lofgren changing tastes in food media ma thesis...

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Changing tastes in food media: A study of recipe sharing

traditions in the food blogging community

Jennifer Lofgren

Bachelor of Arts (Film and Television Production),

Graduate Certificate in Arts (Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

Graduate Diploma in Journalism

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (Research)

ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation

Creative Industries Faculty

Queensland University of Technology

2013

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Keywords

Food, food blog, blogging, online community, internet, online, recipes, cookbooks, food media,

food-related media, recipe sharing, food culture, community, participatory culture

Abstract

Food is inherently cultural yet traditionally overlooked in many disciplines as a topic worthy of

serious investigation. This thesis investigates how food, as a topic of interest, is thriving in an

online environment through recipe sharing on food blogs. It applies an ethnographic approach

to online community studies, providing a rich description of the food blogging community. The

thesis demonstrates how the food blogging can be seen as a community. Through a case study

focusing on a one recipe shared across many blogs, it also examines the community in action.

As the community has grown, it has become more complex, structured and diverse. The thesis

examines its evolution and the response of food-related media and other industries to food

blogging. The nature of the food blogging community reflects the cultural and social nature of

food and the ongoing evolution of recipe sharing through food-related media. Food blogs

provide an insight into the eating habits of ‘ordinary’ people, in a more broad-based manner

than traditional food-related media such as cookbooks. Beyond this, food blogs are part of wider

cultural trends towards DIY, and provide a useful example of the ongoing transformation of

food-related media, food culture, and indeed, culture more broadly.

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Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 What is food? ............................................................................................................................ 1 Why study food and food culture? ............................................................................................ 1 Sharing food, sharing recipes ................................................................................................... 2 What is a blog? ......................................................................................................................... 4 What is a food blog? ................................................................................................................. 5 Format and style of food blogs ................................................................................................. 7 Research questions and project overview ................................................................................ 9

Chapter 1: Literature review and research methods .................................................................. 11 Recipes and food-related media ............................................................................................. 11 Taste, identity, community and capital .................................................................................... 13 Defining community ................................................................................................................ 14 Networks and online communities .......................................................................................... 15 Blogging communities ............................................................................................................. 17 Subcultural and fan use of blogs ............................................................................................. 18 Blog research: from political to personal ................................................................................. 20 Implications of food blogs ....................................................................................................... 22 Research methods .................................................................................................................. 24

Chapter 2: Demonstrating the food blogging community ........................................................... 28 Community members and roles .............................................................................................. 28

Food bloggers ..................................................................................................................... 29 Food blog readers ............................................................................................................... 34

Sense of belonging ................................................................................................................. 38 Shared/social identities and shared practices: ‘you know you’re a food blogger when…’ ...... 39 Sense of space and sense of place ........................................................................................ 40 Sociability, shared resources and support .............................................................................. 42

Chapter 3: The case of the pull-apart bread: The food blogging community in action ............... 46 Method: finding, tracking, and mapping the recipe ................................................................. 47 Description: chronology, network nodes and hubs, variations on the recipe .......................... 51 Interpretation: the food blogging community in action ............................................................ 54

Awareness of the community, shared identities and shared tastes .................................... 54 Community leaders and other roles .................................................................................... 55 Community norms and ethics .............................................................................................. 56 Relationships, interactions and social capital ...................................................................... 59

Chapter 4: The evolution of food blogging .................................................................................. 62 Food blogging community support tools and events .............................................................. 65

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Community sites .................................................................................................................. 65 Community events .............................................................................................................. 68 Blogrolls and other lists ....................................................................................................... 70 Aggregators and curators .................................................................................................... 71

Food-related media response to food blogging ...................................................................... 75 Publishing food bloggers ..................................................................................................... 79

Food blogging and food-related media convergence .............................................................. 81 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 85

Further outlook ........................................................................................................................ 88 Appendix 1: Interview transcripts ............................................................................................... 91

Anger Burger, email interview, 13 July 2011 .......................................................................... 91 Hungry Girl Por Vida, email interview, 1 August 2011 ............................................................ 97 Citrus and Candy, email interview, 2 August 2011 ............................................................... 101 Veggie Mama, email interview, 3 August 2011 ..................................................................... 104 Feasting on Art, email interview, 3 August 2011 .................................................................. 107 Aficionado, email interview, 15 August 2011 ........................................................................ 110 Whisk Kid, email interview, 15 August 2011 ......................................................................... 113 A Cozy Kitchen, email interview, 17 August 2011 ................................................................ 116 Chocolate & Zucchini, Skype interview, 23 August 2011 ..................................................... 119 Mrs Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen, email interview, 20 October 2011 ........................................... 126

Appendix 2: Blogs and other websites cited ............................................................................. 128 Appendix 3: Survey of food blog readers ................................................................................. 136

General findings .................................................................................................................... 136 Using food blogs ................................................................................................................... 137 Finding food blogs ................................................................................................................ 138 Using other food-related media ............................................................................................ 138 About the blogger ................................................................................................................. 139 Comments and community ................................................................................................... 140

References ............................................................................................................................... 143

Figures

Figure 1: Screenshot of the food blog A Cozy Kitchen ................................................................. 7 Figure 2: Screenshot of the pull-apart bread recipe on Joy the Baker ....................................... 47 Figure 3: Screenshot of the pull-apart bread recipe on the blog Leite's Culinaria, post written by

Flo Braker ............................................................................................................................ 48 Figure 4: Screenshot of the pull-apart bread recipe on the blog 17 and Baking ........................ 48 Figure 5: Network map of the pull-apart recipe shared across multiple blogs ............................ 50 Figure 6: Screenshot of Tastespotting ........................................................................................ 72

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Figure 7: All respondents' responses to the question "Do you have a food blog yourself?" ..... 136 Figure 8: All respondents' gender ............................................................................................. 136 Figure 9: All respondents' age .................................................................................................. 137 Figure 10: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you read food blogs?" ............ 137 Figure 11: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you read food blogs?" ..... 137 Figure 12: All respondents’ responses to the question “How do you find food blogs?” ............ 138 Figure 13: All respondents' responses to the question "What other types of food media do you

use?" ................................................................................................................................. 138 Figure 14: All respondents' responses to the question "Is it important for you to know about the

person writing the blog?" ................................................................................................... 139 Figure 15: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "What do you want to know about food

bloggers?" ......................................................................................................................... 139 Figure 16: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "What do you want to know about food

bloggers?" ......................................................................................................................... 139 Figure 17: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you think people comment on

food blogs?" ...................................................................................................................... 140 Figure 18: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you think people comment on

food blogs?" ...................................................................................................................... 140 Figure 19: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "Do you comment on food blogs?" ....... 141 Figure 20: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Do you comment on food blogs?" 141 Figure 21: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you comment on food blogs?" 141 Figure 22: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you comment on food blogs?"

.......................................................................................................................................... 142 Figure 23: All respondents' responses to the question "What kind of comments do you make

when you comment on food blogs?" ................................................................................. 142

Tables

Table 1: Comparison of food blog surveys ................................................................................. 29 Table 2: Timeline of instances of the pull-apart bread on various blogs .................................... 52

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Statement of original authorship

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an

award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief,

the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where

due reference is made.

Jennifer Lofgren

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my supervisors Axel Bruns and Jaz Choi for their support, guidance and

encouragement.

I am also deeply appreciative of the support and engagement from the food blogging

community, in particular the food bloggers who participated in interviews, those who I spoke to

at Eat. Drink. Blog., and those who promoted my survey and shared the results when posted on

my blog.

This thesis would not have been completed without the patience, support, advice and

understanding of my partner, friends, family and housemates. In particular, I want to thank

Marcus Rapley, Rebecca Olive, Adam Dodd, Simone Kovago, the Deaths, Trudi Plaschke, my

family and everyone else who endured my endless ramblings about food blogs (I hope the

occasional treats I baked from them made up for this).

Introduction 1

Introduction

What is food?

Food is intrinsically linked to our survival. It is also inherently cultural, touching on, and giving

meaning to, almost all areas of our lives (Probyn 2000, 1). Culture, a “notoriously ambiguous

topic” (Hebdige 1979, 5) describes a whole way of life, encapsulating traditions, practices,

technologies, activities, art, and food – indeed, culture as a term describes “all that is ‘learned,

shared and transmitted’ among groups of human beings from generation to generation”

(Mennell, et al. 1992, 20).

Food (and eating) is variously described as: a necessity; a “potent symbol of our dependence

on the wider world”; a source of anxiety, fear and joy (Wilk 2006, 5); “the most basic of human

needs” (Forster and Ranum 1979, vii); pervasive and socially, politically and economically

relevant (Parasecoli 2008, 2); “intensely social, boringly mundane” (Probyn 2000, 1); a “medium

to build families, religious communities, ethnic boundaries and a consciousness of history”,

laden with meaning (Inness 2001, 5; Wilk 2006, 4), and lying “at the heart of the human

experience” (Inness 2001, 6).

Perhaps the most useful definition of food, however, which all these descriptors point to, is as

culture. According to Montanari, food is culture – when it is produced, prepared, and consumed

(Montanari 2006, xii). Food has connections to time and place. It is a significant tool in identity

building, and accordingly it both unifies and it differentiates us (Mennell et al. 1992, 117).

Sharing food – its production, preparation, and consumption – helps to give it meaning, to

elevate it to its status as culture (Montanari 2006, 94). Sharing food forms communities, cultures

and civilisations (Belasco 2008, 1). Food is used to “create and maintain social relationships”

(Mennell et al. 1992, 91) and sharing food, with special groups and for special occasions, or

within everyday settings, such as in the home, school, or workplace, “is held to signify

‘togetherness’, an equivalence among a group that defines and reaffirms insiders as socially

similar” (Mennell et al. 1992, 115).

Why study food and food culture?

Foster and Ranum argue that “for the historian, anthropologist, sociologist, and social

psychologist, a study of food habits in the broader sense serves as a useful point of entry into

an investigation of a wider culture” (1979, vii). Similarly, Pence notes that “how we think about

Introduction 2

food is really important, and such thinking helps define who we are and who we want to

become, both as individuals and as a common humanity” (2002, xi). How we produce, prepare,

and consume food are indicators of broader cultural trends. For instance, “worries about the

‘decline of the family meal’ look as if they are also signalling worries about the ‘decline of the

family’” (Mennell et al. 1992, 116). Such worries can be seen today, and cookbooks and

television shows such as Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals and 30 Minute Meals can be seen as

a response in the way that they promote the family meal as something of inherent value.

Roland Barthes’s description of food further elaborates the idea of food as culture (and, in turn,

culture as food), making a case for why and how it should be studied:

For what is food? It is not only a collection of products that can be used for

statistical or nutritional studies. It is also, and at the same time, a system of

communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations and behavior.

Information about food must be gathered wherever it can be found: by direct

observation in the economy, in techniques, usages, and advertising; and by indirect

observation of the mental life in a given society. And once these data are

assembled, they should no doubt be subjected to an internal analysis that should

try to establish what is significant about the way in which they have been

assembled before any economic or even ideological determinism is brought into

play.

(1979, 167)

Barthes urges us to study food in all forms, looking beyond its scientific and nutritional aspects.

In this sense, recipes are a key means for sharing knowledge and information about food, and

as such comprise a valuable topic of investigation. This thesis examines food blogs against the

background of the long history of sharing recipes through food-related media, such as

cookbooks.

Sharing food, sharing recipes

Sharing food and sharing recipes are important aspects of culture. We share food in our

everyday lives – such as through family dinners or lunch with colleagues – as well as on special

occasions as part of celebrations and commiserations. We also share food as a means to

welcome new people into our homes and our communities and visitors often bring food to share

as a gift and a sign of good faith. Sharing food unites communities, and is, as Claude Fischler

notes “a quite central component of the sense of collective belonging” (1988, 280).

Introduction 3

Recipes constitute a cultural technology that extends the sharing of food across time and space

– between generations and into new and different places. Sharing recipes, and sharing other

information about food, whether in oral or written form, are ways of communicating

“experiences, preferences, observations, and desires” (Belasco 2008, 44) and give people what

Annie Hauk-Lawson describes as a “food voice” through which they can express themselves

and “forge cooperative links, extend hospitality and assert power or obligation” (2004, 24)

Recipe sharing may be deeply personal, such as within families and between friends. Traci

Marie Kelly describes the long history of oral storytelling that has accompanied cooking and

recipe sharing and the “power” that comes from telling stories through recipes (2001, 252).

Recipe sharing can also be more public, reaching a wide audience through food-related media,

such as cookbooks, magazines, newspapers and television shows. In these mediated forms,

recipe sharing both reflects and shapes culture and community (Gallegos 2005, 99).

Food is a driver and an early adopter of new technology – for production, preparation,

distribution and consumption. Recipes, as a cultural technology, are worthy of investigation from

a media and cultural studies point of view because they are communicated – often in collections

– through whatever new media forms are at hand. They have historically found an early home in

new and emerging media – from cookbooks through to iPhone apps. It is perhaps unsurprising,

then, that information about food, including recipes, has become prolific on the internet1. What is

surprising, though, is how little scholarly interest has been paid to this rise in food-related

information sharing online. If sharing food, and sharing recipes, are fundamental aspects of

cultural identity and key communication tools, it makes sense to investigate how this sharing

occurs in new media and through new technology.

Kollock and Smith note that “technology has its most profound effect when it alters the ways in

which people come together and communicate” (1999, 4). As a “system of communication”

(Barthes 1979, 167) itself, it is important to investigate the ways information about food is

communicated. Communication through and about food forms cultures and communities, and

this thesis investigates how this communication and community building plays out in the online

spaces of food blogs. Wellman argues that “as the Internet has been incorporated into everyday

life, it has fostered subtle changes in community”, and notes that the internet has helped

facilitate a shift from “place-based community to person-based community” (2004, 28). Recipe

sharing can be considered as an everyday practice if preparing and consuming food are seen

as everyday practices.

1 Throughout this thesis, I have used lowercase for internet, except for in instances where direct quotes have been used. I defer to Baym and Markham’s argument that “capitalizing suggests that "internet" is a proper noun and implies either that it is a being, like Nancy or Annette, or that it is a specific place, like Madison or Lawrence. Both metaphors lead to granting the internet agency and power that are better granted to those who develop and use it” (Baym and Markham 2009a, n.1, vii).

Introduction 4

Cultural attitudes, beliefs, and values concerning food are reflected online, just as they have

historically been reflected in food-related media, such as cookbooks. Online, information about

food is shared through mainstream media outlets, such as online news and recipe sites, and

through user-generated content on blogs and social media. The internet, like food, is culture. It

does not ‘do’ anything itself, but rather facilitates communication and provides a means through

which culture can be performed, discussed and developed. As Castells notes, “the elasticity of

the Internet makes it particularly susceptible to intensifying the contradictory trends present in

our world. Neither utopia nor dystopia, the Internet is the expression of ourselves” (2001, 6). As

such, food blogs, and the food blogging community, both reflect and shape culture. This thesis

explains how the food blogging community operates. It does this by investigating why and how

people blog about food, how individual food bloggers form a community, and how offline food

and recipe sharing traditions are incorporated online. In doing so, it considers what implications

food blogs and the food blogging community have – for food-related media and for the wider

community.

What is a blog?

Blogs, derived from the term ‘web log’ (Walker Rettberg 2008, 17), are generally defined more

by their form than their content: frequently updated websites on which diary-style entries or

‘posts’ appear in reverse chronological order (Baym 2010, 16; Gurak et al. 2004; Herring et al.

2005, 142). Blog content varies widely, and may be personal, political, journalistic or focus on

special interests and lifestyles: “if you’re interested in any particular topic, you can probably find

a blog – or a dozen blogs – about it. If not, you can easily start your own blog” (Walker Rettberg

2008, 18).

The majority of blogs are hosted on sites such as Blogger or Wordpress, which are free to use,

with optional ‘premium’ styles available for a fee. They offer bloggers a relatively simple user

interface that acts similarly to Microsoft Word, a program with which many people are familiar.

Host sites allow bloggers to choose a template or style, which may then be modified. Individual

posts may include text, pictures and videos, and usually include a comments section for readers

to respond. Sites such as Blogger and Wordpress have helped make blogs popular, as they

“enable easy, inexpensive self-publication of content for potentially vast audiences on the world

wide web” (Herring et al. 2007, 3).

As blogs allow user-generated content and are inherently social (Herring et al. 2005, 145;

Walker Rettberg 2008, 21), they are also considered to be “the first large-scale movement of

what today is called Web 2.0” (Wilde 2008, 403). As Web 2.0 applications, blogs operate in a

context of participatory culture, that is, culture that has relatively low barriers to entry, and offers

Introduction 5

support for members creating and sharing creations, as well as informal mentorship or training

to pass on knowledge. In participatory culture, all members can contribute, although it is not

compulsory, and those who do contribute feel that their contribution is valued (Jenkins 2006a,

n.p.). The term participatory culture is often used to describe the link between digital

technologies, user-generated content (such as that seen on blogs and on platforms such as

YouTube and Flickr), and the changing dynamic between media industries and their audiences

(Burgess and Green 2009, 10), as it “contrasts with older notions of passive media

spectatorship” (Jenkins 2008, 3).

What is a food blog?

Food blogs can broadly be defined as blogs primarily focused on food. They may focus more

specifically on recipes, restaurant reviews, travel, food ethics, or aesthetic concerns such as

food styling and photography. For the purposes of this research, however, food blogs are

understood as blogs that mostly feature recipes. The term ‘recipe blog’ could be used, but food

bloggers make little distinction between different topic categories – whether someone writes

recipes or reviews, they are referred to as a food blogger. While recipe bloggers are probably

more likely to link to other recipe bloggers, and review bloggers to review bloggers, the wider

community does not appear to consider topic-specific sub-groups of bloggers as separate. As

such, I have used the term ‘food blog’ in keeping with the community’s own terminology and

practices.

I have focused specifically on food blogs that feature recipes because they fall somewhere

between the personal and the public traditions of recipe sharing. These types of food blogs

provide forums for people to continue the historical practice of sharing recipes, yet in a new way

that is readily accessible and traceable. Conversely, restaurant review food blogs are

geographically specific and not accessible in the same way as recipes – one must to visit the

same restaurant as the reviewer in order to share their described experience, whereas a recipe

can be recreated in new and different spaces, creating a tangible product, a sense of

connection and a shared experience between the blogger and the reader.

Recipes published on blogs reach a wider audience than those shared between two people,

within a family or in a community, but are not as exclusive or professional, in most instances, as

traditional food media. Food blogs share some obvious similarities with community cookbooks.

Just as blogs provide people with an outlet through which they can express themselves

(Papacharissi 2007, 21), community cookbooks have historically given marginalised women a

means for communication (Belasco 2008, 44). However, there are some clear differences

between food blogs and community cookbooks. For example, food bloggers form a community

based on individuals with a shared interest and are often geographically dispersed, whereas

Introduction 6

community cookbooks are created through contributions from members of an existing

community. They may provide a means for community building – strengthening and intensifying

the sense of belonging and shared sense of identity within members of an established

community (Ferguson 2012, 698) – but they do not necessarily create community outright.

Blogging allows for the compression of time and space, as people can connect with others from

around the world and respond and reinvigorate posts sometimes several years after they have

been written (Chapter 3 examines a case that exemplifies this). In this sense, food blogs are

more dynamic than cookbooks, with multiple entry points and means for people to discover

them – through search engines as well as through traditional word of mouth referrals. As such,

the food blogging community feels like a place, made up of individual, but shared spaces. In this

place, ‘ordinary’ people can share their passion for food and the pleasures of cooking, seek

advice, give feedback, and discuss issues of seasonality, locality and diet.

As this research project investigates English-language food blogs, its focus is on blogs from

Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Food bloggers, however, are not bound by

geographic constraints, and are located throughout the world and publish in numerous

languages.

Condé Nast’s Epicurious, a food-centric website launched in 1995 (Senyei 2012, 12), and

Chowhound, an online food discussion forum launched in 1997 (Suthivarakom 2011a, n.p.) are

considered precursors of food blogs. In 1999, David Lebovitz, a professional pastry chef,

launched his personal website/blog, sometimes considered as the first food blog (Senyei 2012,

12), to promote his first cookbook. In 2002, Julie Powell created her food blog The Julie/Julia

Project, which is perhaps the first food blog created by an ‘ordinary’ person with no professional

experience (Suthivarakom 2011a, n.p.). The blog later became the topic of a book and a film.

Clotilde2, writer of the popular blog Chocolate & Zucchini, says that when she started blogging

about food in 2003 there were perhaps a dozen other food bloggers. Since then, Clotilde has

become a professional food writer, published author, and recipe developer, while the number of

food bloggers has grown dramatically. It is difficult to know the precise number of food blogs –

as at July 2012,Technorati ranks more than 16,000 food blogs, including both recipe and

restaurant review blogs (Technorati 2012, n.p.) – but it is clear that food blogs have become a

common and popular blog genre.

2 All statements from food bloggers from personal interviews, unless otherwise stated. Full transcripts and blog details available in Appendix 1.

Introduction 7

Format and style of food blogs

Figure 1: Screenshot of the food blog A Cozy Kitchen

Food blogs generally share similar characteristics of format and style. Blog posts are usually

based around a recipe, and include a photo of the finished product, preamble or story about the

recipe, attribution to the recipe’s source or inspiration, ingredients list, and recipe instructions.

There are no ‘rules’ governing style – bloggers are free to write recipes however they want – but

observance of some conventions is a common practice. Conventions of formatting help readers

to easily identify food blogs. Successful bloggers may deviate from the norm, or perform the

norm to an exceptionally high, almost professional, standard. Clotilde describes this common

format as one of the ‘rules’ of food blogging:

I think, most bloggers follow… a kind of pattern where they post a photo, they write

the story about that recipe or that dish and then they give the recipe… it’s kind of

become, this… general format… in general… you have a few different formats that

people follow, and there aren’t very many people who just do wildly different things.

Despite the new opportunities provided by the internet to potentially change the way recipes are

presented, food bloggers have a tendency to adhere to the style of recipe writing and attribution

that has been commonplace in cookbooks for generations. The style of recipe writing used in

food-related media has become, if anything, more prescriptive over time (Mennell 1996, 67).

Food bloggers do not generally seek to challenge traditional food-related media, and, as such,

are unlikely to deviate from this recognised format.

Introduction 8

Food blogs are generally positive, in terms of topics and language, and food bloggers rarely

post ‘off-topic’ material; sometimes they may post about other areas of their life, but they are

unlikely to post political or controversial comments. Cindy describes her personal ‘rules’ for her

blog, Hungry Girl Por Vida:

I try to leave my political and spiritual beliefs off my blog. I find these topics to be

quite divisive and I don’t think a food blog is a place for that kind of content. If I

were writing a different type of blog, then yeah, they would totally have a place. I

have a long list of opinions, but I largely keep them to myself and my friends/family

can tell you all about them. If I am asked, directly, via email or whatever, then I

have no problem sharing, but I don't view my blog as a forum for that or a soap box

to preach opinion from. I also try not to use too many curse words on my blog, it

seems unnatural for me in writing. In real life, I swear like a longshoreman. Some

people can pull it off, but I just can’t. It's not like I run a “clean” blog though,

sometimes that kind of language shows up, when it has a place and purpose.

Through posts, the reader can learn about the blogger’s attitudes and ideology about food. This

may be stated explicitly, for example, if the blogger’s focus is vegetarian food, or if the blog is

based around a project, for example, cooking only locally produced food, but generally it is

implied.

Food bloggers generally write posts in a conversational style and aim to reflect their cooking in

day-to-day life. For example, Karen, writer of the blog Citrus and Candy, says that it is

“essential” that she keep her writing “casual, personable and open”, because:

The appeal of blogs is the interaction between readers and the blogger and the fact

that readers do get to ‘know’ the author so it’s important that my writing honestly

reflects my personality.

Food bloggers may post personal stories, in some cases light-hearted embarrassing stories, or

more serious and significant stories. For example, Stacey, writer of the blog Veggie Mama, has

shared stories about her teenage years, her work, and getting a tattoo, and has also announced

her pregnancy on her blog and discussed her fears about childbirth. Sharing these types of

stories helps to create a sense of authenticity and honesty for the blog, and portrays the blogger

as ‘down-to-earth’. That is not to imply that these types of posts are actually inauthentic or

dishonest, but they certainly are written with the purpose of persuading the audience of the type

of person the blogger is.

Introduction 9

Research questions and project overview

In looking at how the food blogging community operates, this thesis examines how community

norms – such as the standard format – have become established. It investigates the practices

and motivations of individual food bloggers, and examines their perceptions and experiences of

the community, as well as the community’s perception of them. It also examines how traditional

food and recipe sharing practices are incorporated into the food blogging community. In doing

so, it shows how food blogs provide a record of the food habits of ‘ordinary’ people in a more

explicit and more broad-based manner than traditional food-related media. While there are

barriers to entry in creating a food blog (literacy, internet access, computer skills), it is easier for

an ‘ordinary’ person to create their own food blog than it is for them to have their own cookbook

published or cooking show produced. As such, food blogs offers a window into a poorly

understood aspect of contemporary food culture.

This project asks:

• How does the food blogging community operate?

o Who are food bloggers?

o How and why do they blog about food?

o How do individual food bloggers form a community?

o How has the food blogging community developed and evolved?

In addressing these questions, the implications food blogs have for traditional food-related

media, and for the wider community, are considered.

Chapter 1 is a literature review, which positions food blogs in the wider context of research

around online communities and the growing body of work on personal and lifestyle blogs. While

significant research has been conducted on blogs, social media, food, and the history and

culture of food-related media, there is little work that investigates food blogs specifically.

Chapter 1 also provides an outline of this project’s cultural studies approach, which incorporates

aspects of food studies, and explains the ethnographic methods used to investigate the food

blogging community.

As the number of food blogs has grown, the community has become more diverse and complex,

and norms, common practices and rules have become more deeply established. The size of the

community and the expectation for bloggers to adhere to common practices mean that food

blogs have become established as a blogging genre, which may be nuanced to food bloggers,

yet often appears generic to outsiders. As Adam, writer of the high-profile blog The Amateur

Gourmet, comments on his blog:

Introduction 10

People start food blogs now to recreate what others have already

created; very few food blogs feel new because they aren’t new.

They’re doing what’s been done before, albeit with different

recipes.3

Over time, the food blogging community has become increasingly structured, with clear

community leaders and members taking on various roles. Chapter 2 discusses how individual

food bloggers form a community, examining who bloggers are, and how and why they blog

about food. It explains what it is about the food blogging community that makes it a ‘community’.

Because of the size of the food blogging community, it is difficult (if not impossible) to observe in

its entirety. Chapter 3 uses a case study, which involves a close reading of one recipe shared

across many blogs, to gain a deeper understanding of the community itself. The subject of the

case study is one interaction within the community, but it is representative of how that

community generally operates. The chapter provides an opportunity to observe, in action, the

identifiers of the community discussed in chapter two.

