region of that country. An example of this is Mexican food with specially Baja food. Community is food based on a certain community’s shared trait, an example of this is Jewish food. The last section is health, or lack thereof. Today there is a larger focus on healthy foods or foods that do less harm for the environment. These different food cultures relate to the history of the people who make and consume them.

With food being an indicator of class and race for many people. The different foods someone grew up with tells the story of how they were raised.

Historically the more food options one had the more wealth they had. The different types of food and how they are made and marked down in history informs us of what the different cultures valued or if their cultured was valued by the majority. An example of this is the lack of African American cuisine written down by African Americans prior to the 1920’s. The white majority did not value their culinary contributions enough to give them the due credit or publishing of what they made.

Overall food tells a story and the rhetoric of food tries to tell that story through other ways. With recipes, blogs, books, and videos used as a way to show what food means to the individuals and to groups. It is about connecting through food to another person; be that on the other side of the screen or at the next pot luck or family dinner.