Um, okay, well, not a smackdown, but to even post a “food bubble” on Steven Shaw’s exalted forums, one needs to actually pen an essay in order to register. An essay. In order to register. What the fuck is this, 8th grade?
Chowhound? Username, email, password. Need I say more?
Elitism is alive and well in FoodDom. Fatguy has become Fatcat.
I signed up for eGullets a while ago. I suppose my essay was good enough (I don't even remember what I wrote), because they let me in. I haven't participated much, though.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, Chowhounds was terrible. It was just a terribly designed message board and nothing else. But Chowhound redesigned last year and now it's great -- I don't think I've posted on eGullet since!
That's odd -- that last comment has me as "ed," which is technically correct, but I thought I was logged in as Blork. (I didn't even know I had a Blogger account as "ed.")
ReplyDeleteChowhound! It's much more democratic, although they do censor and have an annoying bad habit of moving posts to their "right" board even when the local communityis talking in between themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe quality is not affected downwards by the open policy. The only rub I have to chowhound is that is gets too focused on travellers wanting recs rather than dynamics local talk. This also makes the recommendations stale as everyone recommends the safe bets. Also the but then again that why we have our blogs and montrealfood.com
P.S.Is it a coincidence that Maeve from the free paper Hours posts on Chow and Lesley from the Gazette on eG? :)
Hmm . . . (I type this in the dark on a laptop in Japan, so forgive any errors) . . .
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliment about mtlfood. I swear, I never got as lucky as when every one of those writers came on board and decided to do what they do there for free. I hardly ever see them in real life, but guess who popped out of the checkin line behind me at 6:30 a.m. at Dorval airport this a.m.? RestoSpy, in a T-shirt and shorts! Umm . . . hello!
But he had an excuse--he was going to Barbados! The asshole. He tans his other side with a rum-tonic while I freeze on a futon on a tatami in a house in the middle of Nanimonai, Japan. But he earned it with his review of Chez Gautier, I guess! Have one for me, RS!
Whoops, off topic.
Umm, foodie talk is just so boring. Following who's what chef at what restaurant is incredibly tedious. The posts at both eGullet and Chowhound concerning Montreal are invariably going to be of the Joe Beef and Pied de Cochon variety . . . whatever's trendiest at the moment.
Nothing wrong with that.
But a big reason I chose montrealFOOD.com as opposed to montrealRESTO.com was that it's not about the personality or the resto--they come and go like spring rain. It's the FOOD, dude!
Currently chowhound and eGullet are the only choices if you want to read about regional restos. And yes, they're flooded with out-of-towners needing recommendations. But that's how I found Luzzo's in Manhattan! Nuttin' wrong wit' dat.
Chesterman and Haldane are both great writers--no clue why they appear to have squared off on different forums.
But I'll venture there's less to it than meets the eye.