Finally, Chapter 4 discusses the evolution of food blogs and the emergence of a food blogging

cottage industry of sorts. It considers what happens when bloggers become professional, and

what the evolution of blogs, from a subcultural hobbyist activity to a recognised element of

mainstream food-related media, means for bloggers, media and the wider community. It

examines the different roles community members adopt and the tools and events used to

structure the community. It also looks at the response to food blogging from food-related media

and other industries, and examines the emergence of food blogs as an established genre.

It is important to recognise that the food blogging community extends beyond online space.

Food bloggers interact offline, but, perhaps more notably, bring food blogging into their own

social networks – when I make a cake for my father’s birthday following a recipe on a blog, and

then share the cake with my family, the food blog’s influence has extended far beyond online

space. Taking this into account, this project argues that it is useful to review and reconsider

approaches to understanding online community. Offline practices and traditions greatly

influence how online communities are formed and operate, and these communities do not exist

exclusively in online space, but can have real, sometimes tangible, implications offline. It is

particularly important to consider the interrelationships between on- and offline community in the

case of food, as these are fundamental aspects of culture and identity.

3 See Appendix 2 for details of blogs cited.

Chapter 1: Literature review and research methods 11

Chapter 1: Literature review and research methods

While there is a significant body of scholarly work about food and culture (e.g., Ashley et al.

2004; Belasco 2008; Meigs 1997; Montanari 1994; Parasecoli 2008; Pence 2002; Wilk 2006)

and food writing (e.g., Driver 2009), food on television (such as in lifestyle and reality programs

and on celebrity TV chefs) (e.g., Bonner 2005), about blogs and their impacts and uses in

society (e.g., Bruns and Jacobs 2006), and on the motivations of users of social media (e.g.,

Ekdale et al. 2010), comparatively little research has focused specifically on food blogs.

This chapter reviews literature relevant to this project and provides an overview of the methods

used to carry out this research. It positions the project in the broad historical context of recipe

sharing through food-related media and within recent research into online blogging

communities, specifically, the growing body of work analysing personal and lifestyle blogging.

Recipes and food-‐related media

Sharing food is central to culture. Indeed, as noted previously, food is culture (Montanari 2006,

xii). Ways of sharing knowledge about food, such as the exchange of recipes, give longevity to

food sharing. They expand the practice of sharing food beyond specific times and places.

Recipes, therefore, comprise an important cultural technology, and the ways in which they are

shared and communicated can be used for broader analyses of culture. Shared recipes allow

food traditions and customs to become established and formalised in a community, and in turn,

contribute to the creation of cultural identity.

Collections of recipes have historically been communicated through whatever medium is

available at the time. Cookbooks were among the first printed books, with the first known

cookbook published in 1485 at Nuremberg, which set a trend seeing cookbooks published in

most of the languages across Western Europe by the mid 16th century (Mennell 1996, 65).

Since then, recipe collections have found a comfortable home in new and emerging media, from

radio, to television through to iPhone apps. Mennell notes that printed recipes in cookbooks

“broke the absolute dependence of the transmission of culinary knowledge and skill on

apprenticeship and direct personal relationship, and made possible a wider transmission of

knowledge than any oral tradition of word and gesture” (1996, 67).

Scholars have used cookbooks to understand culture, history, identity and taste, and to

investigate changes in food preparation and production practices. Danielle Gallegos describes


cookbooks as “tools that are being used to construct a sense of community both within the text,

amongst those who read the text, and where the text circulates” (2005, 107), while Traci Marie

Kelly urges us to recognise that a cookbook is “more than a collection of instructions – that it

may be an expression of the self” (2001, 253). Other research examines the feminist

implications of celebrity chefs such as Nigella Lawson and Martha Stewart (Brunsdon 2005),

celebrity chefs as media products (Hansen 2008), and lifestyle television shows, including

cooking shows, and the ways they reflect ‘everyday’ culture (Bonner 2005).

While food studies is now an established discipline, it has historically struggled to be recognised

as such (Miller and Deutsch 2009, 7). Food has been a topic of interest across various

disciplines, but the value of food as a cultural object and the role it plays in the formation of

culture, identity and community has often been overlooked. This is perhaps because, despite its

cultural significance, it has been considered too domestic and everyday for serious academic

research (Deutsch and Miller 2007, 393; Mennell et al. 1992, 1). Inness (2001, 9) argues that

food has also been overlooked because it is typically taken for granted: it surrounds many of us.

Yet, the pervasive, essential role food plays in culture is precisely why it should be subject to

analysis. According to Inness, “we need to stop and think carefully about what messages food

conveys to us. We need to reflect on how and by whom the food items that we consume are

created, as well as about how food serves as a marker of identity in our culture” (2001, 9).

Much research into food-related media and recipes has focused on issues of gender and

domesticity, such as Elizabeth Driver’s (2009) study of cookbooks as historical artefacts, Alan

Warde’s (1994) analysis of food trends as reflected in British women’s magazines, and

Jessamyn Neuhaus’s (1999) study of domestic gender roles as reflected in 1950s cookbooks.

The use of cookbooks, particularly community cookbooks, as tools of empowerment and

community building for women has also been examined (Ferguson 2012). Other research has

looked at cookbooks and books about food eating more broadly as autobiography. John E. Finn

claims that such books “represent a particular and specific kind of literature in which food is a

particular kind of voice – that of the confessional – and concerned with a particular set of

cultural issues – the intersection of gender, power, and food” (2004, 86). While the issues of

gender, class and power as expressed through food-related media are worthy of investigation,

especially given that the majority of food bloggers are women, they are beyond the scope of this

project.

Food blogs have emerged from a long history of recipe sharing through food-related media. As

they have become more established and begun to make their mark in the broader ecology of

food-related media, some food bloggers have transitioned from amateur writers to

professionals, producing published cookbooks, newspaper columns, magazine features and

television shows. Yet of all the types of food-related media, food blogs share the most


characteristics with cookbooks, both in terms of format and style and their potential influence

and ability to reflect and shape culture. Gallegos (2005) observes how Australian cultural

identity, a sense of community, and the emergence of a national cuisine of sorts is reflected in

cookbooks. Understanding the cultural significance of cookbooks is useful for understanding

food blogs because, like cookbooks, food blogs reflect food trends.

Contemporary food-related media has become increasingly image-driven. Evocative food

styling, photography and writing, on food blogs and in other food-related media, is often referred

to as “food porn” (e.g., Buford 2006, 1). While food porn can be described as a general style, it

can also be viewed more broadly as an approach to food-related media and reflect how it may

be used. For example, Molly O’Neill describes food porn, in the context of mainstream media

food writing, as “prose and recipes so removed from real life that they cannot be used except as

vicarious experience” (O'Neill 2003, n.p.). In this context, the interpretation of the term varies,

perhaps, according to someone’s level of interest in food and their cooking skills as well as how

they perceive porn in general. As such, it may refer to food photography and writing that is:

explicit, unrealistic, or deviant; or glamorous, exotic or exciting. While the concept is interesting,

an investigation into the implications and meanings of food porn is beyond the scope of this

project.

This project examines how food blogs fit into the long history of recipe sharing and how these

older, offline practices and traditions are incorporated into the food blogging community. It

investigates how the community is formed, and how it is structured, including how the different

‘levels’ of bloggers (amateurs through to professionals) influence the operation of the

community.

Taste, identity, community and capital

Taste, when used in the context of food, has dual meanings: it describes the physical sensation

of taste as well as a cultural phenomenon that describes preference (Gallegos 2005, 99-100).

Our taste in food is central to our sense of identity, as individuals and as groups (Fischler 1988,

275). Communities are based around shared tastes, as Fischler notes, “human beings mark

their membership of a culture or group by asserting the specificity of what they eat, or more

precisely – but it amounts to the same thing – by defining otherness, the difference of others”

(1988, 280). Likewise, Bourdieu argues that “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier”

(1984, 6).

Taste in food and other cultural products and pursuits defines social class, and to have ‘good

taste’ in ‘legitimate culture’ is a sign of distinction (Bourdieu 1984). Bourdieu (1984) argues that

through our tastes, we acquire, exchange and display our ‘capital’, which may be social,


economic or cultural. We develop distinct identities and lifestyles based on the way we

assemble these different types of capital. Cultural capital and social capital are particularly

relevant for this project. Cultural capital refers to “the ability to take part in cultural activities, not

just highbrow culture but everything from sports and hobbies, attending evening courses or

visiting an exhibition, going to a museum or seeing a play” (Leadbeater and Miller 2004, 40). In

creating and sharing recipes, food bloggers acquire cultural capital. Leading food bloggers,

those that have become professional or have large followings, could also be viewed as “taste-

makers” (Bourdieu 1984, 91) in how they set trends, in food or in blogging style, and in doing so

generate large amounts of cultural capital. Social capital refers to connections and relationships

(Leadbeater and Miller 2004, 40), and provides a means for people to share their cultural

capital. Food bloggers acquire social capital in amassing readers and developing relationships

with other food bloggers. How social capital and cultural capital are generated and shared in the

food blogging community is examined in more detail in the following chapters.

Defining community

The sharing of food and recipes, as outlined previously, is a key practice of community

building. As a concept, ‘community’ is easily comprehended, but difficult to define

absolutely. As Day and Schuler note, despite some similarities, no two communities

are the same:

The diversity of their composition makes classifying their characteristics, i.e. those

traits that make them a community, almost impossible. They are not like

organisational structures – the boundaries of which can be identified, quantified

and measured – communities are messy, hard to pin down and problematic.

Understanding them as social constructs requires being able to manage the

dichotomous tensions between people working collaboratively and cooperatively

towards common goals on the one hand and the conflict that can arise from

competing values and agendas on the other.

(2006, 27)

While it is difficult to ‘pin down’ community as a concept, it seems that the underlying identifier of

communities is the ‘sense of community’ common to members. Barry Wellman defines

‘community’ as “networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a

sense of belonging and social identity” (2001, 228). These traits work to create a sense of

community. Similarly, Nancy Baym identifies “sense of space, shared practice, shared

resources and support, shared identities, and interpersonal relationships” (2010, 75) as five

qualities common to all communities, whether they exist on- or offline.


The project considers food blogging as a subculture, and a community of interest made up of

fans and enthusiasts. Food bloggers are often described as ‘foodies’4 – essentially, they are

food fans. Their interest in food extends beyond consumption and becomes based on

production – of food, recipes and blog posts, and support tools, such as aggregator sites. The

shift from consumption to production is what, according to Jenkins, defines a fan:

One becomes a “fan” not by being a regular viewer of a particular program but by

translating that viewing into some kind of cultural activity, by sharing feelings and

thoughts about the program content with friends, by joining a “community” of other

fans who share common interests. For fans, consumption naturally sparks

production, reading generates writing, until the terms seem logically inseparable.

(2006b, 41)

The term ‘enthusiasts’ could also be used to describe food bloggers. Abercrombie and

Longhurst differentiate between fans and enthusiasts, arguing that enthusiasms are based

around an activity, while fandom is more concerned with media (1998, 138-140). Enthusiasms

also tend to be organised, involving specialist literature and taking up a large amount of time

(Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998, 139). Food blogging is based around the activity of creating

food and blogging recipes, and many food bloggers devote large amounts of time to their blog

and to engaging with the attendant community. Some food bloggers could be considered to be

‘Pro-Ams’, that is, “amateurs who work to professional standards” (Leadbeater and Miller 2004,

12). Pro-Ams, like enthusiasts, “form self-regulating communities, which provide people with a

sense of community and belonging”, creating a shared sense of identity through their activities

(Leadbeater and Miller 2004, 22). This Pro-Am behaviour can be seen in the food blogging

community, as Pro-Am food bloggers typically are actively engaged with their community,

forming valuable relationships and interacting with extensive personal networks across the food

blogosphere.

Networks and online communities

Tim Berners-Lee describes the World Wide Web as “more a social creation than a technical

one”, noting that he “designed it for social effect – to help people work together – and not as a

technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in

the world” (1999, 133). Moreover, the Web has allowed for different types of connections and

communications between people. Yochai Benkler notes that “we are a networked society now –

networked individuals connected with each other in a mesh of loosely known, overlapping, flat

4 It is worth noting that the term ‘foodie’ sits uncomfortably with some food bloggers. Critics of the word argue that it is childish or amateurish, or that it connotes a certain snobbery about food. Others claim that it simply describes a person who loves food.


connections” (2006, 376). A “networked society”, according to Manuel Castells, “is a society

whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics-based information and

communication technologies” (2004, 3).

While offline communities are also based on networks, online communities expand our options

for personal communication and create networks with people all around the world. The

technology behind the internet, and the social and participatory nature of blogs, allow bloggers

to form “communities of like-minded individuals and semi-organized grassroots social

movements” (Baym 2010, 16). These types of communities of interest are often formed by

subcultural groups or fans, enthusiasts, and Pro-Ams. The wider community of bloggers is often

described as the ‘blogosphere’ (e.g., Bruns and Jacobs 2006, 5; Gurak et al. 2004). Such

communities have been the focus of both significant academic research and moral panics.

Castells (2001, 116) notes that online communities (also described as virtual communities) have

been both celebrated for allowing new kinds of communication and social relationships that are

not inhibited by geography, and accused of causing social isolation and a breakdown of ‘real

life’ relationships. For example, Howard Rheingold’s book The Virtual Community (2000)

advocates the benefits of online communities, while Clifford Stoll’s book Silicon Snake Oil

(1995), envisages a future of impoverished communities where people value interactions with

computers over interactions with people. Rheingold’s book is based on his personal

experiences and interactions with the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL), an online community

of the 1990s, and argues that, as someone working from home, being part of such a community

provided him with greater social interaction, not isolation (Rheingold 2000, 46). Castells (2001,

117) suggests that those who question the value of online communities have historically

overlooked actual user experiences (such as Rheingold’s). Most significantly, perhaps, their

arguments have often been based on an idealised version of (offline) community.

Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as “an imagined political community” (1983, 15)

reflects the nature of online communities. For Anderson, nations (and by extension,

communities), are imagined because “even the smallest nation will never know most of their

fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of

their communion” (1983, 15). Anderson argues that despite the obvious inequalities between

individuals “the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (1983, 16).

Similarly, Henry Jenkins notes that although all members of a participatory culture are free to

contribute, some members have more power or capacity to do so (2008, 3).

Castells (2001, 131) argues that rather than forming strict communities, the internet allows for

“networked individualism”, which is based on interests, values and opinions. Wellman uses the

same term to describe the shift in the nature of communities from “physically fixed and bounded

groups to social networks” (Wellman 2004, 28). These networks then form the basis of online


(and offline) communities. Jodi Dean also contests the notion of online communities, especially

as implied in the term ‘blogosphere’ (2010, 38). For Dean, the term blogosphere “tricks us into

thinking community when we should be asking about the kinds of links, networks, flows, and

solidarities that blogs hinder and encourage” (2010, 38). Instead, Dean prefers the term

“blogipelago” as, like an archipelago, it “reminds us of separateness, disconnection, and the

immense effort it can take to move from one island or network to another” (2010, 38).

Quentin Jones (1997) also argues that the term ‘community’ does not accurately describe online

groups, as the term is itself vague. Jones suggests that the interactions between people online

reflect a sense of community, but do not form a community proper. Instead, Jones describes

these groups as virtual settlements. Building on this, Anita Blanchard (2004) claims that blogs

exist in these virtual settlements, as they have a sense of community, but they are not

communities in and of themselves. Yet, when viewed in Anderson’s terms of imagined

communities, these differences seem purely semantic, as “all communities larger than

primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined. Communities

are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are

imagined” (1983, 15). Therefore, if groups of bloggers focusing on specific shared interests

imagine themselves to be part of a community, then, by Anderson’s definition, they are part of a

community. As such, despite the fact that the food blogging community exists across numerous

online spaces, it feels very much like a community to food bloggers. Chapter 2 demonstrates in

detail how the community can indeed be viewed as a community.

Blogging communities

Bishop and Hoggett note that people have a tendency to form groups (and in turn develop tools

to help manage these groups) based around “anything which provides the slightest opportunity

for organization” – even activities that would seem to be individual pursuits (1986, 29).

Interestingly, they claim that of all the activities they investigated for their study of leisure

subcultures, which looks closely at “clubs, societies and associations” (1986, 2), only cooking

and do-it-yourself (DIY) did not appear to have organised groups (Bishop and Hoggett 1986,

29). This statement overlooks the existence of organisations such as the Country Women’s

Association, which was historically, and remains, an organisation with a key focus on cooking

together and creating community cookbooks. It seems the internet has provided a means for

food and DIY enthusiasts to form larger, more visible, if not somewhat more loosely organised,

groups.

Blogging could be a solitary pursuit, but many bloggers find ways to form and recognise

themselves as a community. It can be difficult, especially from the point of view of a casual

observer, to see blogging communities as communities. Simply undertaking the same activity


(for example, blogging about food) does not necessarily constitute community. While some

shared practices can easily be seen (for example, in the style of post writing and photography),

shared identities, relationships and space are not plainly evident. This project defines

community according to Baym’s (2010, 75) and Wellman’s (2001, 228) previously outlined

identifiers of community. It uses these identifiers to demonstrate how the food blogging

community does, in fact, constitute community. As food bloggers already say and feel that they

are a community – they, as Anderson notes, imagine themselves as a community of connected

individuals – I am privileging their view, and using Wellman and Baym’s identifiers to

demonstrate what food bloggers instinctively feel. As Muggleton (2000) argues, for any study of

a subculture to be of value, it is essential that the experiences of the subculture’s members be

taken into account.

Baym notes that “the sense of shared space, rituals of shared practices, and exchange of social

support all contribute to a feeling of community in digital environments” (2010, 86). However,

she also argues that online communities that are spread across sites, such as the food blogging

community, “do not feel like places”, because norms, in-jokes and jargon are less likely to

develop than they are in communities based around one site, such as a forum (2010, 91). Yet

for food bloggers, their community does feel like a place – a place made up of personal, but

shared spaces of individual blogs. Space, according to Yi-Fu Tuan (1977, 6), is abstract, vague,

almost nebulous, while place is more concrete, more stable, more specific. Space and place are

often determined, or described, according to how they are experienced (Tuan 1977, 7), or how

they feel. For food bloggers, their blog feels like a place, but it is also often described as giving

them space, and they experience the community in a similar manner. Beyond describing the

food blogging community as a community, this project argues for the food blogging community

to be viewed as a place, which is influenced by offline traditions around food sharing and

embedded with meaning by its members. It does this by looking at previous research on

blogging and blogging communities, in particular, subcultural and fan uses of blogs, political

blogs and citizen journalism, and personal and lifestyle blogs.

Subcultural and fan use of blogs

The use of blogging in subcultural and fan groups has been the subject of research into online

communities. For some subcultural groups, online tools such as blogs are used to strengthen

and improve their offline interactions. For example, Paul Hodkinson’s (2006) study on the

internet use of U.K. goths found that many used LiveJournal, an online tool for creating personal

journal-style blogs, as a way of communicating information about offline events and

strengthening friendships. While online communities are typically formed around shared

interests rather than geographical locations (Weinberger 2002, 104), the goths in Hodkinson’s

study used LiveJournal to communicate with friends based in the same town or city as them. In


his study, Hodkinson found that for many of the goths, having a LiveJournal account was

essential as it had become the accepted way of keeping in touch and up to date with events in

their subculture. Hodkinson notes that the use of LiveJournal by U.K. goths differed from the

use of blogs or forums in other online communities in that it was an extension of a pre-existing

community and was used primarily as a way to enhance participation in the subculture’s offline

activities (2006, 195). The goths in the study used LiveJournal to express individuality and to

connect with a community, keeping with Muggleton’s definition of subcultures as being both

“collective expressions and celebrations of individualism” (2000, 79).

Hodkinson’s work builds on Sarah Thornton’s (1995) investigation of the uses of niche and

micro media by subcultures, particularly U.K. club cultures. Thornton notes that “club crowds are

not organic formations which respond mysteriously to some collective unconscious, but people

grouped together by intricate networks of communications” (1995, 137). As such, the use of

online tools such as blogs is a natural development for subcultures.

Fan groups have also taken to online tools such as blogs with enthusiasm, and use them in

ways that exemplify participatory culture (Jenkins 2006b). Nancy Baym’s (2000) ethnographic

study of rec.arts.tv.soaps (r.a.t.s.), an online soap opera fan group, provides a key example of

this practice. Baym describes r.a.t.s. as a friendly online community space for people with a

shared interest in soap operas, who are often (unfairly) stereotyped as lacking intelligence and

taste (2000, 48). For the soap opera fans in Baym’s study, r.a.t.s. provides a forum for them to

freely discuss their interests with likeminded people without ridicule.

Online communities share many characteristics with offline subcultural groups. Baym describes

the internal dynamics of the r.a.t.s. community, noting that individuals in the group “take on

distinctive roles” and “develop identities through performances that build distinctive styles”

(2000, 173). Members may take on central or leadership roles as frequent contributors or

‘posters’, or may be more comfortable as followers or periphery members known as a ‘lurkers’

(Baym 2000, 8), or, more positively, as ‘listeners’ (Crawford 2009). Dick Hebdige suggests

these types of social structures are within subcultures a source of tension between members,

and claims that “the distinction between originals and hangers-on is always a significant one in

subculture” (1979, 122). Muggleton, on the other hand, believes that the significance of the level

of involvement of subcultural members is overstated and that “stratifying members according to

their commitment to what they ‘should’ do runs absolutely contrary to typical indigenous

meanings of punk, metal, biker and other subcultures as ‘individual freedom’” (2000, 152).

This project studies the internal dynamics of the food blogging community. It examines how the

dynamics identified by Hodkinson, Muggleton, Hebdige, Thornton and Baym play out in the food

blogging community by looking at the roles individual food bloggers take on and the influence


their level of experience, skill and involvement has on their position within the community. In

doing so, it assesses how community norms, ethics and ‘rules’ are developed.

Blog research: from political to personal

Much research on blogs and blogging has focused on political blogs and citizen journalism.

Such blogs have become popular ways for people to express political views, as they “provide

media consumers with an audience and a relatively audible voice; they also offer a virtual space

where information ignored by mainstream media can be published” (Papacharissi 2007, 21). Yet

the idiosyncrasies of political and journalistic blogs mean that they are not representative of

blogs in general, and actually represent a minority of the overall blogging community (Herring et

al. 2004). These blogs are typically adversarial, deliberately confrontational and

“unapologetically partisan” (Jenkins 2008, 227) with little or no claims to objectivity. They are

often based on “the spontaneous actions of ordinary people – more often than not in the wrong

place at the wrong time – compelled to adopt the role of reporter” (Allan and Thorsen 2009, 7),

and as such are time and location specific. Food blogs do not share these characteristics.

Research into political blogging and citizen journalism has been surrounded by hyperbole and

pessimism. Early claims that these blogs offered a new digital democracy have since been

refuted because, while it is true that anyone can produce a blog, the more important issue is if

anyone will read it (Hindman 2009, 113). Research on blog readership has found that most

people read blogs that support their point of view (Lawrence et al. 2010), producing a more

divisive political debate (Jenkins 2008, 227), and that blogs with power and influence are more

likely to continually attract readers (Walker Rettberg 2008, 63), and in turn, attract more power

and influence. Graeme Turner argues that in this context, rather than producing a digital

democracy, political blogs have produced a new digital elite (2010, 139).

While extensive, the literature on political blogs and citizen journalism is not particularly relevant

to this research project. Food blogs are markedly different to these types of blogs, as they are

not bound by geographical constraints and are not particularly time dependent; while recipes

and ingredients may be seasonal, a recipe posted two years ago is not necessarily less relevant

or less useful than a recipe posted today.

Research into blogs that is relevant to this project explores lifestyle and personal blogs. Food

blogs fall into this category, which represents the majority of blogs (Herring et al. 2004). These

are predominately written by women or teenagers and focus on topics such as food, parenting,

DIY, craft, travel and design (Herring et al. 2004). The communities that form around such blogs

are communities of interest, focused on shared cultural and creative practices and activities.

Despite their relevance to everyday life, lifestyle and personal blogs have largely been


overlooked in academic studies in favour of political and journalistic blogs, which, for the most

part, are written by educated males (Herring et al. 2004). The focus on these blogs and

bloggers, Herring suggests, reflects underlying societal ageism and sexism, as blogs about

lifestyle and personal interests are viewed as less serious or impactful, and hence less

newsworthy (2004). Yet recent research on lifestyle blogs suggests they have a greater impact

than previously imagined. For example, in her study of young female Swedish bloggers, Mia

Lövheim argues that lifestyle bloggers “represent an interesting example of how new media

technologies may provide new arenas and forms of participation in a public discussion on

cultural values and social norms” (2011, 339).

While there is little academic research looking at food blogs specifically, comparable areas have

been investigated. For example, Sal Humphreys’s (2008) study of the knitting blog Yarn Harlot

investigates how a lifestyle blog reflects grassroots creativity and community building. Although

the community of knitters formed around the Yarn Harlot blog has clear parallels with the food

blogging community, a key point of difference is the essential, everyday nature of food.

However, while, unlike knitting, we all engage with food on a daily basis, the food discussed on

food blogs is not always ‘everyday food’. Just as some of the more enthusiastic members of the

Yarn Harlot knitting community may be highly skilled knitters, food bloggers may be

extraordinary cooks for whom food is a hobby and a distraction from everyday life.

Existing academic research on food blogs does not involve investigations of the motivations and

practice of bloggers, their influence on food media or where they fit within a broader historical

context. Instead, research has examined the use of food blogs from health and sociological

points of view. For example, Isa Ritchie’s (2011) Master’s thesis examines the use of blogs for

informing food choices and supporting a return to traditional food preparation. Similarly, Meghan

Lynch’s (2010) research investigates the dietary habits of a food blogging community and the

use of food blogs for disseminating health information. Anita Blanchard (2004), on the other

hand, used the Julie/Julia Project blog (now the subject of a book and movie) as a case study

example in a discussion on online communities.

In her study of Yarn Harlot, Humphreys urges us to consider the textual and social

characteristics of blogs as mutually constitutive, rather than exclusive (2008, 420). Humphreys

notes that studies of blogging communities often look closely at the social connections between

members and pay little attention to the actual content or the content creation process (2008,

425-426). This project builds on such work by looking closely at content, as well as the

connections between food bloggers, in order to understand how the community operates. It also

addresses a lack of scholarly work on blogs that focus on domestic issues such as food, and

studies blogs as spaces for forming community through shared lifestyle and personal interests.

In his book Making Is Connecting, David Gauntlett (2011) discusses how communities are


formed through creative activities such as DIY, and how blogging can facilitate these practices.

Food blogging fits this description neatly, as food bloggers form community based on their

shared interest in creating both food and recipes.

The project also considers the response to food blogs from food-related media and other

industries. While food blogs have not attracted the interest of many academic researchers, they

have been the focus of media reports and discussion, particularly in terms of their implications

for cookbook publishing (Anderson 2010; Andriani 2009; Danford 2010; Karnikowski 2012;

Phipps 2011). However, unlike the adversarial relationship between political bloggers and

citizen journalists and traditional news media, (Bruns et al. 2009), the interest in food blogs is

generally more positive. This project discusses what such interest from the mainstream media

implies.

Implications of food blogs

Creative industries research (e.g., Hartley 2005) has investigated the implications, for industry

and the community, of Pro-Ams as well as ‘produsers’ (Bruns 2008) who blur the lines between

producers and users of media. For Jenkins, the key implication is “convergence culture, where

old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of

the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways”

(2008, 2). Jenkins describes convergence as a paradigm shift that will see “ever more complex

relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture” (2008, 254).

Food blogging reflects the emergence of DIY culture and could be viewed as “serious leisure” –

that is, “the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity that is sufficiently

substantial and interesting for the participant to find a career there in the acquisition and

expression of its special skills and knowledge” (Stebbins 1992, 3). It allows amateurs

opportunities for entry into the professional world of food writing, if they are so inclined,

reflecting a broader trend within the creative industries whereby non-professionals do not need

the support of industry in order to gain some level of success. Some food bloggers, in particular

community leaders, as previously noted, could be considered to be Pro-Ams, while others may

become what Abercrombie and Longhurst describe as “petty producers” (1998, 140) – that is,

enthusiasts who have become professionals, whereby their enthusiast activity has become an

occupation.

Mark Deuze argues that the phenomenon of Pro-Ams is not necessarily new, but it has been

“supercharged” in recent years, facilitated largely by online spaces (2007a, 245) such as blogs.

Andrew Keen is highly critical of amateurs, in particular bloggers, arguing that “blogs have

become so dizzyingly infinite that they’ve undermined our sense of what is true and what is


false, what is real and what is imaginary” (2007, 3). Yet Leadbeater and Miller (2004, 40) point

to the benefits of engaging in Pro-Am activities, describing Pro-Ams as being rich in cultural

capital, which they acquire through cultural activities and interactions with their community.

Similarly, Baym (2000, 159) describes the members of r.a.t.s. as acquiring cultural capital

through their knowledge of soap operas and their writing ability, and Thornton (1995, 11)

describes “hipness” as a form of subcultural capital among members of club cultures. Acquiring

cultural capital is both a motivation and a benefit for Pro-Ams. According to Leadbeater and

Miller (2004, 40), Pro-Ams enjoy acquiring cultural capital as much as they enjoy passing it on

to other members of the community. For food bloggers, this is reflected in their willingness to

share tips and offer advice.

In their study of leisure subcultures, Bishop and Hoggett’s note:

Our experience suggests that, perhaps unlike family, church and neighbourhood

sub-cultures, leisure sub-cultures are an aspect of society’s internal social

organization which is actually thriving and constitutes a crucial vehicle through

which dominant values are transmitted, resisted or negotiated and new sets of

values, which may take as their point of origin a different mode of production and

social organization, emerge. In particular, collective leisure offers opportunities rare

– if not unique – in our society to reassert values related not to passive

consumerism but to production for one’s own use and enjoyment.

(1986, 44)

The implications, then, are for food bloggers (and food blog readers) to use the food blogging

community as a space where they can test and challenge popular perceptions about food and

representations of food in traditional food-related media. This project builds on these

investigations into subcultures and enthusiasts and on creative industries research on the

increased participation of non-professionals (such as Pro-Ams and produsers), often organised

in community groups, for new and old media, as well as for the broader community. It looks at

food blogs within this context, demonstrating similarities and differences between existing

studies of online community, in order to understand the food blogging community, how it

operates, and its implications. In doing so, this project argues that the ways in which we

understand and define online community should be reviewed. It uses food blogs as a case study

for understanding the role the internet plays in our daily lives, and, in looking at food blogs within

the historical context of recipe sharing and food-related media, the project provides an example

of how food can be used as a useful indicator of broader cultural trends.


Research methods

This research project takes a cultural studies approach, using Bourdieu’s concept of cultural and

social capital and drawing on subcultural research to understand food blogs. It investigates the

“interplay between lived experience, texts or discourses, and the social context” (Saukko 2003,

11) of food blogs, bloggers, the community and the broader historical and cultural context of

food and food media. It also incorporates aspects of food studies, which explores “the

relationships between food and the human experience” (Miller and Deutsch 2009, 3).

While this project studies an online phenomenon, it does not consider the internet, or online

communities, as separate or distinct from offline culture. Instead, it follows Richard Rogers’s

argument for a new approach to internet studies, in which “one is not so much researching the

Internet, and its users, as studying culture and society with the Internet” (2009, 29). As such, a

cultural studies approach is useful for understanding food blogs in a broader historical and

cultural context, since it considers the internet as “a rich arena for thinking about how

contemporary culture is constituted” (Hine et al. 2009, 2).

In order to understand food blogs, this project applies standard ethnographic research tools,

such as those used in Baym’s (2000) ethnographic study of an online soap opera fan group, to

investigate food bloggers and the food blogging community. Ethnographic tools are useful in

internet research because “ethnography has the ability to explore the scope of interpersonal

interactions as such while also taking into account the lack of face-to-face interaction and the

lack of a traditional notion of place in which to ground fieldwork” (Beneito-Montagut 2011, 718-

719).

Ethnographic tools are also valuable in food studies. Miller and Deutsch note that because “food

rituals and behaviors are some of the primary activities in private and public life, ethnography

can help us gain understandings of the greater meanings of these activities” (2009, 140).

Ethnographic tools used in this project include interviews with food bloggers, a survey of food

blog readers5, and (online and offline) participant observation. The interviews and surveys were

conducted after ethical clearance had been granted by QUT’s Research Ethics Unit. Using

these tools, the project investigates the motivations of bloggers, as well as their blogging

practice and experiences of the blogging community.

Ten food bloggers were interviewed for this project, nine of which were via email and one by

Skype. I approached 38 food bloggers to interview, who ranged from hobbyists to professionals.

I found these bloggers through ad hoc searching across food blogs. I selected potential

participants who were ‘active’ bloggers in that they updated their blogs on average once a week. 5 See Appendix 3 for an overview of the results of the survey of food blog readers.


They were also ‘ordinary’ people (rather than celebrity chefs or bloggers supported by a

newspaper or publisher) and they primarily blogged recipes. The 10 participants were those that

were available and responded positively to my request to interview them. Joëlle Kivits notes

that, while email interviewing is asynchronous, it makes for a “personal and thoughtful form of

communication” (2005, 35). Email interviews were useful for this project as they overcame

practical issues of distance, as many of the participants were based outside of Australia, and

they provided me with a means to interview food bloggers in a space they felt comfortable in –

that is, online. Food bloggers are comfortable expressing themselves through writing, and

responded well to the set email question form I sent them (see Appendix 1).

I analysed the interviews by looking for patterns and recurring themes between participants. I

also followed their blogs closely to find consistencies and inconsistencies between their

interview responses and the more public persona portrayed in the space of their blog. I looked

for examples of how they communicated, interacted and identified themselves as a food blogger

and as a member of the food blogging community.

The survey of food blog readers was an opt-in online survey. It was promoted through Twitter by

myself, some of the interview participants, and other community members, and on the

Australian Foodbloggers Google Group. The survey included food bloggers as blog readers,

and a total of 130 readers: 71 bloggers and 59 non-bloggers.

Participant observation, or “deep hanging out” (Hine et al. 2009, 29), has been a valuable tool in

this project. I have viewed the food blogging community from the point of view of a reader and a

blogger over the space of roughly 18 months (from early 2011 until mid-2012) in order to

“understand its many contexts” (Baym and Markham 2009b, 184). Blogs themselves can be

useful research tools (Hookway 2008; Olive 2012), and my food blog, Paddington Pantry, has

been a valuable tool for informing my interview questions and granting me access to community

spaces, including the Australian Foodbloggers Google Group and Eat. Drink. Blog., the

Australian food and drink bloggers’ conference. My blog is also a useful site for me to share my

research with the community. As with the interviews, I read closely to look for patterns and

recurring themes that helped define and explain the community and highlighted key shared

practices and other identifiers of community. I was already sensitised to the fact that food

bloggers often describe sense of community, so I looked for evidence that supported that this

was the case or suggested otherwise.

The project uses a close reading of text – blogs, blog posts, other websites and a food blogging

conference – to investigate the food blogging community in action. A close reading of food blogs

is used to produce a case study of a particular interaction within the community, which is offered

as indicative of how this community typically operates. Baym notes that “online social worlds are


accessible to researchers in ways that few other worlds are. If we want to understand them, we

need to look with rigor and detail” (2000, 198). A case study approach provides an opportunity

to study the food blogging community with such rigour and detail, and, as Miller and Slater note

in their ethnographic study of the Internet in Trinidad, is “the only firm basis for building up the

bigger generalizations and abstractions” (2000, 1). The textual analysis was carried out through

looking for patterns and recurring themes in the food blogging community.

For this project, the case study tracks a specific recipe across blogs by following hyperlinked

attributions, and using these links to create a network map – a visual representation of the

interactions in the case study, which provides insight into the structure of the food blogging

community. Network maps are useful because they provide a “visual decoder of complexity” and

a means to “document, clarify, reveal, expand, and abstract” (Lima 2011, 80) otherwise

complicated data or hidden relationships. Such network visualisation is often used to “show the

structures on super-human scale both in time and space” (Manovich 2008, 6), and, as such, are

particularly useful in internet research.

The network map in this case study is viewed through an ethnographic lens, as the hyperlinks

used to create the map make visible the connections between bloggers, revealing social

interactions. Hyperlinks, as Alexander Halavais notes, “seem to provide an opportunity to

understand social behavior when taken in the aggregate” (2008, 43). Similarly, Anne Beaulieu

suggests an ethnographic approach to understanding hyperlinks, arguing that “viewing

hyperlinks as both functional and symbolic suggests ways in which traditional elements of

ethnography might be adapted in order to constitute an online field site for the study of

infrastructure” (2005, 183).

Mapping and ethnography are combined in Lidia Marte’s (2007) study of the role of food in

Dominican immigrant communities in New York City. Marte uses “foodmaps” to trace the role of

food, both physically and emotionally, for immigrants, producing a graphic depiction of cultural

histories and experiences (2007, 261). The network map used in this project provides an

example of the food blogging community in action, and viewing the map through an

ethnographic lens reveals leaders, norms, ethics and conventions in the community.

The one recipe chosen for this case study provides a concise example of typical practice within

the food blogging community. Using one recipe is manageable within the scope of this project,

and provides insight into the mechanisms that support and operate within the community. As

the community is so large, a specific case study provides a useful way to understand and

conceptualise interactions and key practices. While the case study is on a small-scale in

comparison to the community as a whole, it reflects trends, tastes and key community

identifiers. It also shows relationships and connections between community members, which, in


some instances, bloggers themselves may not even be aware of. As Tiziana Terranova notes,

within the blogosphere, all blogs “can be considered as ultimately related to each other within

the informational orbit of the blogging movement” (2004, 69).

I used these methods – interviews, survey, participant observation and textual analysis –as

interpreted through a cultural studies approach using subcultural theory and the concepts of

cultural capital and social capital, to gain a dynamic, in-depth understanding of the food

blogging community.

Food is a particularly rich area of study, with significant economic, cultural, health and policy

implications, and Darra Goldstein encourages food studies scholars to “think broadly as well as

narrowly” (in Smith et al. 2010, 329). With this in mind, a cultural/food studies approach, using

ethnographic tools, is useful for investigating food blogs as, not purely an online phenomenon,

but rather one that has the potential both to shape and reflect culture. Such an approach allows

food blogs to be closely examined in order to make broader generalisations about the food

blogging community and its implications for the wider community.

In summary, this project examines food blogs within the historical context of food as culture,

taking into account the traditions around recipes as cultural technologies often communicated

through food-related media. It demonstrates how the food blogging community can be viewed

as a community, and how that community can be seen as a place. It privileges food bloggers’

experiences of community in doing this, in accordance with previous examples of subcultural

and community research. The project builds on the growing body of research into similar online

communities in the category of personal and lifestyle blogs. It favours this research over work

that investigates political blogs and citizen journalists, as these blogs are markedly different to

food blogs and not representative of blogging in general. Finally, the project discusses the

implications of food blogs and the food blogging community for food-related media and the

broader community.

Chapter 2: Demonstrating the food blogging community 28

Chapter 2: Demonstrating the food blogging community

Food has strong connotations of connection, comfort, and community, and while people can

easily prepare and consume food privately, generally we are more culturally inclined to do so

together. This inclination perhaps accounts for the fact that food bloggers feel that they form a

community and, for that matter, have an audience at all, given that the recipes featured on food

blogs could, for the most part, be found on any number of other websites. Food blogs, however,

offer a personal perspective, a voice, and a form of interaction that may be available through

offline activities such as community kitchens, or in groups that develop community cookbooks,

but is not always available in food-related media such as in television shows and cookbooks

that showcase the work of professional chefs and food writers.

Food bloggers often describe themselves as a community, and their strong sense of community

takes cues from cultural traditions of food and recipe sharing. Through content analysis,

participant observation, interviews with bloggers and a survey of food blog readers, this chapter

shows how the food blogging community can be seen as a community from an external

perspective. It does this by demonstrating how the community meets Wellman’s definition of

community as “networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a

sense of belonging and social identity” (2001, 228) and displays Baym’s key identifiers of online

and offline community: “sense of space, shared practice, shared resources and support, shared

identities, and interpersonal relationships” (2010, 75).

First, however, the chapter identifies the members of the community, discusses blogging

processes and motivations, and looks at the roles of community members. How the different

roles these members take on play out in the community is examined in more detail in Chapter 3.

Community members and roles

Online communities share many characteristics with offline communities, in terms of key groups

and different roles played by individual members. Baym describes the internal dynamics of an

online soap opera fan community, noting that individuals in the group “take on distinctive roles”

and “develop identities through performances that build distinctive styles” (2000, 173). Likewise,

within the food blogging community, members can be broken down into two broad groups:

bloggers and readers. Within these groups, members take on different, and sometimes multiple,

roles. Some members can be included in both groups, playing different roles in each. Members

may take on central or leadership roles as prolific bloggers with high readerships, while others


may be more comfortable as followers, peripheral members, or ‘lurkers’ who read blogs, and

may even have their own blog, but are rarely seen (such as through comments) (Baym 2000, 8).

Crawford suggests ‘listener’ as a more positive term to describe non-active participants, noting

that the term “reflects the fact that everyone moves between the states of listening and

disclosing online; both are necessary and both are forms of participation” (2009, 527).

The lurker, or listener, is the most common member of most online communities (Preece et al.

2004), and this also appears to be the case in the food blogging community – 134 people who

read food blogs (71 food bloggers and 58 non-bloggers) were surveyed for this project, of which

only 29 (22%) said they often commented on blogs, while 73 (57%) said they commented only

occasionally and 27 (21%) never commented. Because of this, the community is far larger than

it appears, as without commenting or participating publicly, members are all but invisible.

However, this is not something that is particular to online communities. Lurkers or listeners

could be considered equivalent to ‘ordinary’ members of offline communities. They are part of

the community, but may not be prominent or visible members. Yet they are important players in

the community – they make up the mass of the community, and in doing so constitute a

community for community leaders to lead.

Food bloggers

The survey of food bloggers and food blog readers conducted for this project, and the Foodista

State of Food Blogging Survey (2012), indicate that food bloggers are, for the most part, 20-40-

year-old women. Both surveys were self-nominating, and both were conducted online. The

following table shows the similar results of the two surveys.

Table 1: Comparison of food blog surveys

This project Foodista Sample size 71 (plus 59 non-bloggers) 694 food bloggers Female 84% 85% Aged 25-34 49% 40% Aged 35-44 25% 27%

Food bloggers are sometimes described as ‘foodies’, although this term is occasionally

contested. They are essentially food enthusiasts. Through my interviews with food bloggers, I

found that they commit significant amounts of time and resources to their blogs, to learning

about food, and to developing their cooking skills. They describe food blogging as enjoyable, but

also as an involved process, and they said they spent anywhere between 20 minutes and two

days writing a single post. Almost all the food bloggers interviewed commented that this time

varied widely, since it depends on a number for factors, such as their mood and the recipe.

Writing a post involves: selecting or planning a recipe; sourcing ingredients; preparing the food;

documenting the process; writing the post (including story, ingredients list and instructions);


photographing the process and finished product; editing the images and text, and uploading it to

a blogging platform. This process sometimes involves numerous rounds of testing the recipe,

and often, its promotion via social media, including subsequent responses to reader comments.

Most of the bloggers interviewed said that they did not plan their posts, or that when they did

they did not always use the planned posts, because they preferred to blog more spontaneously.

Food bloggers, like others who write about food and develop recipes for food-related media, find

inspiration for recipes in a wide range of places, and those interviewed said they got ideas for

posts from restaurants, magazines, other blogs, cookbooks, television cooking shows, iPhone

apps, and seasonal produce. Bloggers use these sources of inspiration differently – some use

them to create original recipes, others create adaptations from existing recipes, while others just

follow recipes as they are.

An interest in food is a key motivation for many food bloggers – 88% of the respondents in the

Foodista survey described “a passion for food” (Foodista 2012, n.p.) as their primary reason for

blogging. Beyond satisfying an interest, bloggers are motivated by being heard, making a name

for themselves as food writers, and interacting with a community.

Blogging research has investigated the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of bloggers, and how

these motivations have changed over time (Ekdale et al. 2010; Liao et al. 2011; Shen and Chiou

2009). Intrinsic motivations are based on personal interest or enjoyment of an activity (a person

engages in this activity for its own sake), while extrinsic motivations are based on pressures and

rewards associated with an activity (Calder and Staw 1975, 599). Liao et al. note that ‘ordinary’

bloggers are more likely to be driven by intrinsic motivations than extrinsic motivations because

“bloggers, even though they value extrinsic rewards the same as intrinsic rewards, tend to

believe that the probability that extrinsic rewards will occur is lower than the probability that

intrinsic rewards will occur” (Liao et al. 2011, 261).

Several food bloggers interviewed for this project commented that they were initially driven by

intrinsic motivations, such as the desire to document their recipes or to counter boredom. These

intrinsic motivations remain important, but extrinsic ones now have a greater influence as the

bloggers’ sense of the community has developed and their readership has increased, which in

turn has improved their likelihood of earning an income or finding related employment through

their blog. For example, Adrianna notes how her blog, A Cozy Kitchen, has developed:

I started a blog on a whim, actually. I was working a job that left me uninspired, so I

took to my kitchen at night. Soon thereafter, I was introduced to food blogs and

became totally obsessed. I decided to start my own to share what I was cooking in

my kitchen on the weekends. I didn't set-out with any goals except to share… It's


definitely developed into something that was beyond what I initially imagined. So

yeah, making a full-time living off of it is currently the goal. I'm about half-way there!

Similarly, Jen from My Kitchen Addiction, writes on the ‘about’ page of her blog that she initially

started blogging as a way to keep track of her recipes, but as her audience has grown, her

motivations to continue blogging have become more community-driven:

For me, blogging is all about the community. I have a passion for

cooking and baking for those that I love. When you take the people

out of it, though, it’s just not the same. I feel the same way about

my blog… I do it because I want to share my love of food with

others. It’s all about community.

While it appears to be a common theme, it is worth noting that not all bloggers experience a

shift from intrinsic to extrinsic motivations. This may in part be due to their initial motivation for

blogging. For instance, Sunday created her blog Anger Burger as a tool to keep track of her

recipes. Sunday’s motivation did not include sharing these recipes with a wider audience, which

is perhaps why her motivations have not changed:

The only initial reason was to organize and archive my recipes in a format that was

easy to access from wherever I was… The hopes and dreams for Anger Burger

have not changed drastically since the beginning. I hope primarily to entertain

myself. If I try for anything else, I lose interest in writing almost instantly.

As the food blogging community’s population has grown, many newer bloggers comment on

interactions with the community as being part of their motivation to start a food blog – an

extrinsic motivation. For instance, Lisa, writer of the blog Lisa’s Foods, describes on her blog

her reason for starting a food blog:

It wasn’t for money or fame. Not for teaching and explaining myself.

It was for a sense of community.

Food bloggers, once they identify with the community, are often motivated to keep blogging to

continue the social interaction and to retain their reputation. Botsman and Rogers describe

reputation as “a personal reward that is intimately bound up with respecting and considering the

needs of others” (2010, 217). In this sense, reputation is both a benefit of, and a motivation for,

contributing (information, support, resources) to a community (Kollock 1999, 228). Maintaining,

or building, a good reputation is important for members of the food blogging community.

Through providing support for other members of the community and consistently producing a


good ‘product’ (recipes, writing, photography), food bloggers develop a good reputation in their

community, which helps them accrue and share cultural capital.

The level of professionalism for different community members can be a useful means of

categorisation. It also reflects their motivations and influences the role they play in the

community. Food bloggers range from hobbyists to professionals. Cathy, writer of the blog

Aficionado, describes the diversity of food bloggers:

They are as diverse as the food that they blog about. Some are industry

professionals, some are excellent home cooks, some are food photographers,

some don't know the first thing about food, take terrible pictures and use the word

'nice' ten times to describe a 5-course meal at Mcdonalds.

Some food bloggers can be considered, as Cathy notes, industry professionals who have

professional skills that have given them an advantage in creating their blog. For example, they

may have a background in media, as writers or photographers, or experience working in

advertising and marketing. They could also have a food-related background, perhaps has a

chef, nutritionist or recipe developer, such as prominent food blogger David Lebovitz, who is a

former professional pastry chef, or Taylor from Taylor Takes a Taste, who is a professional food

photographer. Others, while not professionals when they started their blog, have become

professional. They may make a living directly from their blog, or they may have used their blog

to become professional in a food-related area, for example as a cookbook author, recipe

developer, television host or restaurateur. For example, Deb Perelman has become a

professional food writer through her blog Smitten Kitchen. The blog reportedly has about 8

million page views a month (Dougherty 2012, 55), and Perelman had a cookbook published in

2013. Similarly, Molly Wizenberg, creator of the blog Orangette, has become a professional

food writer and published author through her blog. Since starting her blog, she has also opened

a restaurant with her husband (who she met through her blog).

Many other bloggers are hobbyists who use their blog to indulge in their interest in food, learn

new things, and perhaps interact with a broader community. For example, Cathy’s blog

Aficionado could be described as a hobby. While Cathy formerly worked as a professional chef,

she uses her blog to keep a record of her recipes, and says that she does not interact with the

food blogging community.

Some food bloggers, however, cannot accurately be described as amateurs or as professionals

– these bloggers are Pro-Ams:

A Pro-Am pursues an activity as an amateur, mainly for the love of it, but sets a


professional standard. Pro-Ams are unlikely to earn more than a small portion of

their income from their pastime but they pursue it with the dedication and

commitment associated with a professional. For Pro-Ams, leisure is not passive

consumerism but active and participatory; it involves the deployment of publicly

accredited knowledge and skills, often built up over a long career, which has

involved sacrifices and frustrations. (Leadbeater and Miller 2004, 20)

An example of a Pro-Am blogger is Cindy, creator of the blog Hungry Girl Por Vida. Cindy blogs

regularly, interacts with the food blogging community, produces recipes and photographs at a

high standard and generates a small amount of income from her blog, but not enough (at this

stage) for it to be a full-time job.

Leadbeater and Miller describe Pro-Ams as being “rich in cultural capital”, which they enjoy

sharing (2004, 40), and this is particularly evident with Pro-Am bloggers, and those who are

looking to become professional. They have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for

contributing to the community, which drive them to invest significant amounts of time into

blogging activities (such as writing posts and interacting with community members on other

sites).

Food blogs could also be grouped into topic or focus categories. These could be based on

dietary requirements, food ideals, and specialist interests. However, topic or focus is not a

particularly useful means of categorising food bloggers, because these categories do not

necessarily reflect bloggers’ roles in the community, as bloggers interact and connect with

bloggers across numerous categories. While some special interest groups exist – for example,

vegetarian bloggers may interact regularly with other vegetarian bloggers – food bloggers do not

typically form exclusive groups based on topic or focus. Bloggers may also fit into multiple

categories simultaneously.

Traditional demographics, such as those based on gender, age and location, could also be used

to categories food bloggers. As discussed previously, food bloggers typically share

demographic traits, making these traits unhelpful for categorisation. Additionally, like topic or

focus categories, demographics do not necessarily reflect the role bloggers occupy in the

community, or dictate the relationships and interactions between bloggers.

The most useful means for categorising food bloggers is by their motivations for blogging and

their level of professionalism, which reflect either their role in the community or the role they

aspire to occupy. For example, professional and Pro-Am bloggers are more likely to be well

known, high profile community members, with large readerships. New bloggers are likely to


follow the norms set by these established bloggers, in particular if they have professional

ambitions or, as discussed previously, are motivated to start a food blog because they want to

be part of the community. Hobbyist bloggers, on the other hand, may use their blog primarily as

a way to document their interest in food and photography, and to share recipes with their

personal network of friends and family.

Food blog readers

Baumer, Sueyoshi and Tomlinson argue that “in examining the increasingly common social

activity of blogging, we must consider the experiences, roles, and contributions of readers, even

when less readily apparent than those of bloggers” (2008, 9), and note that “blog reading allows

for widely varied means of ‘being a part,’ giving rise to new notions of community and belonging”

(2008, 10).

Most, if not all, food bloggers are also food blog readers. How readers are viewed by bloggers,

and whether they consider themselves as part of the community, varies. This is largely

dependent on whether readers also have a blog or not. In my survey, I found that readers who

are also bloggers consider reading blogs as part of being engaging with the community. Non-

blogging readers, on the other hand, are less visibly engaged. Some of these readers wish to

remain anonymous, while others enjoy interacting with bloggers, giving feedback on recipes,

and sharing cooking tips. The demographics of readers in the survey conducted for this project

were similar to those of bloggers. The ways bloggers and readers each found blogs and their

motivations for reading them were also similar. The only substantial difference between readers

with blogs and non-blogging readers was that those without blogs were far less likely to leave

comments on blogs. Non-blogging readers are also more likely to be lurkers who read blogs

purely for entertainment and have no interaction at all with the blog. Others, while perhaps not

interacting with bloggers directly, such as by leaving comments, may participate, in a sense, by

making the recipes on the blogs.

It is difficult to know how many non-blogging readers there are. While bloggers are easily

accessible and highly visible, readers are difficult to access and, unless they comment on blogs,

all but invisible. Readers are peripheral citizens – denizens – of the food blogging community:

their identity is ambiguous. Readers are also not necessarily implied by the term ‘food blogging

community’; however, they are key community members. They provide an audience for food

bloggers, which, despite being measurable by bloggers through the statistics information

provided by blogging software (page views and unique visitors), is essentially imagined. Some

readers make themselves visible by leaving comments, but many do not. The statistics show

the numbers of readers, but the bloggers may not know how readers felt about their blog

content. However, readers may influence blog content to varying degrees. For example,


bloggers may infer that a high number of page views for one post suggests that the content was

well received, and may be inclined to write similar posts in the future.

While readers may be almost invisible, they are often used to measure a blog’s success. As

Farrell and Drezner note, “links and page views are the currency of the blogosphere. Many

bloggers desire a wide readership” (2008, 17). Readers can also be a source of anxiety, in

particular for new bloggers, as Clotilde notes:

in… your beginner years, it can feel a little overwhelming this idea that you have to

keep feeding the blog… you feel like you have to… maintain it, post something

new, and sometimes it can kind of be a burden on your creativity because you feel

like it’s… something that you have to do and that you can’t escape from, unless

you want to risk losing readers or disappointing readers.

In their study of blogger motivations, Nardi, Schiano and Gumbrecht found that just as bloggers

attract readers, creating an audience, the ‘audience also creates the blog’ (2004, 224). They

argue that blogs:

are a studied minuet between blogger and audience. Bloggers consider audience

attention, feedback, and feelings as they write. While bloggers do not always judge

their audiences correctly, and may inadvertently write inappropriate or injurious

posts, consciousness of audience is central to the blogging experience.

(2004, 225)

Yet this “studied minuet” is based on an asymmetrical relationship – bloggers want readers, but

do not necessarily want a high degree of interaction with them (Nardi et al. 2004, 227). This

asymmetry can be seen in the food blogging community, as food bloggers have varying

understandings and interests in their readers. Of the food bloggers interviewed for this project,

many said they did not think about their readers, yet they expressed interest in finding ways to

make an income from their blog and promoted their blog in some way, suggesting that readers

are important to them. Some did not think about their readers, and did not find that their readers

influenced their content. Many bloggers interviewed commented that their blog was more

influenced by what they were cooking that day, week, or month, than it was by their readers.

Some bloggers said that they did not think about their readers because their readership was too

broad. Others wanted to ensure that their blog was a space for personal expression, and

therefore did not want to think about their readers too much in case they lost focus. As Karen

notes:


The blog started as a form of expression for myself so I try not to let anyone other

than myself influence my content and direction of the blog. I select recipes based

on where I live so even though a majority of readers are from the US, I'll only post

recipes appropriate for Australian seasons eg winter recipes even though it's

Summer in US.

Other bloggers who do think about their readers tend to consider them as being similar to them.

This allows their blog to remain a space of personal expression, while reaching a sometimes

very specific audience. Sunday notes:

I picture my readers as myself, and I’m always surprised to find that someone is

older or has children or some other drastically different lifestyle. But I think that

part of my success (if we can call it that) is that I am always, at the core, just writing

to myself.

For their part, readers are generally interested in knowing about the bloggers. Of the non-

blogging readers surveyed for this project, 66% said that it was important for them to know

about the person writing a blog. This does, however, mean almost a third of blog readers

surveyed are not particularly interested in knowing about the blogger. When I posted these

survey results on my blog and shared it with bloggers, this was one of the key points

commented on. Some bloggers were surprised and disappointed that their readers were not

more interested in them. This reflects the asymmetrical relationship between these bloggers and

readers to which Nardi, Schiano and Gumbrecht (2004, 227) refer. Bloggers may want their

readers to be interested in them, or in fact assume that readers are interested in them, but this

interest is not necessarily mutual.

Pro-Am, aspiring professional bloggers such as Adrianna (A Cozy Kitchen), on the other hand,

are more likely to consider, and be influenced by, their readers than hobbyist bloggers. As

Adrianna notes:

I guess I picture them like myself; even though I do know my audience ranges in

age. I definitely think of them when picking recipes and writing. If I want to cook

something, I'll generally do some research to make sure it hasn't been posted on

another blog recently. I don't want to make something people have seen a million

times before.

Bloggers such as Adrianna conduct a sort of ‘audit’ on other blogs, reading them as a way to

keep up to date with trends, and also, somewhat conversely, to avoid duplication. They are

therefore engaged community members, as both readers and bloggers.


At Eat. Drink. Blog., the Australian food and drink bloggers’ conference, attendees (food and

drink bloggers from around Australia) were encouraged to understand their readers – to have a

clear picture of who they are – in order to have a more successful blog. How clearly bloggers

can identify their readers is likely a reflection of their motivations for blogging. Bloggers at the

conference could be considered to be in the Pro-Am spectrum of food blogging, and as such,

may be more motivated to attract a greater readership. This suggests that they also used

quantitative measures, such as number of readers (based on visitors or subscribers) to define

success. Other bloggers, such as hobbyists, might not use these kinds of measures. Instead,

they might favour more qualitative measures, and measure their success by how their writing or

photography has improved, or on external feedback received offline from friends and family.

Reducing readers to numbers undermines the role they play in the community. Baumer,

Sueyoshi and Tomlinson suggest a literary theory reader-response approach to understanding

blog readers, in which the reader is not considered as “a passive recipient of content… but

rather engages in an active process of interpretation” (2010, 1). They argue that “the reality and

meaning of a blog exists neither solely in the blog itself nor solely in the reader, but rather in the

reader’s active interpretation of, and interaction with, the blog” (Baumer et al. 2008, 1). This

interpretation happens in a literal sense with food blogs, as readers re-create the food from the

bloggers’ recipes, and may in turn add their own interpretation, which may be based on

personal preference, location, seasonality or dietary needs. This recreation and interpretation of

recipes is explored further in the case study of Chapter 3.

The possibility of tangible action and outcomes from food blogs is an extension, and literal

application, of the concept of active audiences and “writerly” texts (Barthes 1974). Pre-existing

notions of food as a symbol togetherness, identity, and comfort, combined with the potential for

readers to recreate and share a tangible experience, gives the food blogging community

strength. It also differentiates it from other online communities, which are often based on

exchange of ideas and information only.

For bloggers who actively consider their readers, the tangible outcomes are particularly

important. They provide a motivation for blogging, a sense of satisfaction, and a sense of

obligation to produce quality recipes. Food blogs, perhaps unlike other blogs, can be ‘tested’ by

readers, as readers can attempt a recipe themselves, in doing so sharing a physical experience

with the blogger and other readers. The outcome of the recipe is likely to influence their

relationship with that blog, and the blogger. If they are successful in re-creating the recipe, or,

conversely, if they are not, they may be more likely to then interact in the online space of the

food blogging community. Adrianna describes this process of interaction from a blogger point of

view:


My favorite thing about food blogging is when I get an email, tweet, or comment

about someone enjoying a recipe I posted. A small piece of me is in their house

with them--it's a beautiful thing.

This interaction, with the tangible product produced and the experience shared, echoes David

Gauntlett’s argument that “making is connecting” (2011, 2). Gauntlett notes that creating and

sharing online content is a process that “creates networks of emotional support and significant

social bonds” (2011, 104). People who produce and share food that others enjoy have

historically enjoyed a large amount of social capital, and this tradition contributes to the richness

and depth of connections in the food blogging community.

An understanding of community members, motivations, and roles provides a necessary

foundation for examining how the community is formed and how it operates. The next section

will demonstrate how individual members form a community, and how the food blogging

community can be seen as a community, using Baym’s and Wellman’s aforementioned key

identifiers of community. That is, it will show how the food blogging community provides:

• a sense of belonging

• shared/social identities

• shared practice

• a sense of space

• sociability and interpersonal relationships

• shared resources, information and support.

(Baym 2010, 75; Wellman 2001, 228)

Sense of belonging

The food blogging community is a community of interest. Food bloggers find comfort in the idea

that others share their interest and enthusiasm for food. From this, they feel a sense of

belonging and a sense of being understood. As Clotilde notes:

The community is very important to me because… bloggers are the most vocal

readers of other bloggers…. they comment a lot more and they interact a lot more,

and it just feels… like this sense of connection is really what I was looking for

initially… this sense that we’re all a big family of like-minded people is a very

comforting thought.


This sense of belonging is not exclusive to the food blogging community – it can be seen in

other communities of interest. However, what perhaps sets the food blogging community apart

from other online communities is that sharing food is itself traditionally associated with a sense

of belonging and comfort, and that food blogs offer the potential for tangible experiences. As

Richard Wilk notes, “food is a medium to build families, religious communities, ethnic

boundaries and a consciousness of history” (2006, 4). Likewise, Warren Belasco argues that

“it's very hard to imagine a positive social experience that does not involve the sharing of food”

(2008, 1).

The shared interest of food bloggers is broadly anything food-related, but, more specifically, the

interest that helps create a sense of community is finding like-minded people who are interested

in trying and creating new food, experimenting with food, and developing a knowledge of food

and food practices. These more specific interests show the community to be, while primarily one

of interest, also one of learning, knowledge and practice. Blogs provide a useful forum for

learning, sharing knowledge and improving practice, and those blogs focused on making things,

such as food, form strong communities, with a strong sense of connection – or belonging –

among members (Gauntlett 2011, 100-101). As Gauntlett argues, “people spend time creating

online content because they want to feel active and recognized within a community of

interesting people” (2011, 101).

Shared/social identities and shared practices: ‘you know you’re a food blogger

when…’

Food bloggers have a strong sense of identity and a clear idea of what makes someone a food

blogger. This can be seen in their tendency to write posts reflecting on what it means to be a

food blogger. For example, Tea, writer of the blog Tea & Cookies, describes her experiences of

food blogging in the post “Diary of a Mad Food Blogger”, which was followed by several posts

titled “You know you’re a food blogger when...”.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE AN OBSESSED FOOD BLOGGER WHEN: A full 80% of the

photos in your computer files are of food. Your fridge and freezer

is stuffed with ingredients you’re wanting to try and use. Your

stove is splattered and your kitchen floor needs to be swept often.

You have a stack of cookbooks by your bed. You check your blog

comments before checking your own email every morning.

While this post is certainly tongue-in-cheek, and Tea does describe herself as an “obsessed”

food blogger, it does show that Tea is a Pro-Am; her blogging has gone beyond a simple leisure

activity or hobby. As Leadbeater and Miller note, “leisure is often regarded as a zone of freedom


and spontaneity, which contrasts with the necessity of work. Yet much Pro-Am activity is also

characterised by a sense of obligation and necessity. Pro-Ams talk of their activities as

compulsions” (2004, 21). Similarly, Lorraine, of the prominent Australian blog Not Quite Nigella

(which features both restaurant reviews and recipes), has a series of posts titled “… Things You

Should Know About Food Bloggers”. Lorraine jokingly describes “the” food blogger as a

“species” and “creature”, positioning food bloggers as being markedly different from ‘ordinary’

people, and also strengthening their shared identity through this differentiation, which is

developed largely through shared practices. In her final point, Lorraine comments:

We carry a spare battery and if it’s a once in a lifetime moment, we

carry a spare lens and/or camera. I also carry a fork with me and a

knife is in the car. I have a response already prepared for the

police officer that stops me and is alarmed to see I have a knife in

the glove compartment. “I’m sorry officer but you see I’m a Food

Blogger”.

Lorraine’s post shows the strong sense of identity she feels as a food blogger. The story is

perhaps hyperbolic, but carries conviction and reflects a clear sense of identity. Pro-Am

bloggers, such as Tea and Lorraine (who, since writing these posts can be seen more as

professionals than as Pro-Ams), may be more reflective, and more inclined to contemplate their

position in the community, but hobbyist or amateur bloggers also share in this strong sense of

identity. They do this in the way enthusiasts and fans derive meaning from their enthusiast or

fan activities. Because food – cooking and eating – is an everyday activity, bloggers have more

chances to consider their relationships to it, and to build on their identities as food bloggers by

recording both their eating habits and their feelings about them. Food, in general, has a

powerful ability to instil a sense of identity in communities. We define ourselves in relation to,

and derive a sense of identity from, our food habits. For food bloggers, this experience is

heightened. They represent a supercharged version of how we engage with food. In this way,

food bloggers reflect broader food culture.

Sense of space and sense of place

Food traditionally is associated with a strong sense of place – from the specific characteristics

of produce from certain geographic areas (terroir), to regional dishes and food sharing customs

– and with special spaces in the home, such as the kitchen and dining room. Recipes, in

particular those for traditional dishes, such as Portuguese custard tarts or Vietnamese pho, are

an extension of this sense of place – they can be reproduced in new and different spaces to

recreate a sense of connection to their place of origin. As Gallegos notes, “cookbooks instil us

with a sense of place, belonging and achievement” (2005, 109).


Wellman notes that “although physical place continues to be important, cyberspace has become

cyberplace, affecting the ways in which people find and maintain community” (2004, 247).

Space and place, according to Tuan, are experienced differently, as space is abstract and

difficult to define, while place is more concrete and secure (1977, 6-7). For food bloggers, online

spaces are experienced as real and personal places. As Sunday notes:

I feel it’s a pretty solid comparison to say that it’s like entering someone’s home:

this is where they hold court, their guests probably like them a lot and are eager to

participate. The allegory is itself like having a meal: the blogger makes something

and offers it forth to her friends, who consume it and make polite (or bawdy, as the

case may be) small talk, and all depart until the next time.

The sense of space, and the idea of a defined place, is comforting. Jennie describes on her blog

the sense of place and the comfort her blog provided after the sudden death of her husband:

It's funny how I can feel so alone in a crowded room these days.

This little place here in cyberspace, though—I never feel alone

here.

The idea of a blog as a blogger’s personal space, and the existing societal norms and etiquette

around sharing food, go some way to explaining why people rarely leave negative comments on

food blogs – only 19 (19%) of the readers surveyed for this project had left negative comments

on blogs. While food ethics, production, and politics cause a great amount of anxiety, on- and

offline, and blogs focusing on these topics may attract some negative comments, recipe blogs

do not attract the types of negative responses, perhaps because they are essentially sharing

food, not discussing it in general terms, and when food is offered to us and shared with us, we

are less likely to be critical of it. As Belasco notes, “according to the concept of commensality,

sharing food has almost magical properties in its ability to turn self-seeking individuals into a

collaborative group” (2008, 19).

For the food bloggers interviewed for this project, a comments section was seen as an important

part of their site and a key space in which they can interact with readers and other bloggers. For

instance, Cindy from Hungry Girl Por Vida notes in my interview with her that interacting with

her readers through comments is important because she is a “regular” girl, and this is likely

what her readers appreciate and enjoy about her blog (given that, as with any food blog, the

recipes are probably available on other websites and in other media, and the key ‘selling point’

of a blog, as it were, is the blogger’s ‘voice’). Similarly, in my interview with Kaitlin from the blog

Whisk Kid, she describes how she interacts with her readers through comments so that her

readers do not feel “insignificant and forgotten” or think that she’s “only blogging for fame”.


Many of the bloggers interviewed for this project also referred to Twitter and Facebook as key

sites for broader community interactions. Twitter in particular is increasingly becoming a key

community space where food bloggers can promote their blog as well as interact with their

readers and with other bloggers. Clotilde describes Twitter as being the space where the food

blogging community is currently the “most vibrant”:

I do love the interactions, and Twitter is very important in that… respect… that’s

where the community, the blogging community, right now, is the most, vibrant…

And… there are bloggers on whose blog I never comment, but I interact with them

on Twitter a lot. So, you know, it’s just it’s a different kind of interaction.

Food blogging community spaces also exist offline, at events, such as conferences and social

gatherings. These spaces work together, creating richness, depth, and a stronger sense of

community, just as offline communities occupy a variety of public, private, and intermediate

spaces. For example, the Australian food and drink bloggers’ conference, saw an intersection of

on- and offline spaces through bloggers’ individual blogs, a community blog, an offline space

and Twitter; the latter was used by bloggers while they occupied the conference space, to the

extent that the hashtag for the event, #eatdrinkblog2011, trended in Australia for a brief time

during the conference day. As previously noted, such events are likely to attract ‘serious’ food

bloggers – Pro-Ams, aspiring professionals and professionals – and, as central or prominent

members of their community, the actions of these bloggers, even the fact that they create and

attend these types of events, sets a standard of communication, relationship to community

spaces, and interaction and communication practices for the rest of the community. These

events help to establish the food blogosphere as a place rather than a nebulous, ill-defined

space.

Sociability, shared resources and support

Blogging can be a solitary activity, but food bloggers find ways to ‘do things’ together. They

create events, challenges, and friendly competitions as a way of connecting with each other and

learning new things about food. Some are small scale events where bloggers create and share

a recipe based on a theme, while others are longer running events, such as the surprisingly

popular, year-long, home charcuterie (meat curing, salting and smoking) challenge

“Charcutepalooza”, created by the bloggers from Mrs Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen and The Yummy

Mummy.


Several of the food bloggers interviewed for this project commented that they were surprised by

how interactive food blogging can be. They commented on the connectivity between bloggers

across the world, and the people they had met (sometimes never in person) through food

blogging who they now considered to be good friends. Cathy, from the blog Aficionado,

attributes this sense of connection to the act of sharing food.

Sharing experiences with the community – both with other bloggers and with blog readers –

reflects the participatory nature of the food blogging community. Individual bloggers, in a sense,

work together to co-create recipes, refining them with each post, and providing a wider range of

options for readers who might choose to make the recipe but need something that fits with their

food ideals, ethics, or dietary restrictions. A more specific example of this co-creation is

discussed in Chapter 3. As a community of interest, the majority of the information shared on

blogs is food-related. Food bloggers continue the tradition of sharing recipes, albeit now in a

public forum that is easily accessible from many locations. Bloggers also occasionally respond

to requests for recipes. Bloggers may also share their failures in the kitchen and ask readers for

input or feedback on how to improve a recipe.

Beyond sharing food and recipe information, food bloggers also offer tips and advice on

blogging practice. This can be seen as a sort of meta-discussion, which occurs in various on-

and offline community spaces. For instance, at the Australian food bloggers’ conference, the

majority of the program focused on blogging practice, providing information on topics such as

search engine optimisation (SEO), writing, copyright and defamation, food photography and

food styling. A far smaller portion of the conference was devoted to food practice itself. The

parts of the conference most heavily featuring food were, like most conferences, the social

ones.

Online, food bloggers readily share advice on blogging, from basic blogging practice through to

attracting more readers and monetising a blog. Sharing this type of information reflects the

open, non-competitive nature of the community, and reveals community leaders – often Pro-Am

or professional bloggers. Food bloggers also share their experiences of food blogging and offer

encouragement and advice to new bloggers. For instance, Joy the Baker offers a frank

discussion of the realities of food blogging and why people should (or should not) do it in her

post “10 Real-Talk Blog Tips”:

Only blog if you LOVE it. Only make it if you want to eat it. Only

photograph it if you think it looks pretty, sparkly, or otherwise

awesome. Only write about it if you’re really into it. Only wear it

if you think it’s major. When it comes to blogging… only do it if

you love it.


Experienced and professional food bloggers offer advice on ways to become professional, such

as getting published. For example, David Lebovitz, who has published seven books, offers

advice on writing a cookbook. The post also features a list of related links to posts on other sites

about professional food writing. It is, however, worth noting that while food bloggers are

sometimes portrayed in the media as all wanting a book deal (e.g. Phipps 2011, n.p.), many are

happy to continue blogging as amateurs, hobbyists, or Pro-Ams, and value the interactions with

the community more than they value recognition by mainstream media.

Sharing this type of information reveals community members’ roles and aspirations. When

professional food bloggers share information about how they achieved their success, they are

identifying themselves as community leaders. They may be reluctant to use the term

‘community leader’, but their actions suggest that they are community leaders, and that they are

aware of the responsibilities that come from their positions. As Clotilde, an established,

professional blogger who has published several books, comments:

You know, I don’t think every time I post I hope so and so from such and such blog

is going to enjoy this. But I do strive to be a member of a community that’s

respected and that treats others with respect and … when people write to me to

ask for help with a project or to promote something… I try my best to help, and to

be a good member of my community. I’m not the member who’s the most

involved… I don’t like launch big operations, fundraisers, and that sort of thing, just

because … I’m… slightly solitary… I’m good on my own [laughs].

Other bloggers provide links to useful resources, offering a sort of indexing service. For

example, Christina from The Hungry Australian links to 95 articles on food blogging from the

“Resources” page of her blog. In directing other bloggers to these kinds of resources, bloggers

position themselves as community organisers. As a relatively new blogger, Christina is an

enthusiastic member of the community, and as her motivations for starting a blog stem partly

from wanting to be a part of the community, she has taken on a role different from more

established professional roles. As the community has become more established, the types of

roles have also become broader, and the expectations of new members have also shifted.

The food blogging community also provides tangible, offline support to its members. This

support is a source of pride for community members, as Adrianna notes:

The food blogging community is a beautiful group of people. Last year [2011] a

fellow blogger's house burned down, and a few of them organized a fund for her

and her family. In three days they raised $10,000--it was remarkable. They're a

good group of people. I'm proud to be a part of this community.


When blogger Jennifer Perillo’s husband Mickey suddenly died, she asked people to make a

peanut butter cream pie, his favourite dessert, and share it with someone they love. Food

bloggers from around the world responded with posts titled “A pie for Mickey”. Bloggers Without

Borders, a non-profit organisation working with bloggers to raise money for a range of causes,

started “A Fund For Jennie”, to raise money for her family in the wake of her husband’s death.

The fund was initiated in response to bloggers asking what they could do to help. The

community response saw $76,430.50 raised through auctions and donations. Although the

fundraising has since attracted some controversy, as Jennie’s financial situation was described,

inaccurately, as being “dire”, what is clear is that the community is eager to provide tangible,

practical support for members.

The community also has a sense of social responsibility and provides tangible support to the

broader community as well. For example, during the 2011 Queensland floods, blogger Danielle

Crismani from the blog Digella Emporium initiated the “Baked Relief” campaign, which mobilised

bloggers across Queensland to deliver food to volunteers in the flood clean-up. The project then

expanded, focusing on providing food and other essential items to those affected by the floods,

and then to those affected by Cyclone Yasi and the Christchurch earthquake. Similarly, in

response to the 2011 Japan earthquake, several bloggers encouraged their readers to donate

to aid organisations such as the Red Cross, and ran charity auctions to raise funds. Activities

such as these strengthen the community, and members feel a greater sense of community

when they participate. These activities also, as Adrianna notes, instil a sense of pride in

community members, reinforcing a sense of belonging and an enthusiasm for interacting with

the community. Given the nature of their shared interest, it is perhaps not surprising that food

bloggers are keen to take part in these activities. Food is traditionally a facilitator of community

interaction, or at the very least present in many cultural and social activities.

This chapter has demonstrated how, in providing a sense of belonging, shared identity, shared

practice, a sense of space and place, sociability and interpersonal relationships, and shared

resources, information, and support, the food blogging community can indeed be viewed as a

community. The community extends beyond online spaces, and has offline, tangible

implications. Beyond this, the food blogging community provides an explicit example of food

culture and a record of food habits. As Gallegos notes, the significance of cookbooks “lies not in

the reproducibility of their recipes; rather, their significance is their emergence as vehicles and

tools used to maintain the communication between the web of flows that is ‘culture’” (2005, 99).

Food blogs, like cookbooks, have value beyond their recipes, and, while they provide a

community in and of themselves, they also provide a window into food culture, and an archive of

the food habits of ‘ordinary’ people

Chapter 3: The case of the pull-apart bread: The food blogging community in action 46

Chapter 3: The case of the pull-‐apart bread: The food blogging

community in action

As discussed in the previous chapter, the food blogging community provides its members with a

sense of belonging, shared identity, shared practice, a sense of space and place, sociability and

interpersonal relationships, and shared resources, information and support. As a community, it

offers opportunities for food bloggers to continue long held cultural traditions of food and recipe

sharing, in an online environment. This chapter uses a case study approach to examine this

sharing in action.

Food has traditionally been something that is shared, and something that people create

together. In her study of an online soap opera fan community, Baym notes that the topic (soap

operas), influences the types of people drawn to the community and the qualities and norms of

the community (2000, 210). Similarly, the nature of food, and the kinds of people drawn to

talking about, creating, and sharing it, is also likely to influence the make-up of the food blogging

community. The generally positive, supportive, non-competitive nature of the community is

reflected in the social currency afforded to bloggers who create something new that the

community enjoys, as well as in the ethics around recipe attribution, which are seemingly

embedded in culture. For generations people have attributed recipes to their source, or at least

the source they got them from, and it is common for someone to name the food after the person

who gave them the recipe, such as ‘Grandma’s chocolate cake’ or ‘Mum’s banana bread’, or to

attribute the recipe to a celebrity chef, such as ‘Nigella’s brownies’ or ‘Jamie’s roast chicken’.

People who create recipes are held in high esteem, and because food bloggers are generally

engaged with food on a level beyond that of other people, they are more likely to adhere to

these cultural traditions.

This chapter uses a case study approach, with a close reading of texts, to track a recipe shared

across many blogs. This specific interaction within the community is representative of how it

generally operates. The case study builds on the demonstration of the food blogging community

in Chapter 2, and provides an opportunity to see the community in action. It shows how the

long-held traditions of recipe sharing and attribution play out in the food blogging community,

and reveals community leaders, norms, ethics, relationships, and interactions between

bloggers.

The case study tracks the recipe, for a pull-apart bread, across blogs by following hyperlinked

attributions, and uses these links to create a network map, which makes visible the connections


between bloggers. Hyperlinks reveal social interactions, and, as Alexander Halavais notes,

“provide an opportunity to understand social behavior when taken in the aggregate” (2008, 43).

Recipes change and evolve over time, as they are shared within communities and through food-

related media. Following a specific recipe over time and over food blogs, and recording its

changes makes this evolution visible and provides insight into how the food blogging community

operates, and its textual and social practices.

Method: finding, tracking, and mapping the recipe

As a subscriber to the Joy the Baker blog, I read the recipe for “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart

Bread” when it was posted on 7 March 2011.

Figure 2: Screenshot of the pull-apart bread recipe on Joy the Baker

The recipe piqued my interest and I followed the hyperlink to Hungry Girl Por Vida, the blog to

which Joy, writer of Joy the Baker, attributes the recipe. Cindy, the writer of Hungry Girl Por

Vida, in turn attributes the recipe to the blog Anger Burger and a post on the edited site The

Kitchn. On The Kitchn, the recipe is attributed to its original writer, Flo Braker, who included it in

her cookbook Baking for All Occasions (2008). The Kitchn also links to a post written by Flo

Braker on Leite’s Culinaria.


Figure 3: Screenshot of the pull-apart bread recipe on the blog Leite's Culinaria, post written by

Flo Braker

This was how I, as a food blog reader, traced the recipe from a blog I follow to the ‘original’

source.

While reading a different recipe on the blog 17 and Baking, I noticed that one of the popular

posts on the blog was “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”.

Figure 4: Screenshot of the pull-apart bread recipe on the blog 17 and Baking


The post on 17 and Baking attributes the recipe to Flo Braker and links to Baking for All

Occasions on Amazon. Among the readers’ responses were links from other bloggers who had

also posted the recipe on their own blogs. Thus began a more comprehensive search to find as

many instances of the recipe on blogs as possible.

To find more instances of the recipe, I followed the hyperlinked attributions in blog posts,

automatically generated links in trackbacks and pingbacks, and links in readers’ comments. I

also conducted a Google search for the recipe, and searched aggregator sites TasteSpotting,

foodgawker, DessertStalking and Foodbuzz.

I recorded 128 websites featuring the recipe. Most were food blogs. Some, like The Kitchn and

Leite’s Culinaria, were edited sites run by professional food writers. Some sites were not

specifically food blogs, but were parenting, lifestyle, health or personal journal-style blogs. I only

recorded details of sites where the recipe had been recreated, as there were numerous sites

that linked to the recipe as something of interest, but did not suggest that they had made it

themselves or offer any new information. For each site, I recorded the site to which they

attributed the recipe. In some cases, this was more than one site, as they would state where

they had first found the recipe, the recipe they used (which was different in some instances),

and the source to which their source attributed the recipe. I recorded which sites included

photographic or illustrated instructions, which sites included major modifications to the recipe

and what those modifications were. I used this data set to create a network map of how the

recipe was shared within the community (see Figure 5).


Figure 5: Network map of the pull-apart recipe shared across multiple blogs

On the network map (Figure 5), the blogs are represented as nodes, which are sized

proportionally to the number of attributions they received. Blogs receiving more attributions are

represented as bigger nodes. The lines between the nodes represent the hyperlinks attributing

the recipe to another blog. The purple nodes are blogs, dark blue represents Amazon, green is

the actual Flo Braker book Baking for All Occasions (2008), the yellow nodes are edited sites

and the light blue nodes are community sites.

The instances of the recipe in this study occurred between 30 November 2008 and 7 July 2011,

and were found between March and July 2011. The list is by no means complete as the search

was conducted manually and it is likely that not all instances of the recipe have been recorded.

17 and Baking

A Food Year

Amazon

An Edible Mosaic

Anger Burger

Annie's Eats

Babble

Baby Hedgehogs

Bake Five

bakeme.eatmet

Baking and Mistaking

Be Magnificent

Being Random

Betsy and Charlie in Charlottesville

Bittersweet Baker

Blue Ridge Baker

Blue Spoon

bred cred

Buttercream Barbie

Buttered Up

Caffe Ina

Chez Beeper Bebe

Chocolatesuze

Clockwork Lemon

cookingwithcombs

Daily Deliciousness

Dallas Duo Bakes

Delishhh

Domestic Resignation

Fake Ginger

Farrah's Kitchen

Feast for One

Find the Conceit in My Conceit

Flo Braker, Baking for All Occasions

Flo Braker's website

Food Friday

Foy Update

From My Own Home-Grown TV

Ginger Foodie

giverslog

Good Thymes and Good Food

Hanaa's Kitchen

How Sweet It IsHow to Cook 4 Children

Hungry Girl Por Vida

If You Give a Girl a Cookie Ineffectual Retardant Prints

ItsBakedInJ's Kitchen

Jasmine

Joy the Baker

Just Lychee

Kirbie's Cravings

Kitchen Corners

Kohler Created

La Mia Vita

laualamp

Le Petit Brioche

Legume Loyalist

Leite's Culinaria

Life in YYC

Liina nurgatagune

LiveJournal - Cooking

Manna and Quail

Mansurovs Photography

Martha Stewart

Matkonation

Meeshiesmom's Blog

Minta Eats

Multiply Delicious

My adventures in baking

My Life in the Frozen North

Naturally Ella

No Soup For YouNo Special Effects

OK, Let's Do This!

Owlhaven

Passionate Mae

Petite Kitchenesse

Prevention RD

Puck and Kudza

Radishes and Rhubarb

Relish Food and Life with Jill

salt

Salt and Chocolate

Scrumptious and Sumptuous

Se7e Pecados

Secret Ingredient

Serious Eats

Shoots and Roots

Shop.Cook.Make

Sisters in blogging

Slagt en hellig ko

Small Town Revelations

Smells Like HomeSPAPS

sparecake

Spatoola

Spice Is Nice

steph chows

Stresscake

studentmamacook

stupid crafts

Swapna's Cuisine

Sweet Bites

Sweet Little Details

Sweet make me Smile

Sweetness and Comfort

Take a Megabite Taste Junction

That skinny chick can bake!!!

the chirpy bird

The Chirpy Bird

The Kitchn

The Knead for Speed

The Proper Binge

The Purple Foodie

The Whimsical CupcakeThe World in My Kitchen

There Goes the Cupcake

Tiffany Dang

Tracey's Culinary Adventures

Transient HomesteadTried and True

Une Gamine dans la Cuisine

Veggie By Season

WeGottaEat

Wellsphere

What's for Dinner?

Whisk Kid

Whisk. Fold. Stir. Mix.

Zaboravljene Poslastice


More instances of the recipe have appeared since, and, given the span of time the recipe has

already covered, it is likely that it will continue to be posted.

Description: chronology, network nodes and hubs, variations on the recipe

Flo Braker’s cookbook Baking for All Occasions features more than 200 recipes, but the recipe

for “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake” (2008, 163-4) has particularly caught the attention

of food bloggers. For example, Stacey, writer of the blog Spatoola notes in her post:

This recipe has been all over cooking/baking blogs lately,

tempting me at every click of the mouse.

The recipe is for a sweet bread that is filled with lemon and sugar and topped with cream

cheese icing. It is a recipe that could be intimidating for inexperienced home cooks as it requires

working with yeast and a somewhat complicated assembly process. First, the dough, which is

sticky and difficult to work with, is left to rise. It is then rolled out thin, topped with the lemon and

sugar and cut into strips, which are then layered and cut into squares. The squares are then

stacked vertically into a baking tin. The dough is then left to rise again before it is baked.

Braker’s recipe is clearly written and features a photograph of the completed cake, but is not

accompanied by any instructional images.

The earliest instance of this recipe found online in this study is on the blog No Special Effects.

Manggy, author of the blog, attributes the recipe to Flo Braker and links to her book in the

Amazon store while including illustrated instructions for the assembly of the bread.

No Special Effects is cited as the source of the recipe on blogs No Soup for You and Whisk Kid,

and as a secondary source on various other blogs. From Manggy’s first post onwards the recipe

is alternatively and interchangeably referred to as both a bread and a cake.


Table 2: Timeline of instances of the pull-apart bread on various blogs

2008 November No Special Effects December

2009 January

February March

April No Soup For You May June July

August September

October November December Leite’s Culinaria

2010 January The Kitchn; Blue Ridge Baker; Anger Burger

February Se7e Pecados March Secret Ingredient; Lola Elise; If You Give a Girl a Cookie

April Hanaâ's Kitchen; Tracey's Culinary Adventures May Radishes and Rhubarb; Baking and Mistaking; ItsBakedIn; 17 and Baking June Bake Five; LiveJournal – Cooking July Just Lychee; Wellsphere; Veggie By Season; Sweet Bites

August Le Petit Brioche; Une Gamine dans la Cuisine September Caffe Ina; Buttercream Barbie

October Bittersweet Baker November December

2011 January The Knead for Speed

February Clockwork Lemon; Hungry Girl Por Vida March Joy the Baker; Minta Eats; bred cred; That skinny chick can bake!!!; From My Own

Home-Grown TV; the chirpy bird; Passionate Mae; Relish Food and Life with Jill; Small Town Revelations; laualamp; A Food Year; Food Friday; bakeme.eatmet; Life in YYC; Foy Update; stupid crafts; Shop.Cook.Make; There Goes the Cupcake; Annie's Eats; la mia vita; salt; My adventures in baking; Shoots and Roots; SPAPS; Chez Beeper Bebe; Farrah's Kitchen; Slagt en hellig ko; Liina nurgatagune; The World in My Kitchen; Tried and True; Chocolatesuze

April Spatoola; Being Random; Kohler Created; Jasmine; Feast for One; Stresscake; Transient Homestead; Tiffany Dang; Whisk Kid; Legume Loyalist; Blue Spoon; Smells Like Home; Naturally Ella; OK, Let's Do This!; Scrumptious and Sumptuous; Betsy and Charlie in Charlottesville; Manna and Quail; Ineffectual Retardant Prints; How to Cook 4 Children; Spice Is Nice; Baby Hedgehogs; steph chows; Kitchen Corners; Sisters in blogging; Domestic Resignation; Dallas Duo Bakes

May Prevention RD; Multiply Delicious; Sweetness and Comfort; The Purple Foodie; Take a Megabite; Meeshiesmom’s Blog; Swapna's Cuisine; Fake Ginger; Ginger Foodie; Daily Deliciousness; Puck and Kudza; studentmamacook; Find the Conceit in My Conceit; Petite Kitchenesse; My Life in the Frozen North; What's for Dinner?; cookingwithcombs; Good Thymes and Good Food; sparecake; Whisk. Fold. Stir. Mix.; Taste Junction; J's Kitchen; The Proper Binge

June Kirbie’s Cravings; Delishhh; Owlhaven; How Sweet It Is; Zaboravljene Poslastice; giverslog; Salt and Chocolate; Be Magnificent; An Edible Mosaic; Sweet make me Smile; Babble; Be Magnificent; The Whimsical Cupcake; Sweet Little Details; Matkonation

July Buttered Up; Kirbie’s Cravings (recipe only recorded up to 7 July)


The chronological order of the posts shows the recipe’s popularity increase over time. It reveals

two spikes in the recipe’s popularity – first after it was posted on Leite’s Culinaria at the end of

2009, and the second after Hungry Girl Por Vida and then Joy the Baker shared the recipe. The

timeline does not, however, reflect the network that is formed through the hyperlinked

attributions. As the recipe has spread across blogs over time, key hubs in the community have

emerged – these can be seen in the network map (Figure 5). For instance, six sites attribute the

recipe to 17 and Baking, while 12 sites attribute the recipe to Leite’s Culinaria. But the biggest

hub, and the site that saw the recipe’s popularity dramatically increase, is Joy the Baker, with 63

sites attributing the recipe to Joy’s blog. Joy modified the recipe for her blog, swapping the

lemon for cinnamon, and the majority of the sites that attribute the recipe to her are for

cinnamon pull-apart bread, or some slight variation thereof, rather than lemon. Joy attributes

Hungry Girl Por Vida as the source of the recipe. Many of the bloggers who in turn attribute Joy

the Baker as the source of the recipe note that it is adapted from Hungry Girl Por Vida. Few,

however, reference beyond that. Annie’s Eats, one of the blogs that attributes the recipe to Joy

the Baker (and also notes the adaptation from Hungry Girl Por Vida) forms a sort of mini-hub of

its own, with six other sites attributing the recipe to it.

Although the majority of sites reference another website as the source of the recipe, 15 bloggers

attribute the recipe to Flo Braker, most of which note that it is from Baking for All Occasions, and

most of these bloggers also link to the book in the Amazon store.

While the cinnamon version of the bread on Joy the Baker is the most popular modification of

the recipe, other versions include blueberries (Le Petit Brioche, the chirpy bird, Kitchen Corners,

Sweet make me Smile), chocolate (Caffe Ina), cheese (J's Kitchen, How Sweet It Is), lime (Une

Gamine dans la Cuisine) and orange (Whisk Kid, That skinny chick can bake!!!, salt, Ineffectual

Retardant Prints, giverslog, An Edible Mosaic). Additionally, there are vegan adaptations of the

recipe (steph chows, Kohler Created, Naturally Ella). The recipe has also been translated into

Danish (Slagt en hellig ko), Estonian (laualamp, Liina nurgatagune) Polish (Blue Spoon, Minta

Eats), Portuguese (No Soup For You, Se7e Pecados) and Serbian (Zaboravljene Poslastice). It

is likely that there are other versions of the recipe in more languages that were not found in an

English-language Google search.

On the blogs The Knead for Speed, Sweet make me Smile and J’s Kitchen, no reference is

given for the recipe. These recipes may in fact be original with no need for attribution. Marie,

writer of The Knead for Speed does, however, link to the blog Buttercream Barbie in response

to a reader comment requesting more information about how to assemble the recipe. Marie

notes it is a different recipe but that the assembly is the same.


Interpretation: the food blogging community in action

The pull-apart recipe provides a useful case study for understanding how food bloggers share

information and experiences, and co-create, participate and interact with each other, forming a

community. It also reveals their awareness and understanding of their community, community

leaders, norms, and ethics. The case study reflects the community structures produced by

hyperlinks, and the tendency for online communities to develop an order producing “high-

visibility nodes, and clusters of thickly connected ‘regions’ where groups of Web sites accredit

each other by mutual referencing” (Benkler 2006, 172).

Anne Beaulieu notes that hyperlinks can be viewed as both symbolic and technical, and that “a

hyperlink is a trace of many things, and its functions can be more diverse than the usual ‘linking

one web page with another’” (2005, 193). With this in mind, the links between bloggers that are

used to attribute the recipe to its source can be seen as functional, in that they allow the blogger

both to reference the source and avoid accusations of plagiarism or copyright breaches, and

symbolic, in that they reflect the community interactions, reveal community leaders and the hubs

around them, and convey beneficial relationships or ‘social capital’.

Awareness of the community, shared identities and shared tastes

In commenting on the popularity of the recipe, several bloggers in the network reveal their

awareness of the community and their perception of the food blogosphere as a place. Through

posting the same recipe, they developed a shared identity based partly on their shared tastes.

Bloggers who recreated the pull-apart recipe did not simply copy the text; they reproduced the

pull-apart bread. This provided them with a physical product and an experience, which required

a degree of effort. The recipe was not just text that was read and considered, it involved an

investment of time – sourcing ingredients and making the bread, itself a time-consuming

process, taking several hours. In this way, the bloggers shared a physical experience, which

perhaps creates a deeper or more comforting sense of belonging than is possible in other online

communities. The potential for readers to recreate and share a tangible experience gives the

food blogging community strength. It is also unusual in online communities, which are often

based on exchange of ideas and information only.

As demonstrated in Chapter 2, food bloggers have a strong sense of identity, which is

developed through their shared practices, quirks, common interests and tastes. Gallegos notes

how taste is a key tool for identity building, and how it has dual meanings when used in the

context of food:

Taste has emerged as one technology that the self can use in order to undertake

the ongoing project of identity building. However, any discussion of food and its


consumption highlights the dual meanings of 'taste'. First, taste refers to the

biological manifestations utilizing the sense of tongue-taste and smell to discern

sweet, sour, bitter and salt nuances. Second, taste denotes a socio-culturally

linked concept, where to have 'good taste' is a sign of distinction.

(2005, 99-100)

The fact that the bloggers in this network all chose to blog the same recipe, albeit with some

variations, indicates similar tastes, in both senses of the term. By blogging the same recipe they

develop a shared identity, building on the identity they already share as food bloggers. They

also reveal their tastes in other blogs, as their hyperlinked attributions reveal blogs they read

and, presumably, enjoy.

Community leaders and other roles

The largest node on the network map by far is Joy the Baker. Joy is a popular food blogger with

a large readership. She could be described as a Pro-Am turned professional – she has previous

professional experience working as a baker, and started blogging as a hobby, albeit at a high

standard, and had a cookbook published in 2012. Joy is attributed for creating the pull-apart

recipe more than any other blogger in the network, and as such, can be seen as a community

leader. Joy’s influence in the community is apparent as her modified cinnamon version of the

recipe is almost more popular that the original lemon version. Her style of conversational writing

can also be seen on the blogs that attributed the recipe to her, and they also often share her

aesthetic – retro/vintage inspired blog design and food styling that relies on colourful décor and

natural light.

In changing the recipe, Joy is seen as an innovator in the community. While swapping lemon for

cinnamon in the pull-apart recipe is not necessarily a major innovation, she is known for

creating what could be viewed as unusual recipes, such as avocado pound cake and carrot

cake pancakes, as well as traditional ‘comfort food’. Successful food blogs must have quality

content, almost regardless of how ‘success’ is defined – whether it means to become

professional, to have a large readership or to be a community leader. Unlike blogs based

around the exchange of ideas, food blogs can be ‘tested’ – if a recipe does not work it will affect

the relationships readers have to the blog and, in turn, the blog’s success. A large reason for

Joy’s success is that her recipes are both innovative and reliable.

Other bloggers in the pull-apart network can be seen as ‘community archivists’ in the way they

linked to numerous examples of the recipe on different blogs and tried to trace the recipe to its

source. For example, Melissa from the blog Shoots and Roots noted the recipe she used (from

Joy the Baker) and listed other cinnamon versions of the recipe and other modifications.


Similarly, Kathy, writer of the blog Stresscake, saw the recipe first on The Kitchn and then

attempted to trace the recipe to the original source. Documenting several occurrences of the

recipe suggests that these bloggers are concerned with understanding the scope of their

community. This scope is broader than the map indicates, but difficult to trace, as the bloggers

who created the recipe presumably shared it with someone, and many other readers also

recreated the recipe, without blogging about it, and most likely shared it as well.

The majority of the bloggers in the pull-apart case study are hobbyist bloggers.

These bloggers are subject to the influence of trends set by the wider community and

community leaders. Some may have received attributions for the recipe on their blog, but not

many. While they are not major nodes in the network, these bloggers are essential members of

the community. As they follow the standards set by community leaders, these standards

become more established, more expected norms.

Community norms and ethics

As well as revealing tastes and providing a (limited) means for quantifying community leaders,

hyperlinks reveal shared practices and community norms. The most immediately obvious of

these practices is the ‘rule’ of attribution – without the practice of hyperlinking attributions, it

would not be possible to create the map and examine the community in such detail. Hyperlinks

can be viewed as a way of acknowledging intellectual property (IP) and, at least superficially, as

examples of ‘norms based-IP systems’, which provide a similar function to legal IP frameworks

but operate within a group based on socially accepted norms (Fauchart and von Hippel 2008,

187). However, in the case of the pull-apart recipe, hyperlinks have broader implications around

community interactions, structures, and practices.

Baym discusses the power structures implied in community norms (2010, 80), which can also

be seen in the food blogging community. Food bloggers occupy various roles in their community

– they may be leaders, followers, readers, or lurkers. Prominent bloggers have more power in

regulating and introducing shared practices within the community, while other bloggers follow

the cues, and in some instances the direct instructions, from the community leaders. For

example, prominent food blogger David Lebovitz (who, as of July 2012, had published seven

books and whose self-titled blog had more than 10,000 Google Reader subscribers and more

than 123,000 followers on Twitter), writes in a post about recipe attribution on the community

site Food Blog Alliance:

If you're adapting a recipe from a website, link to that site's

original recipe page URL. If you're adapting a recipe from a

cookbook, link to that cookbook on Amazon [link to Amazon.com],

the publishers [sic] website, and/or the author's website. You can


adapt a previously published recipe and republish it, as long as

you give attribution. But it should not be a word-for-word

republication without permission. When it doubt, ask, then get it

in writing.

David Lebovitz’s instructions may explain how the practice of attributing recipes via hyperlink

became widespread, as well as why the majority of bloggers who referenced Flo Braker’s book

linked to it in the Amazon store, when one would imagine that naming the book and its author

would be sufficient in terms of referencing and avoiding accusations of plagiarism.

While the food blogging community is spread widely across individual blogs, sources such as

the Food Blog Alliance, and other similar sites such as the Food Blog Forum, provide

information and support for bloggers in a central location, creating a “collective memory” that is

easily accessible to new members of the community (Casalegno 2006, 113). The ready

availability of this information also makes it less likely that violations of community norms, such

as recipe attribution, will be accepted. As Baym notes, “shared practices entail norms for the

appropriate use of communication. Ongoing groups develop standards that guide members’

behavior. Violations of these norms are often met with critical response from other users” (2010,

78).

Even perceived violations of community norms can meet with a critical response. Kathy, writer

of the blog Stresscake, documents the recipe across blogs (following one chain of attributions),

but complains that other bloggers have not attributed the recipe correctly:

what they all missed was that it was originally a Flo Braker

recipe, right out of one of her cookbooks, that was featured on

Leite’s. I’m rather surprised by this lack of acknowledgement.

Here’s the thing with giving credit – nearly every recipe has an

origin.

The network of bloggers who posted the pull-apart recipe is complex. While Kathy undertook

some relatively extensive research to find the source of the recipe, she only followed one path

on the network map. While many bloggers in the network did in fact acknowledge Flo Braker as

the source of the recipe, Kathy missed this as no one on her path did. It is worth noting that

while, in this instance, the recipe can be traced to Flo Braker’s book, there is a good chance

than Braker’s recipe was inspired by another recipe, or by a combination of recipes. As Clotilde

from Chocolate & Zucchini commented in my interview with her, “no one cooks in a vacuum”.

Tracking the pull-apart recipe across blogs reveals the practices food bloggers and food blog

readers share in collecting and searching for recipes. Food blogs, unlike journalistic or political


blogs, do not tend to be time dependent, and food bloggers appear to read blogs more as

catalogues than as ‘diary’ style blogs. This can be seen in the timeframe within which the pull-

apart recipe has been featured – from 2008 to 2011, and it will undoubtedly continue to feature

into the future. For example, the recipe was posted on Whisk Kid on 7 April 2011, and Kaitlin,

the blog’s writer, attributes the recipe to No Special Effects, where it was posted on 20

November 2008.

One key aspect of blogging practice that the pull-apart recipe reveals is the common style and

structure of food blog posts. Almost all the blogs featuring the pull-apart recipe share the same

structure, which was also discussed in the introduction to this thesis: photo of the finished

product, preamble or story about the recipe, attribution, ingredients list, and instructions. The

style is not necessarily a ‘rule’ – bloggers are free to write recipes however they wish – but it

certainly is common practice and an expected norm. The common style is used to define and

identify food blogs. The norm suggests that perhaps blogging about food is not necessarily

enough to make someone a food blogger. Yet successful bloggers may deviate from the norm,

or, at the least, perform the norm to an exceptionally high, almost professional, standard. In

commenting on the general format of the common style, Clotilde notes in my interview with her

that while there are “a few different formats that people follow… there aren’t very many people

who just do wildly different things”. In the case of the pull-apart recipe this is true – none of the

bloggers have done anything “wildly different” with the recipe and none have deviated from the

usual blog post format (picture, story, recipe). Sunday, writer of the blog Anger Burger, also

commented on the structure as one of the ‘rules’ of blogging. Sunday, however, finds the

structure restrictive:

I think you have to have beautiful, staged pictures, and I think you have to have

long rambling commentary about how this food made you feel or some anecdote

or other rubbish - I commit these offenses as much as anyone else does. I think

that food bloggers who really embrace this concept are attempting to brand

themselves out, making an abstract fantasy version of themselves where sprigs

of flowers fall haphazardly across the cutting boards where their finished meal

happens to be sitting. They enjoy reading Donna Hay or Martha Stewart’s Living

magazine and believe that these elaborately and professionally staged photos

and recipes are the kind of material that they should be producing.

In her post of the pull-apart recipe, Sunday tries to buck the trend of the ‘long rambling

commentary’, but ultimately adheres to it:

Instead of a big lead-in, I’ll get to the point: make this recipe.


I lied. There’s a lead-in.

Sunday’s introduction runs for seven more paragraphs. The form of recipes on blogs has

changed slightly from those found in cookbooks, as bloggers are afforded more space, so

recipes on blogs are often accompanied by more images and personal stories. Despite the new

opportunities provided by the internet to dramatically change the way recipes are presented,

food bloggers have a tendency to adhere to the same style of recipe writing and attribution that

has been commonplace in cookbooks for generations. As the number of food blogs has grown,

the norms, common practices, and rules have become more deeply entrenched, and new food

bloggers are likely to follow these established codes. The size of the community and the

expectation for bloggers to adhere to the common practices means that food blogs have

become established as a genre, one which may seem nuanced to community members, but

which appears flatly generic to outsiders.

Relationships, interactions and social capital

Looking closely at hyperlinks and the text around them reveals social interactions and social

behaviour (Halavais 2008, 43). It also reveals hyperlinks as forms of support and currency in the

food blogging community. As Farrell and Drezner note, “links and page views are the currency

of the blogosphere” (2008, 17). Similarly, Nicky says on her blog delicious days that “if blogs

had a monetary currency, it would be called links”. Attendees at the Australian food bloggers

conference described links as a form of gifting. Similarly, Adamic describes the hyperlink as a

“social element” of the internet, noting that hyperlinks “express social relationships” and are

shared as gifts to reinforce existing relationships and to create new ones (2008, 227).

Links may be gifted to readers as ways for them to find more useful or interesting information;

this was the case with many of the bloggers in the pull-apart network who attributed the recipe

to another blogger, or linked to a blogger who had included useful instructional images.

Similarly, links can be gifts to bloggers, as links to another blog can be seen as an endorsement

of that blog and can help it to attract new readers. For example, in the post on the blog my

adventures in baking, blogger inthekitchen links to the illustrated instructions on Manggy’s blog

No Special Effects as a gift for readers, to help them understand the recipe, and as a gift to

Manggy, acknowledging his work and sending more traffic to his blog:

Thanks to an absolutely adorable drawing [link to Manggy’s

illustration on Picasa] on this blog - No Special Effects [link to

No Special Effects ‘Pull-Apart Lemon-Scented Coffee Cake’] - I

knew exactly how to create all of the fabulous lemony layers of

the coffee cake. Step-by-step photos in the book, for a recipe

like this, would have been helpful, but thanks to Manggy's diagram

I wasn't worried at all. I love the internet!


Baym notes that “when people provide and receive social support in online groups, they are

contributing to one another’s accumulated social capital” (2010, 82). In recognising certain

bloggers as the source of the recipe and noting the support they received from their instructions,

food bloggers share and exchange social capital. Due to the nature of recipes and the value

bloggers place in creativity, the food blogging community shares some similar traits to online

video game communities, where social currency is attributed to those who make things (such as

modifications for games) (Herz 2005, 334). The bloggers who are attributed as being an original

source for the recipe, or as having made a significant modification (such as the cinnamon

version on Joy the Baker), possess more social capital than other bloggers, and are respected

and admired by other bloggers, who tend to discuss them in positive terms.

Food has long been a source of social capital offline, as seen in the status granted to those who

throw lavish dinner parties, win ribbons at baking competitions at agricultural shows, know

where to source the best ingredients, or have access to the best restaurants. People who create

recipes traditionally have been well regarded in communities, as evidenced by community

cookbooks, and in the media, as exemplified by celebrity chefs.

Through food blogs, people can share their recipes with others all over the world, and

collaborate to improve their knowledge and practice of cooking, recipe-creation, and blogging.

As Howard Rheingold notes, online tools are helping people to “rediscover the power of

cooperation, turning cooperation into a game, a way of life – a merger of knowledge capital,

social capital, and communion” (2000, 109). Deuze also sees immense potential in these tools,

suggesting that “perhaps people are finding new ways to connect with each other, collaborate,

and participate in social life that moves beyond traditional notions of collectives and

communities” (2007b, 40).

The pull-apart bread case study is a useful example of how the food blogging community is

structured, how leaders emerge, and how norms and relationships are established. Since it is a

specific and distinctive recipe, it is possible to use it as a small example of what happens in an

everyday, complex environment. Focusing on a unique recipe is a useful means for examining

the community in action because it is clearly identifiable and provides a practical means to

closely examine what happens on a larger scale. Another example of a more ‘generic’ recipe

may result in more than one clear community leader emerging; however, this would be far more

difficult to isolate and track. The recipe in this case study was initially published in a cookbook –

and the blogger who lead the dramatic increase in its popularity now has a cookbook herself.

As such, the pull-apart bread case study, beyond demonstrating the community in action,

reflects the way food blogs integrate and influence food-related media. The next chapter

examines how norms and expectations are communicated in the community, and how they


have changed as food blogging has evolved. It also examines the relationships and interactions

between the food blogging community and food-related media.

Chapter 4: The evolution of food blogging 62

Chapter 4: The evolution of food blogging

Food is inherently cultural, and the sharing of food and recipes is part of folk culture. Benkler

argues that “people have always created their own culture”, however, folk culture has gradually

been replaced by mass-produced popular culture; we have come to expect certain production

values in culture, and lost confidence in creating or sharing it ourselves, for fear of it not meeting

these high standards (2006, 296). Such mass-produced popular culture includes food-related

media and recipes, as developing and sharing recipes has become the domain of celebrity

chefs. Food blogs, along with reality television shows such as MasterChef, feature ‘ordinary’

people (made extraordinary by virtue of being selected to appear as contestants on a television

show), continue the tradition of community cookbooks and reflect an increased interest in DIY

and a resurgence of a desire to share and contribute to folk culture. As Jenkins argues:

Once you have a reliable system of distribution, folk culture production begins to

flourish again overnight. Most of what the amateurs create is gosh-awful bad, yet a

thriving culture needs spaces where people can do bad art, get feedback, and get

better. After all, much of what circulates through mass media is also bad by almost

any criteria, but the expectations of professional polish make it a less hospitable

environment for newcomers to learn and grow. Some of what amateurs create will

be surprisingly good, and some artists will be recruited into commercial

entertainment or the art world. Much of it will be good enough to engage the

interest of some modest public, to inspire someone else to create, to provide new

content which, when polished through many hands, may turn into something more

valuable down the line. That's the way the folk process works, and grassroots

convergence represents the folk process accelerated and expanded for the digital

age.

(2008, 140-1)

Some food bloggers, like the artists to whom Jenkins refers, do create recipes, writing, and

images that are “surprisingly good”, and are recruited, not into commercial entertainment or the

art world, but into food-related media. Some publish cookbooks (for example, Clotilde Dusoulier

of Chocolate & Zucchini), or food-related memoirs (for example, Molly Wizenberg of Orangette),

and some become food celebrities in their own right, as guests on high profile television shows

such as Martha Stewart (Matt Armendariz of MattBites) or with their own cooking shows (Ree

Drummond of The Pioneer Woman Cooks). Others, while not reaching these levels of success,


do manage to inspire others to create, as seen in the numerous bloggers (and blog readers)

who recreated the pull-apart bread recipe discussed in Chapter 3.

This chapter investigates how food blogging has transformed from a hobby to a cottage

industry, and how some food bloggers have transitioned from Pro-Am to professional. It looks at

food blogging’s evolution from a subcultural activity to an established and recognised element of

the wider food-related media ecology. It also examines what role the food blogging community

has played in this transformation, including the creation of codified rules and tools, and events

to support interaction within the community and to promote blogs to broader audiences. As the

number of food blogs has grown, the community has become more established and more

structured, and food blogging itself has become a more standardised and recognised genre.

The chapter also examines the response to food blogging from food-related media and other

industries, and the role they have played in the evolution and professionalisation of food

blogging.

Mainstream media tend to suggest that all food bloggers have professional aspirations. For

example, Catherine Phipps, in an article in The Guardian, comments that:

On one hand there are those who set up blogs with perhaps a long-term aim of

securing a book deal (and only those who write well in an unedited medium will

succeed) and on the other the people who launch a blog as a marketing tool for a

publishing deal they've already secured.

(2011, n.p.)

This argument, as several readers who commented on the article note, provides only two ways

of considering food bloggers, both of which assume that they have professional ambitions. In

categorising bloggers in this way, Phipps overlooks what is presumably the largest group of

food bloggers: hobbyists who blog because they are interested in food and enjoy sharing

recipes and discussing their interest with like-minded people, but who do not have any

aspirations or expectations of becoming professional.

While it is true that some bloggers have aspirations beyond documenting their cooking and

interacting with a community, this is not necessarily true for all, just in the same way that not all

people who play recreational sport aspire to playing at a professional level, even if they

occasionally fantasise about it. Even Pro-Am food bloggers, who operate at a professional level

and may generate a small amount of income from their blog, are not necessarily interested in

turning their blog into a full-time career. Clotilde, who became a professional food writer and

recipe developer through her blog, says that there are more bloggers with professional

ambitions now than when she started blogging. She attributes this to the fact that a career as a


“professional food blogger” (Phipps 2011, n.p.) has become, however unlikely, an option, and

that professional bloggers have become more visible in mainstream media. It is also, possibly,

simply because there are more bloggers; while there are more with professional ambitions than

there were in 2003, the percentage of bloggers with such ambitions might not have increased

much. By virtue of the sheer volume of bloggers, it is not possible to expect that every one will,

or wants to, become professional.

Most of the food bloggers interviewed for this project indicated that they wanted to reach a wider

audience and would like to make some money from their blog. Some were pursuing ways of

generating income, such as through advertising, but only Adrianna, writer of A Cozy Kitchen,

said she wanted to make a full-time living from her blog. Generally, the bloggers interviewed

said that creating and sharing a catalogue of recipes was their primary motivation for blogging.

However, it is worth noting that the bloggers who responded to my interview request and agreed

to participate in this project were more likely to be Pro-Ams than the bloggers who did not

respond.

Although food bloggers with professional ambitions represent a minority in the community, they

are a prominent and influential minority. They set a sort of ‘gold standard’ of food blogging, and

other bloggers, regardless of their personal aspirations, are likely to imitate the blogging style

and practices of professionals. This is especially true of professional bloggers, such as Clotilde,

who are clearly seen as community leaders. However, it is worth noting that not all professional

bloggers are community leaders. Likewise, not all community leaders are necessarily

professional.

There are no set pathways to becoming either a professional food blogger or a community

leader, and there are, as with any established and structured community, numerous

intermediary roles. Some food bloggers may be content to remain hobbyists or Pro-Ams, and,

while not aiming to make a living solely or directly from their blog, use their blog as a support

tool or portfolio of work. For example, Kaitlin, writer of the blog Whisk Kid, said in my interview

with her that she hopes her blog will “look good on a resume”. Kaitlin is a university student with

an interest in a career in either marketing or food, and her blog is both an outlet for her creativity

and an opportunity to show potential employers, in either field, her work, and, as she says, to

show them that she has the ability to commit to a project for a long time. In using her blog this

way, Kaitlin shares some commonalities with gamers who create modifications, or ‘mods’ for

games, who may use their mod projects to support job applications in the gaming industry

(Sotamaa 2010, 251). Others, however, like many food bloggers, do not have the same goals

and view creating mods as a hobby (Sotamaa 2010, 251). The following section examines how

the diversity of these roles plays out in the food blogging community.


Food blogging community support tools and events

Some food bloggers take on roles as community organisers, archivists, curators, or record

keepers. These bloggers document the community’s activities and practices, and, in doing so,

influence blogging practice, help to set norms, and regulate community behaviour. As engaged

enthusiasts, these bloggers create tools and events as a way of extending blogging practice,

much like gamers engaging in ‘meta-game’ activities such as using or developing guild or

community sites, wikis, modifications (mods) and add-ons (Sherlock 2009; Steinkuehler 2007).

These tools allow the community to self-regulate by developing codified rules, explicitly

describing expected practices, norms and ethics and collecting community knowledge. They

also facilitate sociability and interpersonal relationships, strengthening ties between participating

bloggers and enhancing their sense of community. As Bishop and Hoggett note:

Each sub-culture will possess its own recognized calendar of events –shows,

exhibitions, competitions, conferences, etc. Such events have complex meanings

and purposes – part ritual, part solidarizing, part competitive. They are, however,

an essential element in the life of the sub-culture.

(1986, 48)

Interacting with these tools, and participating in events, are part of food blogging – not separate

or additional to it. Tools and events, while in part fostering interaction, also reinforce community

structures and create divisions in the community. Such tools can be used for socialising new

members of the food blogging community, as they outline the norms and expectations informing

blogging practice and accepted behaviour. They can also be used for promotion, helping food

bloggers reach wider audiences outside of the food blogging community. As such, these tools

are often used by bloggers with professional ambitions. Likewise, food-related media and

industry professionals may use these tools to understand the food blogging community, as

these tools highlight central community members, who can be seen as opinion leaders. This

provides an opportunity to source new talent for food-related media, as well as to draw from

successful blogs for commercial purposes, such as advertising and other promotional activities.

Community sites

Community sites offer spaces for bloggers to share resources and information, and to find out

about community events. Such sites are developed by individuals and groups, and often contain

contributions from several bloggers. They provide central points of interaction, which can be

based on a topic area or special interest, or can provide a space in which blogging practice and

community behaviour can be discussed, and informal rules can be described. These sites are in

some ways similar to forum FAQ sections, which provide:


an excellent example of how online communities self-organize to collect, classify,

and categorize the areas of common knowledge, thereby systematically creating a

collective community memory. For the new users who join such a community, it is

easy to access this collective memory, the common knowledge thus progressively

becoming part of the community itself.

(Casalegno 2006, 113)

A central community site is the Food Blog Alliance blog, which provides a space for food

bloggers to discuss community issues and help community members improve their blogging

practice. High-profile, established and professional bloggers contribute posts to the Food Blog

Alliance blog about a range of food blogging issues, including: recipe attribution; using social

media; responding to internet trolls; tracking blog statistics; working with advertisers, and

improving blog writing. The contributors are recognised community leaders and professional

bloggers, such as David Lebovitz, who has published several cookbooks and enjoys a large

readership. As such, they are respected members of the community whose authority to write on

such topics is accepted. The contributors often respond to comments, creating a space for open

dialogue, albeit a “weighted” one (Benkler 2006, 217), (the contributor and blog owner have

control over which comments will be accepted) in which the food blogging community can co-

create guidelines for acceptable behaviour.

The Food Blog Alliance is often cited by food bloggers as a resource useful for learning more

about blogging. Bloggers who violate norms, such as recipe attribution (as discussed in the

Chapter 3), are sometimes directed to the relevant post on the Food Blog Alliance site. In this

way, the site is similar to the FAQ sections described by Casalegno (2006, 113); it offers new

members of the food blogging community a means to familiarise themselves with the ‘rules’ of

food blogging. It also helps new bloggers identify and access community leaders.

The Food Blog Alliance outlines informal rules, codes and instructions, which are successful, if

success is defined by how extensively they are adopted by the community. This success is

contingent upon contributors to the site being well-known community leaders and professional

bloggers whose authority is recognised. This can be seen in Chapter 3, where the advice on

recipe attribution, in particular the practice of linking to cookbooks on Amazon where possible,

has been widely adopted. Sites such as the Food Blog Alliance are also successful, and useful

for the community, because the ‘rules’ are informal and flexible – more like guidelines than

concrete rules – and hence can be modified and adapted. These informal rules are developed

through community consultation – they are discussed, rather than dictated. Contributors to the

Food Blog Alliance are invited to write on a specific issue, based on their experiences or on

requests from the community. Food bloggers are reluctant to describe themselves as

community leaders, even when it is clear that they do fulfil this role within the community.


By contrast, bloggers who attempt to assume leadership roles and dictate ‘rules’ for food

blogging without having the authority to do so may be rebuked. For example, the Food Blog

Code of Ethics, developed by two largely unknown food bloggers, attempts to formalise food

blogging ‘rules’, and was met with mixed responses when it launched. The code was created by

food writers and bloggers Brooke Burton (FoodWoolf) and Leah Greenstein (SpicySaltySweet).

They developed the code ostensibly for all food bloggers, although it realistically applies more to

restaurant review bloggers than to recipe bloggers. The updated version of the code states:

1. We understand that the moment we put anything up on the internet (a

blog, restaurant reviews [link to (Sietsema 2010)], recipes, videos,

photography, and comments) we automatically become a publisher and

therefore have the responsibility of a publisher.

2. We accept the responsibilities that come with publishing. We will be

accountable for our actions.

3. We will be civil.

4. We will be transparent. We will disclose gifts, comps, samples, and

financial relationships with specific businesses if we write about them.

5. We will not steal other people’s work. Other peoples’ content (writing,

recipes, photos, video, illustrations) will not be taken or used without

written or verbal consent from the creator of said material. If we use

someone else’s material and change it for our own use (i.e. a recipe) we

will give attribution to the original resource.

On the code’s site, commenters were largely receptive to the idea, but did question why the

creators felt it necessary to create the code. The code also attracted the attention of some other

media. In an article in The Guardian, Tim Hayword questions the purpose of the code, arguing:

I'm a little uncomfortable with the notion of ‘professionalising’ anything on the web.

What we now regard as professions, the law, medicine, banking etc, all began

when groups of interested parties set behavioural codes that excluded others in the

name of 'maintaining standards'. There are obvious reasons why some standards

should be maintained, but any attempt at creating an ethical elite on the web, in

any field at all - particularly food writing which is not, after all, Woodward and

Bernstein but people writing about their tea - seems to run counter to the spirit of

self-governance, self-publishing and ultimately self-expression.

(2009, n.p.)

Reader comments in response to the article largely criticise the code’s creators for being elitist,

pompous, and patronising. Commenters who are also food bloggers rejected the code, such as

the commenter stripedcatty, who notes:


Please save us all from committees, especially self appointed ones. I'm a food

blogger and had not heard that someone was promulgating rules on my behalf until

I read about it here, nor do I think I would sign up to such an initiative, no matter

how much I admired the choice of conditions.

(in Hayward 2009, n.p.)

While the Food Blog Alliance has been successful in engaging the food blogging community,

the self-appointed code has not been widely adopted since its creation in 2009. It was also

updated in 2011, but it does not appear to be especially well known. The lack of community

consultation in developing the code, as well as the way it was imposed on bloggers and

proposed to speak for them – “we understand”, “we accept”, “we will be”, “we will not” – coupled

with the creators’ lack of authority, resulted in little support from the community, which has

meant that the code has been widely rejected or overlooked by food bloggers. This may be in

large part because creating a code implies that there is something wrong with food blogging as

it stands.

The response to the code reveals the dynamics within the food blogging community – its

hierarchies and community leaders – as well as community attitudes towards these structures.

Support tools, such as community sites, are accepted by the community if they are perceived to

add value and are created with the right tone of deference by community members who have

‘earned their stripes’. In this way, the food blogging community is similar to gaming

communities. As Herz notes, in the gaming community, members who create things that others

can use (such as mods) accrue social currency as they are offering the community something of

value (Herz 2005, 334). Likewise, food bloggers who offer tools that can be used to help the

community by improving their experiences of blogging are celebrated, or at least met with little

or no hostility, while those who appear to be too dogmatic, offering instructions for behaviour

created without an open dialogue, are resisted.

Community events

Offline events provide further opportunities to discuss community issues and blogging practices.

They are often created, coordinated, and promoted online through sites such as the Australian

Foodbloggers Google Group, and The Food Blog Diary, which lists food blog challenges,

giveaways and competitions. Events include social dinners, conferences, and workshops, and

are often concerned with ‘taking the next steps’ in blogging – that is, transitioning from Pro-Am

to professional, earning an income from a blog and engaging with food-related media. These

events also offer networking opportunities and a chance for bloggers to discuss community

issues and improve their blogging practice.


Conferences and workshops are typically limited to food bloggers only – having a food blog is a

requirement for entry. For example, Eat. Drink. Blog., the Australian food and drink bloggers’

conference, was created by food bloggers with the intention of connecting the community and

providing bloggers with a forum in which to interact, discuss their concerns, and improve their

blogging and food knowledge and skills. The 2011 conference included sessions on legal issues

for food bloggers (defamation and copyright), search engine optimisation (SEO), writing, and

monetising a blog. It also included several food-focused master classes (on butchery, bread,

and preparing crabs), practice-based workshops (food photography and food styling), and a

dinner for attendees to socialise and reflect on the day. Attendees also discussed the ethics of

food blogging and the benefits of such events, noting that it was useful to have a forum in which

they could ‘challenge each other’s assumptions’ and ‘establish boundaries of civility’. These

discussions help to formalise community norms, as do the community blogs examined earlier,

but in a more immediate and exclusive manner. Unless this information is recorded, bloggers

who do not attend these events are essentially out of the loop. In this way, these events can

create divisions in the community.

Eat. Drink. Blog. is a one-day conference, but other community-organised events can be far

more extensive. For example, Foodista’s International Food Blogger Conference is a two-day

event, held twice a year since 2009, which attracts bloggers from around the world. Other

events run longer and are more expensive, such as Camp Blogaway, initiated by Patti Londre of

the blog Worth the Whisk. Camp Blogaway is a four-day event in which bloggers camp in the

mountains in California and receive a “blogging education”, including workshops, activities and

panel sessions. The website boasts “dawn to dusk, we practically never stop”. Similarly, Béa

from the blog La Tartine Gourmande runs a five-day food photography and styling workshop in

France – at a cost of US $2,250 for participants. Investing such time and financial resources

into a leisure pursuit is an example of Pro-Am behaviour (Leadbeater and Miller 2004, 21-22),

although, as previously discussed, it is important to remember that not all of these bloggers

have professional ambitions. Instead, they attend events as Pro-Ams, engaging in what could

be described as “serious leisure” (Stebbins 1992, 3). For example, many of the bloggers I spoke

to at Eat. Drink. Blog. were interested in blogging as a hobby or leisure activity, and had

unrelated careers that they enjoyed (I met two speech pathologists at the conference). Many

participants were attending the conference to meet other bloggers and to learn more about food.

Some had found that they had a growing number of followers on their blog and were curious

about how they could (or should) convert this into an income, but they were not looking to invest

a significant amount of time or turn their blogging into a career.

As the food blogging community has grown, so too has the number of events and opportunities

for offline social engagement with other bloggers. Of the bloggers interviewed for this project,


most had attended, or said they would like to attend, one of these events – only two had not

attended and did not express any interest in attending one. Similarly, of the bloggers surveyed,

35% had attended an event, while 26% said that they had not but would like to. These events,

and the perceived need for them, reflect how established food blogging has become. They also

reveal bloggers’ concerns about engaging with food-related media (and other food-related

industries), as bloggers use these events to discuss issues such as working with public relations

companies, the ethics of accepting free products, and advertising, sponsorship and other

promotions. Furthermore, the events provide an opportunity for media and industry to more

directly engage with food bloggers.

Blogrolls and other lists

Food bloggers use lists as tools for understanding their community, describing its scope, and

highlighting best practice, as well to reveal their tastes and relationships within the community.

Almost all food bloggers, like many other bloggers, have a blogroll that lists their favourite blogs.

Established bloggers often have long blogrolls that are split into categories, such as topic (e.g.,

baking, vegetarian etc) or location. For example, Phil, writer of the blog The Last Appetite, has

compiled a comprehensive list of Australian food bloggers, categorised by state.

Some bloggers also create lists of ‘top’ food bloggers, based on personal opinion, as seen in

blogrolls and favourites lists, or based on more complex criteria, such as blogger Jenius, who

has used a range of different calculations to create lists of top Australian food bloggers and top

Australian food twitterers:

The system I've used looks at more than just audience numbers and

hopefully gives an almost accurate measure of the blog's popularity.

The total score is a calculated by multiplying a blog's Google Page

Rank, with its number of Google Back Links and its number of

Technorati Blog Reactions and then I add on the unique number of

Twitter followers (that is, followers minus following).

Jenius describes her motivation for creating the lists as a way to recognise the work that goes

into producing and maintaining a successful food blog. Lists such as Jenius’s reveal community

leaders and show bloggers where these leaders fit in the community. They have the additional

benefit, for both those on the list and for the creator of the list, of driving traffic to a blog. Such

lists also establish the list creators as central community members – they are knowledgeable

about the community and aware of its size and scope. Jenius is a clear community leader – she

is a professional food blogger, has a large readership, and has worked with other bloggers to

organise community events such as Eat. Drink. Blog. Her lists are likely to be accepted by

members because of her position within the community. Another less ‘qualified’ blogger could


make a list that might not be as readily accepted. However, while it might not be readily

accepted, it may very well be read and engaged with, because food bloggers are generally

interested in any analysis of their community. For example, when I posted the results of my

survey of food blog readers on my blog, which is by no means a well-known or well-read blog,

the traffic to my blog drastically increased. While my blog generally receives a small number of

page views per month (between 100 and 300), in March and April, when the results were

published, it received over 1000. Numerous bloggers also commented on the post and

promoted it through Twitter. The enthusiasm for this kind of data shows how some food

bloggers are particularly interested in ways of knowing about their community and their place

within it.

Lists of top food bloggers have also appeared in food-related media. These lists, while having a

similar basic function to internally created lists, have been created from an external point of

view, are discussed later in this chapter.

Aggregators and curators

Aggregator sites are key tools in the food blogging community. These sites help make the food

blogging community visible and accessible, and are used as promotional tools for food bloggers.

They help food bloggers showcase their work to wider audiences and can provide an

opportunity for them to engage with food-related media

Many well-known and popular aggregator sites have been created by food bloggers. These

bloggers, while reaching some level of success or prominence with their own blog, have

achieved greater success and prominence as community organisers. In turn, they have become

community leaders through their aggregator sites, and can be seen as curators of blog content,

helping to set standards for food blogs and reflect, or sometimes drive, trends in the community.

These community organisers may still maintain their own food blog, but devote more time and

energy to their aggregator site, from which, in some cases, they derive a full-time income.

Some aggregator sites provide a space for like-minded bloggers to connect by sharing their

posts. For example, Punk Domestics is a DIY-focused community site that features articles or

posts from bloggers about preserving food. Punk Domestics founder Sean Timberlake

describes the community as “a content aggregation site for the hardcore DIY food community”,

which “aspires to evangelize and enable the home DIY food enthusiast by curating and

presenting best-of-breed content from individuals and experts in their respective arenas”.

Similarly, Cupcakes Take the Cake is a community blog that compiles cupcake recipe posts

from food bloggers and provides readers with lists of recommended bakeries. These sites


increase traffic for participating blogs and create sub-communities within the food blogging

community.

Other aggregators operate on a far larger scale. Sites such as TasteSpotting, foodgawker,

DessertStalking and foodbuzz aggregate posts from thousands of food blogs, profiling certain

bloggers, recipes, and trends within the community. The blogging platform Wordpress has also

created FoodPress, its own aggregator site. Aggregators reveal the size and scope of the

community. For instance, foodbuzz, which admittedly uses a broader definition of food blogs

(including restaurant review blogs and any other blog with a focus on food), claims to

“aggregate and curate 7.3 Million posts from 24857 food blogs to bring quality content into the

spotlight”. Posts are submitted by bloggers and accepted based on largely subjective criteria

that vary between aggregator sites.

Figure 6: Screenshot of Tastespotting


Aggregator sites are a source of anxiety for many food bloggers. This is because, while some

bloggers are critical of the sites’ subjective selection of posts to feature, and their image-focused

nature, they still have a desire to be featured as there is a perception that a presence on these

sites is crucial for blogging success. The visual nature of these sites means that they are

focused more on aesthetics than on content. As such, they set a standard for the style of food

photography used by food bloggers, to which Pro-Am and professional, or aspiring professional

bloggers, must adhere in order to be featured on the sites. Phil from The Last Appetite advises

that getting listed on aggregators is a useful step for bloggers who are trying to generate an

income from blogging, but complains about the lack of diversity such sites produce:

Tastespotting highlights food photography with an emphasis on well-

lit macro shots of styled food: the sort of shots that bore me

pantless but the rest of the world seems to love with gay abandon.

While creators of the sites often describe them as community sites, they are exclusive spaces

where access is only granted to bloggers who meet the subjective standards for what is deemed

acceptable or good blogging practice. This also does not reflect the community’s diversity, and,

as Phil notes, in many ways limits diversity and discourages experimentation, since the same

styling appears on most blogs that strive to be featured on the aggregator sites. As the sites can

be used to show the food blogging community to non-bloggers, these standards create a

misleading or warped image of the community. In this sense, aggregators become gatekeepers,

as noted by Rene Lynch in an article about Sarah Gim, creator of TasteSpotting:

It all looks so artful, so effortless. But there's a grittier side to the site. If you could

pull back the curtain, you'd see food bloggers worldwide relentlessly vying for an

audience with all those readers. As the gatekeeper, Gim can get as many as 1,000

submissions in a single day. But, alas, only a fraction land that coveted spot on

TasteSpotting's home page. And the angry emails — "Why didn't you post my

apple tart?" — can quickly pile up.

(Lynch 2011, n.p.)

Aggregators can create divisions in the food blogging community between those featured on the

sites and those who are rejected. They also reinforce the norm of including images in posts. A

‘good camera’ is often described as being essential for getting started as a food blogger. For

example, food writer and author of the food blog ‘textbook’ Will Write for Food, Dianne Jacobs

describes “good photos of food” as being “critical” for a food blog (Jacob 2010, 84). Yet a good

camera, or even photos for that matter, is not absolutely necessary – it is possible to

successfully convey the instructions for a recipe without the support of images, and, until

relatively recently, unillustrated cookbooks were not uncommon.


Including images in blog posts, rather than being an essential aspect of food blogging, is a

community norm or standard. It helps people identify food blogs, and the quality of images in

some ways reveals community leaders. Beginner bloggers may use a simple ‘point and shoot’

digital camera, but aspirational, often Pro-Am, bloggers often use more expensive digital SLR

cameras. The camera becomes a status symbol of sorts, as high profile bloggers are often

celebrated for their photography as much as for their recipes. The ‘deliciousness’ of the food

discussed on their blog must be conveyed through photography in lieu of the audience being

able to smell or taste it. As Taylor from the blog Taylor Takes a Taste notes:

For good or bad, we live in a world where your food is first judged

by its picture. Whether it be in a book, on a restaurant’s website

or any other two dimensional object, your dish will be judged by its

picture. If you can’t be there to smell and taste the dish, a

picture is all you have to go off of. Because of this fact, anyone

who deals with food and the internet has to become a semi

professional food photographer.

Pro-Am food bloggers like Taylor (who is also a professional photographer and runs food

photography workshops for bloggers) are expected create innovative and appealing

recipes as well as produce visually appealing images. However, the emphasis here is on

imagery rather than content, so bloggers who produce high-quality images, in line with

current trends in food styling, are more likely to be featured on aggregator sites than

those who create quality recipes, but who may not produce images that fit the

aggregator’s style.

Professional food bloggers may not be as driven to have their work featured on

aggregators. For example, Lorraine from the blog Not Quite Nigella describes the fraught

relationship bloggers have with aggregator sites. Now a professional, full-time blogger,

Lorraine says she no longer submits to the sites:

They can be so cut throat when giving you a reason with curt and

cutting answers i.e. “Poor compostion!” [sic] “Bad lighting!” but

when they let you in, you feel like you got into the club. For the

last few months I took myself out of the running with both and don’t

bother submitting to either anymore and it’s great waking up and not

being greeted with a pass or fail in my inbox.

Lorraine’s attitude perhaps reflects how these sites are used and by whom – as an

established blogger, she can afford not to submit to them, but aspiring professionals

cannot.


TasteStopping is an aggregator site with lower barriers to entry – it was created in

response to other more exclusive aggregators, and features images from blog posts that

were rejected by other sites. The site offers encouragement and advice to bloggers

looking to improve their practice, and asks bloggers who submit their rejected images to

include the explanation from the aggregator. TasteStopping can be viewed as part

tongue-in-cheek and part support group, as it provides a space, as Jenkins notes of folk

culture, for people to “do bad art, get feedback, and get better” (2008, 140-1).

Aggregators and curators are similar in some ways to art gallery curators – despite the

anxiety provoked by these sites, they are successful and accepted by the community

because they are perceived to add value to the community by helping bloggers promote

their work and reach new audiences. While aggregators present many complex issues,

the most surprising, perhaps, is the manner in which the food blogging community readily

accepts them. Despite the fact that food bloggers may argue that, in the blogosphere, you

can do whatever you like (as several suggested in my interviews with them), they are

often willing to submit to the aggregators’ ideas of what a ‘proper’ food blog should look

like.

While bloggers are disappointed when they are not included by aggregators, they accept

the aggregators’ assertion that not all entries can be accepted – if they were, this would

diminish the sense of achievement that comes from being recognised in an exclusive

space (Lynch 2011, n.p.). In setting standards for how food blogs should look, and in

asserting their importance in the community, aggregators also dictate how a food

blogger’s career should unfold, and, as with mainstream media, assume that all food

bloggers have professional aspirations. Being selected by these sites is a sort of

validation, and particularly successful food bloggers may even be ‘commissioned’ to

produce new content specifically for the aggregator or curator. They may have strict

instructions or subjective selection processes, but these are generally accepted (unlike

the rules on sites such as Food Blog Code of Ethics), because of the perceived benefit to

bloggers and because, despite their impact on the form and content of blogs, they appear

to celebrate the community, rather than explicitly dictate its rules.

Food-‐related media response to food blogging

As food blogs have evolved, and the community has become more structured and established,

food-related media and other industries have responded with attempts to understand, engage,

and manage food bloggers. Food blogs are increasingly recognised as an aspect of broader

food-related media, and as such provide both competition and opportunities for media and other


industries. Food blogs, as previously noted, offer ‘ordinary’ people opportunities for entry into

food-related media professions. They also offer media and other industries opportunities to

promote products, reach broader audiences, and source new talent.

Engagement with the community by food-related media and other food-related industries is

reminiscent of the gaming industry’s engagement with gamers, in that it is driven as much by

bloggers’ expectations as it is by the potential for commercial benefits for industry. As Banks

notes:

Fans expect that game companies will provide forums in which they can express

their views and opinions about games in development and games released. Fans

expect to be increasingly involved in the game production process. Fans expect

game companies to release editing tools and support the fan community's efforts to

create additional content for the game. In short, a hard-core gamer fan expects that

game development companies will build a collaborative relationship with them.

(Banks 2002, 195)

Similarly, food bloggers, as engaged food enthusiasts, consume food-related media and have

an interest in food-related products. While they do not necessarily, or obviously, seek to

challenge existing food-related media, they increasingly see themselves as a part of it, and

expect to be viewed as a legitimate part of the food-related media landscape and as an

alternative source of food-related information. As such, they respond positively to the inclusion

of bloggers in food-related media and in other food-related environments.

The response of food-related media to food blogs also echoes Hebdige’s description of

subcultural style as being “alternately celebrated (in the fashion page) and ridiculed or reviled (in

those articles which define subcultures as social problems)” (1979, 93), as food blogs are the

subject of both concerns and celebrations.

Criticisms of food blogs usually target restaurant review blogs, rather than recipe blogs. For

instance, food and travel writer Rona Gindin complains (on her blog) about the poor standard of

writing on food blogs, and says she would not care about food bloggers “if the amateurs weren’t

getting undue attention”. Yet, similar criticisms are sometimes levelled at recipe bloggers. For

example, Jamie Schler writes on The Huffington Post that she is “rather stunned, confused and

dismayed by the deluge of junk food posing as the homebaked and homecooked on so many

American food blogs” (2012, n.p.). Schler is a food blogger herself, and her concerns around the

quality of the food also point to concerns about the level of influence food blogs have. If they

were not influential, there would be no need for such concern. In this way, Schler’s comments


can be seen as a positive, as they suggest that food blogs have the potential to be better, and to

be a useful resource for information about positive food habits.

Food events, such as Australia’s Good Food and Wine Show, occasionally have sessions on

food culture, which often include food writing and food blogging. In some cases, these events

provide a forum for people to discuss the ‘issue’ of food bloggers, which typically focuses on

concerns of blog quality and authority. However, these events also include participation from

food bloggers who may speak at events, as food personalities in their own right, or by taking

part in active audience discussions. Food bloggers also attend other food or blogging events

that are not food blogging-specific, such as the International Association of Culinary

Professionals conference. Casey from TasteStopping explains the relevance of such events for

food bloggers, and urges them to consider themselves as culinary professionals:

“IACP” stands for “International Association of Culinary

Professionals.” As a food blogger you are a culinary professional; I

am simply trying to highlight the “professional” side of that title.

Yes, there will be topics at the annual conference that speak

directly to the work you do everyday, but my guess is you probably

don’t need to look far or hard to find programming on writing and

photography. Further, the other sessions at IACP’s conference may be

the ones that spark you to take your brand and business to a new

place (hopefully one that includes a revenue stream!).

Participation in external events is part of an ongoing discussion between bloggers and industry

about where food blogs fit and what constitutes acceptable behaviour – for both bloggers and

industry.

Celebrations of food blogs in food-related media can be seen in the creation of lists and awards

for ‘top’ bloggers. As with the internal community lists, these lists reflect a history of food

competitions and an attempt to understand and explain the food blogging community. They

provide guidance for the general public, drawing their attention to blogs that are deemed worth

reading, and encourage readers to explore the wider community. Lists and awards are useful

measures of success and validation, in the form of recognition by mainstream media, although

they do have a tendency to privilege those bloggers with professional aspirations. Bloggers who

are included in lists or awards often mention this on their blog.

Lists are often featured in newspaper articles, such as the Times Online “50 of the world’s best

food blogs” (Robinson 2009). While these lists are often created by people external to the

community, awards include input from the community. For example, SAVEUR magazine’s Best

Food Blog Awards (SAVEUR Best Food Blog Awards: Frequently Asked Questions 2012) takes


nominations for food blogs to be considered for the awards. The magazine’s editors then

choose the finalists, and the awards are decided by a public vote. As seen with community

‘rules’ and aggregator sites, awards are generally accepted and valued by food bloggers, as

they are created in consultation with the community.

Food bloggers may also be considered for other blogging awards with food categories, such as

the Weblog Awards, or ‘Bloggies’, and for other food writing awards, such as the James Beard

Foundation awards. In 2010, the James Beard Foundation announced that their prestigious

journalism awards had “mostly abolished separate categories based on publishing platforms”,

although they still have an award for best food blog (Fox 2010, n.p.). This inclusion reflects how

established, and perhaps mainstream, food blogging has become.

These lists and awards are mutually beneficial for bloggers and for the media publication. For

instance, Martha Stewart’s website features a section called ‘Martha’s Circle’, which lists

lifestyle bloggers, including food bloggers. Martha’s Circle is a kind of ‘in-group’ of high-profile

food bloggers. Inclusion on the Circle is mutually beneficial for bloggers and for Martha

Stewart’s business. Bloggers provide Martha Stewart with advertising, as they note their

membership on their blog. In turn, being listed on Martha Stewart’s website also drives more

traffic to their blog and generates greater status in the community. Martha’s Circle also

demonstrates Martha Stewart’s understanding of food blogs and allows her to tap into the

community without having to create a blog herself.

In addition to offering commercial opportunities, engaging with the community allows food-

related media to subtly regulate blogger behaviour. While perhaps a cynical view, and not

necessarily undertaken with a direct intent to control bloggers, listing certain bloggers, such as

in Martha’s Circle, draws attention to ‘acceptable’ behaviour or ‘best practice’, and, as the

bloggers featured on such sites are typically high-profile community leaders, their blogging

practices are likely to be imitated by other bloggers. Engagement with the community can also

provide opportunities for some bloggers to be recruited in a professional capacity into food-

related media. In a sense, food-related media attempt to ‘tame’ food bloggers by suggesting that

if bloggers behave in a way that they deem is acceptable, they may be able to transition into the

professional world of food writing. Again, this is based on an assumption that many or all food

bloggers aspire to professionalisation.

While these celebratory responses to food blogs may subtly hint at attempts to manage or

control blogging behaviour, other media responses are far more explicit in setting standards for

blogging, and, in doing so, defining food blogs as a genre. As the food blogging community has

grown, a number of ‘textbooks’ have been produced on food writing, styling, and photography

with a focus on blogging, presumably with a target audience of established bloggers looking to


improve their practice, and those new to blogging. These books, like the lists and awards noted

previously, work on the assumption that food bloggers have professional ambitions.

Some of these books are produced by food bloggers, such as Pixel to Plate (Dujardin 2011),

some by successful food writers, such as Will Write for Food (Jacob 2010), and others by food

professionals, such as Food Blogging For Dummies (Senyei 2012). Similarly, courses on food

blogging also offer opportunities for people learn food blogging, such as the International

Culinary Centre’s food blogging course, which, with six sessions costing $695 US, promises to

“spell out blogging fundamentals, from creating your first post to developing money-making

strategies” (Food Blogging with Steven Shaw 2012).

These instructions for food blogging, and the apparent lack of community resistance to them,

reveal the openness of the food blogging community. As blogger Delia Ramsey comments in

response to an article on the Dallas Observer blog site (Reitz 2011) about Food Blogging For

Dummies: “ouch. now everyone will be doing what I'm doing. :( Oh, wait, they already are” (in

Reitz 2011, n.p.).

As noted in Chapter 2, bloggers readily share resources, advice and information about blogging

practice, so much of the information in these books is already available online, for free. Such

tools have the potential to see the community inundated with new food blogs and an increased

number of bloggers with (possibly unrealistic) professional ambitions. Like other responses from

food-related media and industry, these instructions for food blogging represent a formalisation of

the ‘rules’ of food blogging and a standard for what is acceptable or expected.

Publishing food bloggers

The most notable celebration of food blogs by food-related media is the decision to publish

bloggers’ work. While not all food bloggers have professional aspirations, being published is

generally viewed, within the community, as a positive outcome. It might not be every food

blogger’s ultimate goal, but it is regarded as a sign of success. Magazine and newspaper

publishers routinely feature articles by and about food bloggers, and book publishers have, as

noted previously, published cookbooks and culinary memoirs written by numerous bloggers.

Some publications have been created to feature content from and about food bloggers

exclusively. For example, the book Foodies of the World (Gaw 2010) features profiles and

recipes from more than 100 food bloggers. In the introduction, the book’s editor Julia Gaw

claims that the book is “an old media version of Google”, which is designed to “guide you

through the crowded and elaborate online collection that can enrich your life in the kitchen – if

only you know where to start” (2010, 5).


Food bloggers are sometimes profiled in food-related media, such as in the Good

Weekend magazine in The Sydney Morning Herald (Karnikowski 2012), and in

MasterChef Magazine, which profiles a different food blogger each month (Jenkins 2010).

Food bloggers are also occasionally commissioned to write features for food-related

media. For example, Katie Quinn Davies, writer of the blog What Katie Ate, is a regular

contributor to delicious. magazine (Quinn Davies 2012).

Bloggers are keen to be included in food-related media as it offers them opportunities to

generate some income in a food-related field, but also because it can help them expand their

readership. For example, after she was eliminated from MasterChef, Marion Grasby appeared

on The 7PM Project to discuss her future plans. Grasby spoke about her experiences on the

reality television show and her initial expectations, and laughingly commented: “I just thought I’d

go on the show, maybe get a bit of publicity for my food blog” (Horan 2010).

Other food bloggers, such as Molly Wizenberg, David Lebovitz, and Ree Drummond,

mentioned earlier in this chapter, have been published in their own right. Food bloggers

who transition from Pro-Am to professional, moving beyond blogging spaces into

professional food-related media, could be, in Abercrombie and Longhurst’s terms,

described as “petty producers” (1998, 140). As professionals, they have become a sort of

‘brand’, which their blog supports and promotes. This is not to say they are no longer

interested in food or blogging on a personal level, but their relationship to these activities

has shifted. As Abercrombie and Longhurst note:

As the enthusiast moves out of an enthusiasm towards being a petty producer or

forms a production company, he/she is returned to more general capitalist social

relations; as producers, they are as much at the mercy of the structural forces as

the consumers at the other end of the continuum.

(1998, 140)

Clotilde has published numerous books, and indeed was one of the first food bloggers to

transition into professional food-related media. However, her career in food-related media – as a

food writer, recipe developer and author – goes beyond the work of a petty producer. Clotilde

edited the first English-language edition of I Know How To Cook (Mathiot 2009), which, first

published in 1932 (in French), is described as the ‘bible’ of traditional French cookery. Her work

revising the classic book reveals that, beyond being a leader in the food blogging community

and a petty producer, having transitioned from Pro-Am to professional, she is a key figure in

wider food culture. Professional food bloggers such as Clotilde achieve a certain level of

celebrity – within the food blogging community and in food-related media. This is reflective of

broader media trends in which ‘ordinary’ people are “plucked from obscurity to enjoy a highly


circumscribed celebrity” (Turner 2010, 12). Turner argues that the proliferation of these

‘ordinary’ celebrities has mutated the concept of celebrity, which is “fast becoming an almost

reasonable expectation for us to have of our everyday lives” (2010, 14). This can be seen in the

food blogging community, where an increasing number of bloggers have professional

aspirations towards becoming a celebrity, and furthermore, this is a potentially achievable goal.

Publishing food bloggers can be less risky than publishing unknown or untested authors. Food

bloggers who are published typically have large, engaged readerships, and some level of

celebrity within the food blogging community. They use their blog, other community sites, tools

and events, and social media to “generate goodwill and a shared sense of endeavour” (Phipps

2011, n.p.). Food bloggers challenge the idea that you need to be some sort of ‘expert’ to talk

publicly about food. However, while they may not have formal training (although many bloggers

who are published have some professional experience working with food or media), only those

who produce quality content and engage with their community – of readers and other bloggers –

are likely to be successful in making the transition from Pro-Am to professional.

Food blogging and food-‐related media convergence

Over the course of this research project, the food blogging community has become more

structured. Food blogging itself has developed into an established and recognised genre

and an increasingly accepted aspect of food-related media. The fact that there are now

books and courses to teach people how to become food bloggers suggests that food

blogging has become a stereotype or cliché. As Sunday from the blog Anger Burger

notes:

I think it used to be easy to mock someone by saying “Oh, you blog, how original,”

and now I feel like it’s even easier to say “Oh, you’re taking photos for your food

blog, yawn.”

Food blogging has, as it were, gone mainstream. It is perhaps no longer a subculture, but

instead a legitimate activity and a useful means for people to find and share information

about food. Food blogs have now cemented themselves as part of food-related media.

Ganda Suthivarakom, a food blogger and now director of the SAVEUR website, says that

“in 2004, to be a food blogger was to be an outsider in the world of food media. Today, it

couldn't be more different” (2011b, n.p.). Using a broad definition of food blogs, which

includes restaurant reviews, she argues that:

Food blogs leveled the playing field: chefs, cookbook authors, critics, home cooks,

and civilian diners like me were all suddenly sitting at the same table. Instead of a


rarefied and inaccessible group of print reviewers having a say, suddenly

thousands of voices of varying skill levels and interests chimed in, and the

conversation became livelier.

(Suthivarakom 2011b, n.p.)

In becoming established as a genre, food blogs reflect the gradual convergence of different

types of food-related media. Food blogs are part of a wider trend towards user-generated, food-

related online content, as seen with sharing of food photos through social media and smart

phone applications. They are also now often included alongside traditional food-related media

as another source of food-related information. For example, the site Eat your books, which

indexes cookbooks, providing users with an online tool for searching the recipes in the books

they own, has begun to index food blogs as well. As Phil from The Last Appetite notes on a post

from 2008:

it is beginning to look a bit silly setting up a binary opposition

between mainstream food media and blogging when both Condé Nast

[link to Epicurious.com] and The Guardian [link to the Word of Mouth

blog on The Guardian’s website] run food blogs populated by both

bloggers and journalists. Within the next few years every major food

media outlet will have one as more of the news business moves

online.

In their study of the motivations of political bloggers, Ekdale et al. found that while bloggers

were initially driven by intrinsic motivations, and a “desire to let off steam”, over time they

became increasingly driven by extrinsic motivations, namely, they were motivated to offer an

alternative point of view to mainstream media (Ekdale et al. 2010, 230-231). Some food

bloggers, particularly those who blog about food ethics or specific diets, such as Zoe from

Progressive Dinner Party, are similarly motivated by a sense that the mainstream media’s

position on food is either inadequate or one they do not share:

I find much of the professional food media available in Australia

has very little to offer me – I’m not interested in quick and easy

recipes to feed the whole family, or the hottest new restaurant in

town... there’s ... a lot of bought-in content and writing by

people who don’t share the level of engagement with food that we

bloggers do.

As food blogging has become an established genre and a structured community with codified

rules and accepted behaviour and practices, and part of the wider food-related media ecology, it

has perhaps become less challenging to the status quo. However, as a medium, blogging

provides publicity for alternative views, more so than mainstream media. As Jenkins notes,


“blogging describes a communication process, not an ideological position” (2006b, 151).

Likewise, Humphreys argues that “blogs are a creative communication tool used for a multitude

of purposes, none of which can fully represent them all” (2008, 425)

Food blogs, therefore, still offer the potential to challenge mainstream media and provide a

space for community members to negotiate accepted norms in food culture, and indeed, culture

more broadly. But, at the same time, as a genre, food blogs have become predictable, and

something of a cliché or stereotype. For instance, The Simpsons satirised food blogging

(although, to be fair, with a focus on restaurant review bloggers more so than on recipe

bloggers), in the episode The Food Wife (Bailey and Anderson 2011).

Recently, there have been questions about whether food blogging ‘is over’. Food blogger and

writer of Blog Tutor Andrew Wilder, comments on this question, partly in response to The

Simpsons food blog parody. He argues:

We’re approaching a tipping point, and it has the potential to

take us in one of two directions. We can go up, lifting each other

and our own blogs, continuing to add value to the conversation in

our own unique ways. Or we can go down by saturating the market

with stale, repetitious posts.I certainly hope we’ll tip in the

right direction.

These concerns echo those of almost any subculture that has become widespread and

‘mainstream’. Some food bloggers may feel that this means food blogging is now somehow less

interesting, that they are not doing anything particularly special. The sheer volume of food

bloggers has made it difficult for food blogging to be a tight-knit subculture, and has lead to a

great diversity in the level of talent and skill among food bloggers. While the food blogging

community has not resisted new members or “hangers on” (Hebdige 1979, 122) in the same

way that other subcultures have, food bloggers still express concerns, not so much about the

size of the community, but about the idea of food blogging as stereotypical. Implied in these

concerns are fears of no longer being ‘underground’, which are common within subcultures.

Again, such concerns reflect Hebdige’s (1979, 93) description of subcultures as being either

celebrated or ridiculed. Members of subcultures are likely to prefer a position from which they

can set themselves apart from mainstream media, even if, like food bloggers, they do not set

out to be deliberately confrontational. Inside the food blogging community, acceptance by

mainstream food-related media can indicate the success and legitimacy of food blogs, or be

taken as a sign that they have ‘sold out’. But, perhaps, being declared ‘over’ just indicates that a

subculture has transitioned to its next stage. These concerns, as expressed by food bloggers,


illustrate the evolution of food blogging – from amateur, hobbyist, subcultural activity to

structured, established and accepted activity, and an integrated part of food-related media.

In their ongoing evolution, food blogs have become a recognisable genre, providing

opportunities for professionalism, if bloggers are so inclined. As this has happened, they have

gradually converged with food-related media, and food blogs can no longer be seen to run in

opposition to the mainstream. In this convergence, food blogs have played a role in the trend of

interactive, user-generated content and cross-platform delivery of other food-related media.

Food blogs have demonstrably revitalised an interest in recipe sharing among ‘ordinary’ people.

The evolution of food blogs, however, is just part of the ongoing evolution of food-related media

and recipe sharing technologies.

Conclusion 85

Conclusion

Since food blogs began to appear in the early 2000s, their number has steadily increased, and

the community has become more established and structured. When I started this project, I was

interested in the relationships between food bloggers and food-related media. As the project

developed, it became clear that the food blogging community provided a useful window into the

transformation in food-related media, and I focused my research on how the community

operates – who its members are, why and how they blog about food, how they form a

community, and how this community is structured. The relationship between food bloggers and

food-related media became more of a secondary concern, because as the community has

developed, food blogging has asserted itself as a media form in its own right, rather than a

minor aspect of food-related media.

Food blogs have emerged as a viable means for people to find and share information about

food. As the number of food blogs has increased, the community’s reach has expanded. More

people now have opportunity to experience food blogs – whether directly online, through other

food-related media, such as profiles of food blogs in magazines, and through consuming the

tangible (edible) outcomes of blogs created and shared by their own friends and family.

Fundamentally, this thesis is about community. I have highlighted how long-held, offline

traditions around food and recipe sharing and the role of taste in identity building have

influenced how the food blogging community has formed and how it operates. Through

interviews, a survey, participant observation and textual analysis, including a case study, I have

shown that the food blogging community operates as a structured, diversified and dynamic

community in which members acquire and share cultural capital and social capital. It can also

be seen as a place, made up of many personal, but shared spaces, according to Tuan’s (1977)

differentiation of space and place. That is, while it is constantly evolving and changing, it also

feels stable and comforting to its members. Furthermore, the food blogging community can be

seen as a community – primarily of interest, but also of practice and knowledge – as it provides

an environment in which members find Baym’s and Wellman’s key identifiers of community:

• a sense of belonging

• shared/social identities

• shared practice

• a sense of space

• sociability and interpersonal relationships

Conclusion 86

• shared resources, information and support.

(Baym 2010, 75; Wellman 2001, 228)

Food bloggers, according to Bishop and Hoggett’s (1986) definition, are essentially food

enthusiasts, as they engage with food and cooking at a level beyond that of other people, and

devote large amounts of time to blogging about it. In blogging about food, they are engaging in

what could be described as “serious leisure” (Stebbins 1992). As with any organised and

established community, members of the food blogging community – both food bloggers and

food blog readers – take on various, and sometimes multiple, roles: they may be community

leaders, organisers, and record keepers, they may take on less active roles as ‘rank and file’

community members, and they may be lurkers. Their level of professionalism varies – from

amateurs or hobbyists, through to Pro-Ams (Leadbeater and Miller 2004) and professionals.

Their reasons for blogging about food also vary across a spectrum of motivations, from intrinsic

to extrinsic. These motivations can be tied up with their ambitions or aspirations for blogging.

Food bloggers may wish to become professional food writers or community leaders, or they may

blog as a means to share recipes with friends and family in their personal networks. They may

also blog mainly for a sense of self-satisfaction and to document their cooking practices. Or, if

they have specific interests or food ideologies, they may use their blog as a forum to share

essential food-related information, for example about vegan recipes, that is difficult to find

elsewhere. The diversity of motivations is reflected in the different roles food bloggers play in

their community. Despite these different motivations, and the fact that the community operates

across multiple sites, food bloggers still imagine themselves as a community, connected

through a shared enthusiasm for food.

Through the case study of the complex process of sharing a recipe for pull-apart bread provided

in Chapter 3, I have shown how central community members, or leaders, emerge. A common

criticism of blogs is the lack of quality control; however, within the food blogging community,

quality is essential for success. Unlike other online communities based on exchange of ideas

and information only, food blogs are based around a tangible product, and they can be ‘tested’.

Readers can recreate a recipe, and if they find it unsatisfactory, or it simply does not ‘work’, their

relationship with the blogger will change. Bloggers who produce unappealing recipes, writing, or

photography are unlikely to be seen as leaders in the community. On the other hand, bloggers

such as Joy from Joy the Baker, who emerged as the most influential blogger and clear

community leader in the pull-apart bread recipe case study, set a ‘gold standard’ for blogging

that is imitated throughout the community. It is through the repetition of such gold standard

activities that norms and expectations for acceptable behaviour within the food blogging

community develop.

Conclusion 87

As an activity, food blogging has become essentially mainstream. Food blogs have emerged as

an established genre, which, while perhaps appearing generic to those outside the community,

is considered nuanced and varied by its members. Food bloggers have argued that they should

be taken seriously, as seen in the formal community codes outlined in Chapter 4, and have

sought to be accepted by mainstream food-related media. Yet, as food blogging has evolved

and become more widespread, they have taken exception to the idea of a ‘standard’ or

stereotype for food blogs; that is, the widely adopted structure for posts that consists of a photo,

preamble about the recipe, list of ingredients, and the recipe instructions. This concern echoes

typical concerns of subcultures that have grown, become accepted by wider culture, and in

doing so have become less challenging. Food blogs as a medium still offer opportunities to

challenge accepted cultural norms around food preparation and consumption. However, more

broadly, they have gradually co-evolved with food-related media, and are increasingly accepted

as a growing and important aspect of it.

In examining how the food blogging community operates, this project has looked at its evolution;

the process food blogging has undergone in finding, organising, and defining itself. It has

analysed and described a brief history of food blogs and recorded their current state, that is,

their emergence as another aspect of food-related media. In this way, food blogs provide an

example of the ongoing transformation of food-related media, food culture, and indeed, culture

more broadly. Food blogs are part of a broader trend towards a renewed interest in folk culture

and DIY, seen in online and offline communities. As such, they reflect the current fascination

with food as entertainment and the ‘celebrification’ of ‘ordinary’ people (Turner 2010, 14) in

media, epitomised by television shows such as MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules.

Food blogs could be seen as a reaction against the celebrification of food, as they celebrate the

cooking talents of ‘ordinary’ people in an environment that is not managed by media producers.

Yet, ironically, at the same time they can also be seen as a breeding ground for new food

celebrities, such as Julie Powell who wrote about her blog The Julie/Julia Project in a book of

the same name, which was then made into a film. Food blogs provide a key example of how

tastes in food-related media change and evolve. It could also be argued that reality shows take

cues from food blogs in terms of their active audiences and use of social media. MasterChef in

particular is supported by a website, a magazine, and active social media channels, reflecting

an increasing expectation of audience participation and interactivity in the delivery of food-

related information. Programs such as MasterChef may also respond to food trends that are

emerging online.

Food blogs, like cookbooks, can be seen to both reflect and shape culture (Gallegos 2005, 99).

In addition to providing an archive of what ‘ordinary’ people are cooking on a scale not

previously available, they have potential to influence food trends. This can be seen in the

growing interest in where and how food is produced, coupled with concerns around food

Conclusion 88

wastage (e.g., Tristram 2009). For instance, an interest in urban agriculture can be seen with

organisations such as Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Foundation, which teaches

school children how to grow and cook vegetables. Concerns about food production are

sometimes countered by the trend of making foods ‘from scratch’, a popular topic on food blogs,

and such DIY trends can also be seen in wider food culture, such as with classes on topics

ranging from cheese making to butchering (Severson 2010). These concerns are also evident in

the growing interest in organic and ethical produce (Paish 2011).

In this project, I have used food blogs to investigate the intersection of food and technology and

the implications for wider culture. I hope to have shed light on food blogging as a new and

significant facet of the ongoing evolution of food-related media and to have shown that food

blogs, as part of an established and structured community, provide an insight into contemporary

food culture. They also, as part of the long history of food-related media, provide a unique

record of the food habits of ‘ordinary’ people in a broader, more democratic, and more

accessible manner than traditional food-related media such as cookbooks.

Further outlook

Despite reports of blogging being in decline due to increased social media use (Kopytoff 2011),

blogs are far from being a redundant medium. In fact, within communities of interest such as the

food blogging community, blogs are active and engaged sites for communication, and bloggers

use social media such as Twitter as support tools, rather than as replacements. Further

research could look at how people now use blogs and other social media tools in concert. It

could also consider the role of blogs as archives or repositories of personal information and the

implications this has for online privacy.

Such research could build upon the work in this project, as well as research into other lifestyle

and personal blogs (e.g., Humphreys 2008) to examine other ways that blogging, or indeed, the

Internet, has become embedded in everyday life. Activities such as cooking and craft have

perhaps previously been viewed as mundane topics not worthy of serious investigation, and

overlooked in favour of research into journalistic and political blogs. Yet, if viewed as cultural

archives, personal and lifestyle blogs provide valuable insights into culture. The increasingly

image-driven nature of food-related media, and the popularity of sharing photos of food through

platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest, would also provide rich research material. Such

research could examine how people acquire cultural capital and build identities through sharing

photos of what they eat, or what they wish they could eat.

Another issue that could be investigated is that of online gender roles. In this project, I have

deliberately excluded the issue of gender and blogging, but this issue does warrant

investigation. For example, while most food bloggers are women, several of those who reach

Conclusion 89

some level of professionalism are men. This is not to say that these men do not deserve to be

professional, but rather that there is perhaps an imbalance in the community when it comes to

leadership and success. This is reminiscent of long-held traditions of food in which women

prepare domestic meals, while men work in professional cooking roles as chefs.

Beyond blogging and social media, further research could investigate food-related media from

health, policy, and cultural studies perspectives. For instance, research could look at how food-

related media is used. It could analyse the messages about food in media – including issues of

health, ethics, the environment, and gender. Research to date has included content analyses of

food advertising on television (Chapman et al. 2006), investigations of the impact of junk food

advertising on children (Dixon et al. 2007), and, more recently, discussions on how MasterChef

affects children’s attitudes towards food (Goodyer 2011). Beyond examining advertising or

specific television shows, further research could examine the ways people use the information

conveyed in food-related media. For example, McCluskey and Swinnen (2011) discuss the role

that media play in food scares. They cite an example from Oprah Winfrey: when Oprah claimed

that meat produced in the United States could cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE

or ‘mad cow disease’), stating that it “stopped her cold from eating another burger”, beef

producers sued her, arguing she was partly responsible for falling beef prices, and noting that

the country did not, in fact, have any cases of BSE (McCluskey and Swinnen 2011, 624). While

perhaps an extreme example, given that Oprah Winfrey is a particularly powerful media

personality, it would be interesting to assess the ways people actually use messages they

receive through media about food, and how that information is enacted.

Taking into account the long history of sharing information about food, this research could

examine the ways people learn about food, and the role media plays in this learning. It could

look at how food trends emerge – from where or whom, and how they are driven. How these

food trends and messages shape our understanding of culture and what impact they have on

food policies, health, food security, and distribution, could also be examined. Understanding the

ways in which we gain knowledge and information about food could have potential benefits for

health promotion and policy, in terms of producing more effective and targeted messages. It

could also be used to argue for greater media responsibility in representing information about

food – from a health perspective, given current concerns around obesity, and from

environmental, ethical, and food security perspectives. If we do, in fact, derive much of our

knowledge about food from media, it could then be argued that media, such as cooking shows,

must take more responsibility in the recipes they share.

This thesis argues for the value of using food as a lens through which to study culture. As

popular food writer Ruth Reichl says:

for people who really love it, food is a lens through which to view the world. For us,

the way that people cook and eat, how they set their tables, and the utensils that

Conclusion 90

they use all tell a story. If you choose to pay attention, cooking is an important

cultural artifact, an expression of time, place, and personality.

(2001, iv)

Yet this lens is not restricted to those who “really love” food – it has far wider applications than

this. Anthropologists have historically used food as a means to describe and understand

cultures. Food has also been used in historical studies to understand issues such as class and

gender differences. However, food has perhaps been under utilised as a lens for understanding

and examining contemporary culture. Food provides a useful cultural studies lens for a range of

issues, as does technology. As food and technology are closely tied, and are both dramatic

forces in culture – or indeed, can be seen as expressions of culture – this intersection is, and

will continue to be, an important research domain.

Barthes argues that food must be examined in all its forms if we are to truly understand culture

(1979, 167). The sharing of food and recipes is a fundamental human practice and central to

culture. In many ways, food drives culture – including media and technology – and constantly

adapts and adjusts to its contemporary environment. Food blogs provide a useful case study for

understanding how our online and offline lives have become intertwined, and showcase the

Internet as a part of everyday life. They also provide a useful example of the constant evolution

of food, culture, and technology, and remind us that new means of sharing food and culture will

continue to emerge. Our relationships to food and technology, and our interactions with food-

related media, must be continually examined if we are to understand the ways they both shape

and reflect culture. I hope this thesis goes some way towards advancing this understanding.

Appendix 1: Interview transcripts 91

Appendix 1: Interview transcripts

Interview questions for QUT research project Communal Dining: Food bloggers and publishers at the Web 2.0 table (working title) QUT Ethics Approval Number 1100000387 Jen Lofgren, Master of Arts (Research) student

Anger Burger, email interview, 13 July 2011 Blog name Anger Burger Year started 2009 URL www.angerburger.com First name Sunday Last name Williams City Los Angeles Country U.S.A. Occupation freelance writer Gender F Age 31 Other blogs or websites

Galactic Mu (www.galacticmu.com) - a science fiction fandom blog on hold since Anger Burger began in 2009

Please indicate whether your statements can be attributed to you or if you would prefer them to be treated anonymously

Directly attributed / Anonymous

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? The only initial reason was to organize and archive my recipes in a format that was easy to access from wherever I was. I was bitching to my friend Leesa about how there was no decent software - free or otherwise - available where I could store recipes with photos as well as the ability to tag and categorize. Everything on the market was awful, they looked like something from LiveJournal. And she said “Why not use WordPress?” And I just gaped - it was the obvious solution, and I’d overlooked it. Since then the iPad has come out with lauded recipe-storing applications, and had it been available to me in early 2009 I may have never started Anger Burger. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? If I were forced to summarize my blog in three words it would be “plebeian food blog” but the evolution of the content has changed subtly over the last few years. I recognized quickly that my having Crohn’s disease was going to come up in conversation since the relationship between myself, food and Crohn’s is a weird one. Right away I started getting very personal, thankful and deeply emotional emails from readers who also have Crohn’s disease, most of them grateful that I was speaking about my disease as though it were a normal part of my daily existence - which it is. Some of them have told me they’ve used my words in emails or even read them aloud to friends and family to explain a feeling or experience that they themselves were unable to articulate. I could go on and on about how terrible the selection of Crohn’s disease blogs is, but that’s a different subject. Soon after I began to get fan mail thanking me for my tone, primarily my use of profanity and sarcasm. When I saw that this was my fan base, I stopped worrying about politeness and just let go; it would seem that readers of food blogs are desperately tired of the staged, sterile, mindlessly pleasant and twee. The more tired, fallible and casual I was, the more fan mail I got. Which was great, because it was the honest me and easier


to write anyway. In more recently months I’ve seen a positive response to the sharing of non-food related personal details of my life, and I’ve started including more of what I would call “lifestyle” blog aspects, though with some hesitation. I don’t consider myself a brand capable of supporting a lifestyle blog, but who knows. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? The hopes and dreams for Anger Burger have not changed drastically since the beginning. I hope primarily to entertain myself. If I try for anything else, I lose interest in writing almost instantly. One thing that does nag at me is the knowledge that I am not utilizing the website as a way to make money -- ads could easily be paying for server space at the very least. I started to set up ads few months ago, but since I decided to not use an internet web site advertising service, the progress has been slow. By which I mean zero. I have a single ad that I’m not paid for: I asked a business I know if they’d like a free ad so I could run something as bait for other advertisers. Since then a half-dozen inquiries to other potential advertisers has turned up nothing. My focus for the near future is to try and secure some kind of functioning ad-revenue system. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? I have a peculiar emotional relationship with food - food often physically hurts me, but I’m a comfort-eater anyway. It boggles my mind that we have to eat so often, every single day, and that we have such a powerful desire for variety. We try and consume over a thousand unique meals a year! And even crazier is how easy it is to achieve this. No other daily activity requires as much forethought, creativity, willingness to experiment and chance for disaster as eating. I find it equally compulsive to write down these experiences, and since I started blogging about food, my diet has changed completely. I am far less likely to eat a microwave burrito (or a meat pie to you, I guess) now as a mindless intake of calories than I was three years ago; there’s a kind of eye-over-my-shoulder feeling of knowing that if I were to eat something like that, I’d feel compelled to share it on the blog and then feel ashamed about it. And I mean that in the silliest way possible - nothing will stop me from eating unhealthy garbage, but I’ll be the first to invite others to poke fun at me over it. There’s also the undeniable aspect of accolade. Fans. I get some truly charming and flattering messages from people I don’t know, and it never grows old. Each time a single new subscriber shows up, I feel a thrill. It’s a reinforcement I never received as a travel writer for newspapers, or a (unpublished) science fiction writer. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? As a writer, I love the feeling of words pouring out, effortlessly, without worry about word counts or grammar or staying on topic. It is what going dancing at a nightclub feels like for someone who spends their days trapped at a desk, a sudden and complete loss of restriction, an outpouring of trapped energy. It’s also instantaneous: instantly published, instantly pretty. For someone who used to Xerox zines in high school and then sell them for 25¢ at the local record store to try and recoup costs, this is an delightfully futuristic turn of events. The negative aspect is the same as any writing job: produce produce produce. I watch readership go down when I fail to write more than three posts a week, and when I write as many as five or six posts a week, readership climbs back up. I feel the pressure of momentum with food blogging that I can’t entirely keep going. A lot of it is personal - my mother is dying of cancer, my dad is going through some intense emotional stuff right now, my boyfriend lost his job and with the stress I find that I’m not as interested in food. Suddenly, my the content of my blog has evaporated, and I don’t really feel like explaining that to the anonymous masses. (As a aside, it’s a tremendous pet peeve of


mine when bloggers allude to something very very serious happening to them in real life but will not elaborate. I feel like there’s a real adolescent attention-grubbing quality to it. For example, I just did it in reference to my own dad, ha!) What has surprised you about food blogging? That it has become so ubiquitous. I think it used to be easy to mock someone by saying “Oh, you blog, how original,” and now I feel like it’s even easier to say “Oh, you’re taking photos for your food blog, yawn.” This happens quite often when I am out at restaurants in Los Angeles, and especially trendy ones: someone other than myself has a camera out and is taking photos. This surprises me a great deal, because I have an antiquated notion that blogging is essentially a nerdy act, and many times when I see someone else photographing their food with clear intentions of putting those photos online, they’re fashionable and young and not really like myself at all. I’m also surprised that I’ve only received one piece of hatemail in two and a half years. How often do you post? Between one and three times a week. How do you plan your posts? I don’t. I remember when I found out that other bloggers build up backlogs of pre-written posts for when they can’t write something, and being so overwhelmed at the idea that I ought to be writing even more. My system right now is: try and remember to take photos while I am cooking or eating at a restaurant, and then to write something to accompany those photos. How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? I’m awful at writing down recipes, which is why Anger Burger was born in the first place. I’ll try and remember how I prepared a meal the last time, and only sometimes be successful in recreating it. When writing them for Anger Burger I’ll often sit down and write the recipe directly to the blog right after cooking the meal itself. Other times when I’m really inventing something on the fly, I’ll keep a notepad in the kitchen and write down exact quantities and very little other information. Only when I’m writing the blog post to I break it down into instructions. Ideas come from everywhere - from the farmer’s market, from watching television, from the internet. I subscribe to Tastespotting (www.tastespotting.com) and will often not even use the recipe from the website, but instead use it as inspiration. This happens a lot, where I’ll be reminded that something exists. Like, oh yeah! Vanilla cupcakes are yummy! (This really happened.) I also talk to my mom often, and we tell each other what we’ve been cooking or baking that week and often give each other ideas. It’s difficult to say what style I write in. I suppose I’d just say “irreverently,” but there there have been people who have influenced me. A primary example is Ayun Halliday who briefly had a food blog, before I started Anger Burger, called Dirty Sugar Cookies (http://dirtysugarcookies.blogspot.com/). She had this crazy, talking-to-herself style of writing that totally went against everything else I was reading at the time. Her recipes were like transcripts of your slightly drunk best friend trying to tell you how to make something - you can’t skim through reading this stuff, you have to settle down for a long slog through it. I loved it. How long does it take you to write a post? Between one and two hours. Editing photos is a big time suck, but I also edit them as I write, and they give me time to mentally compose a little before actual writing takes place. I often go back over my writing three and four times, deleting anything that is boring and attempting to replace it with something funnier. This is only occasionally successful.


How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? I don’t promote it. I had nice business cards made and I almost never give them out. My friends and readership promote it way, way more than I ever could. I don’t Twitter, and this is becoming something of a problem. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I watch a lot of Food Network during the day and very rarely actually follow up a recipe online to cook later. I have a subscription to a single cooking magazine (Cuisine at Home) that was a gift from my mother-in-law, and I think I’ve cooked only a single recipe from it in the last year. I check out cookbooks from the library fairly regularly, and maybe cook one or two items from them. Each of these influences, despite being so small, all end up on Anger Burger. Mostly because I feel constantly in danger of running out of content - I make waffles for dinner at least once a week, but I can’t blog about it each time. What other food blogs do you read? Why? Oh goodness, a lot. Over a hundred. And because they are soothing to me, from the ones I love a lot, to the ones I sort of hate reading even though I keep reading them. I think they’re perfect escapist entertainment - I’ll always need to eat, I’ll always need to cook, and it’s something that keeps me from thinking about my mom or being unemployed or whatever for at least a few minutes. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? I think it’s very important to engage with other food bloggers, because food bloggers all read other food blogs. The vast majority of my referral click-throughs come from other food blogs that either mention one of my posts or have me listed in a blogroll. Do I actually engage with them? Oh, rarely. I’m awful at this. I’m the lurker! I hardly EVER comment on other people blogs, and I know it is terrible of me, but there it is. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? I picture my readers as myself, and I’m always surprised to find that someone is older or has children or some other drastically different lifestyle. But I think that part of my success (if we can call it that) is that I am always, at the core, just writing to myself. Some of my most popular posts have been on the most inane subjects. The most comments on any post went to a short ode I wrote to Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups -- no recipe, no brilliant revelations, nothing personal. It made me realize that while I have a vast, silent readership, my posts aren’t always easy to comment on. Which is a great segue to your next question... How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I think commentary is deeply important. I think of blogging as the true “social network,” having a great history back to the days when I used locally accessed Bulletin Board Systems in the 90’s -- those networks were only commentary. Blogs by and large are usually small (fewer than 500 readers a day) and usually have a set of regular commenters, and I feel it’s a pretty solid comparison to say that it’s like entering someone’s home: this is where they hold court, their guests probably like them a lot and are eager to participate. The allegory is itself like having a meal: the blogger makes something and offers it forth to her friends, who consume it and make polite (or bawdy, as the case may be) small talk, and all depart until the next time. I think on many levels it’s a large part why people read blogs: the ability to speak and be spoken back to in a controlled environment. Additionally, I don’t doubt that there’s some idolization that occurs between reader and writer, and in what other instance is there like this where the fan can so casually interact?


That being said, sometimes I feel there’s little to say about a blog post containing a recipe or review, and the comment numbers seem to agree with that. If I ask a direct questions I’ll get 30 answers, but if I blather on about kale for a while, maybe one or two people will chime in. I try and respond to comments as much as I can, particularly if someone has written a long or especially detailed comment, though it does at times feel like obligation. I’ve read other bloggers remark that their comment sections are just as interesting as their blogs, and in some instances this is true (and in some, they’re more interesting), though with food blogs in particular I get a lot of what I call chaff, comments like “This looks good!”. I also get a lot of one-time commenters with links back to their own food blogs and consider these to be blatant attempts at link-whoring, but I’m probably just being mean-spirited by thinking that. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? Oh sure, Jesus. I think you have to have beautiful, staged pictures, and I think you have to have long rambling commentary about how this food made you feel or some anecdote or other rubbish - I commit these offenses as much as anyone else does. I think that food bloggers who really embrace this concept are attempting to brand themselves out, making an abstract fantasy version of themselves where sprigs of flowers fall haphazardly across the cutting boards where their finished meal happens to be sitting. They enjoy reading Donna Hay or Martha Stewart’s Living magazine and believe that these elaborately and professionally staged photos and recipes are the kind of material that they should be producing. I think food bloggers tend towards being more polite than other bloggers, and more inhibited. I think there’s an overarching rule of domesticity, of showing your children happily eating or some other unlikely scene (no one ever blogs about how their child is a monster who will eat only pasta with butter). There’s a peculiar implication that female food bloggers have to be feminist as well as matronly, that if they are making strawberry jam at home they have to extol the virtues of how much more frugal, how much more healthy, how much more intellectually better their homemade jam is than storebought. Oh! And we cannot criticize one another, that’s the biggest faux-pas in all the food blogging land. We can’t point out that someone stole a recipe from so-and-so, or that someone puts red chili flakes in every single goddamn recipe she ever writes, or that that woman’s blog has really gone downhill since she had a baby. I appreciate that there is a great deal of self-control in food-bloglandia, but for myself the control is from a fear of crossing the wrong blogger. It’s not that I don’t want to play but sometimes I feel as if the Stepford Wives are blogging. How would you describe food bloggers? I think we are an overall pleasant bunch with a tendency toward the fatuous. How would you describe the food blogging community? Pretty inbred, I’d guess, but then all genre-blogging feels that way to me. The same blogs showing up on everyone’s blogrolls. I don’t really feel that I have a lot of contact with the community at large, to be honest. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? Overall, the food blogging community influences me very little. I definitely fall prey to trends (everyone’s making rustic tarts this week!) but primarily because my stomach is an easy sell. It’s hard to say where I fit into the community since I have little contact with them. I don’t communicate with any other food bloggers regularly. From my narrow viewpoint I feel like an anomaly, but this may not even be the case. Surely there are other food bloggers


who are sarcastic, who record their failures as well as their successes, who are healthy eaters one week and junk-food eaters the next. But I sort of live in my own little Anger Burger world. Have you attended any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? I never have, and I’ve never been invited to any. It’s actually kind of a mystery to me - there are many food blogs I subscribe to specifically because they are based here in Los Angeles with me and not because they’re especially good, and it’s common to see them invited to massive media and press junkets (it is L.A., after all). I continuously wonder how is it they’ve gotten invited to these things? Many of them don’t appear to even have a readership. Is it because they know each other in person? It seems that way to me, that because I don’t socialize in meatspace, I am not on this apparent inside-loop of events invitations.


Hungry Girl Por Vida, email interview, 1 August 2011 Blog name Hungry Girl Por Vida Year started 2008 URL www.hungrygirlporvida.com First name Cindy Last name Ensley City Lansing, Michigan Country USA Occupation Domestic, Blogger Gender Female Age 27 Other blogs or websites


Directly attributed to you

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? I, honestly, started my food blog out of boredom. I had just graduated from college, I couldn't find a job utilizing my liberal arts degree (writing), and I wanted to learn something new. I was a decent cook at the time, but baking eluded me. I was already reading a lot of other blogs and I figured, I could do this. So, I did. I wanted to learn how to bake, share it, and take a pretty picture. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? The focus of my blog is food, primarily baking. Very recently I have started to add some beauty trends and tutorials. Mostly DIY nail art. I plan to add some of my home and craft projects as well. These are all things I am interested in. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? I'm currently in the midst of doing a blog design overhaul and adding some advertisements. I spend a lot of time blogging and interacting with other bloggers, so that just seems like the natural thing to do. I mostly just want to reach out to more readers and make a little cash to support the content and do more giveaways. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? There really is a great community within food blogging, and blogging in general. I get have made some great contacts. My husband and I recently made a big, cross-country move and through my blog, I found I already had new contacts in our new state. That has been majorly beneicial as in person I tend to be shy and awkward. I find it hard to be naturally social, blogging has helped me with that. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? I love the sharing of recipes and culture. I especially love recipes that are near and dear to peoples hearts. I also love interacting with my readers and fellow bloggers. Emails make my day! I guess I'm a bit of a voyeur, so I like to see little snippets of other peoples lives and what they are up to in their kitchens. The things I don’t like mostly have to do with comparison. I always have a feeling of "I could be doing this better…" and comparing myself to other bloggers. I've learned to try to ignore those feelings and just do what I do. It's a challenge, but one that doesn't overshadow the benefits, for me, of blogging. What has surprised you about food blogging? It surprises me, still, that people actually read my blog and are receptive to it! It is always a surprise when someone actually uses a recipe they found via my blog or even find inspiration on my blog. That is just simply amazing to me. I am also surprised by the number of international followers I have. It really make this big, bad world seem much


smaller and friendlier. How often do you post? I try to post a few times a week. In the past year I have been all over the place with my posting…there were a few months where my blog was just stagnant. Life and personal tragedies had me down for a while emotionally, which left me not wanting to share or participate. I tend to be fairly private about my personal life and emotions. I want my blog to be a positive space for both myself and my readers. I have worked through a lot of that and find myself posting and thinking about what to post next a lot more. How do you plan your posts? I am constantly thinking about my next meal or the next thing I want to bake/eat. I think about whether or not other people would be interested in seeing that and I go from there. If something I made doesn't photograph well, I won't post it. I like a very visual blog. Once I have the photos done, the text comes from there. How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? Almost all of my recipes are adaptations…which I think recipes are anyway. I tend to think that most people rarely come up with anything 100% original. I try to write them simply. I don't spend an enormous amount of time thinking about what to write. Sometimes this leads to a short or trite post, but I'm okay with that. Despite my education, I am not much of a writer and I like to keep the tone conversational. I tend to write how I talk, which can be facetious, and I tend to be hyperbolic…which I how I am in "real" life. How long does it take you to write a post? Writing a post can take me anywhere from 20 minutes to many hours. If I am feeling stuck on a post, I will walk away from it and do something else. I don't want to spend days and days writing a single post. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? I promote my blog via Facebook and Twitter. I also use a few sharing site like FoodGawker and TasteSpotting. I am also a member of the FoodBuzz community, though I am not very active within it. I promote my blog because I want to share and I think, deep down, there is an element of competition. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I watch cooking shows, but rarely use recipes from them. I love collectiong cookbooks and find a lot of inspiration withing them--from the food and recipes, to photos and styling. I LOVE food magazines and especially ones I can't get here in the states as readily, like Donna Hay and Jamie Oliver. What other food blogs do you read? Why? I read a ton of other food blogs. My favorites are ones that are heavy on the photos, humor, or have great recipes/ideas. I am a big fan of Smitten Kitchen, Shutterbean, Joy the Baker, Canelle et Vanille, and Desserts for Breakfast. Those are all pretty popular blogs with a lot of traffic. I also have favorite smaller blogs like, Anger Burger (which is crass and hilarious), Honey and Jam, and Take A Megabite…which is written by my new, real life, friend Megan. I tend to like blogs of people that I interact with within the community. I by no means, however, limit myself to only those blogs of people that read my blog. That would be silly. Those are really only very few of the food blogs in my reader. I read hundred of other food blogs. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them?


I try to interact with other food bloggers through Twitter and Facebook in "real time". I always try to respond to comments on my blog and I do a lot of commenting on other food blogs. I also do a lot of lurking, but I think commenting is huge for interacting. I think it is important to have a reciprical relationship…it just reinforces the sense of community. I think networking with other bloggers is important. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? I picture most of my readers as women. I think that I have readers of all ages, but my style and tone probably appeal to teenaged women to women in their 30's. I'm 27 and I think a lot of my readers are similar in age to me. I think I do have a few male readers, but I really think they are few. I also think that my readers are DIY oriented types, people that have an interest in cooking or baking. I consider my readers, what they might be interested in and stuff. I try not to have too many repeats, but honestly, I mostly consider what want to eat or what I want to tackle next. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I think comments are incredibly important. I have taken to responding to most comments within the comments section. If i get a direct email, I will certainly respond with a personal email. I also engage with them through Facebook and Twitter. I think it's important to be a "real" person about things. I'm not a celebrity, nor do I ever want to be/feel like one. I'm definitely a regular girl and I want to portray myself that way. I'm never too busy to respond to a reader…if they take the time to read my blog and comment, I can take the time to respond. It may not be immediate, but I think that the interaction is what counts. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? I really don't think there are a specific set of general rules. A blog really is a personal log or journal, that being said, there are definitely ways to alienate readers by just doing/saying whatever. I do have a set of rules that I apply to myself, personally. I try to leave my political and spiritual beliefs off my blog. I find these topics to be quite devisive and I don’t think a food blog is a place for that kind of content. If I were writing a different type of blog, then yeah, they would totally have a place. I have a long list of opinions, but I largely keep them to myself and my friends/family can tell you all about them. If I am asked, directly, via email or whatever, then I have no problem sharing, but I don't view my blog as a forum for that or a soap box to preach opinion from. I also try not to use too many curse words on my blog, it seems unnatural for me in writing. In real life, I swear like a longshoreman. Some people can pull it off, but I just can't. It's not like I run a "clean" blog though, sometimes that kind of language shows up, when it has a place and purpose. I don't like gratuitous swearing when I am reading or writing. I don't mind advertising on blogs at all…as long as it is not the first thing you see and the last. Blogs, especialy food blogs, cost money to run--ingredients, supplies, etc. I do have issues with a straight up "DONATE" button however, that just seems shameless to me, but to each their own I guess. How would you describe food bloggers? In general, I would describe food bloggers as dynamic, generous, inquisitive, friendly, a little voyeruristic, warm, and I think there is an element of obsession with documentation. I know there are exceptions to this, but this has been my experience. I don't think you can really make it as a food blogger if you are a snob or just an ass. Who wants to be friends with a jerk? Not me. How would you describe the food blogging community? I think the food blogging community, in general, is pretty welcoming. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say


you fit into this community? I guess I try to emulate a lot of the bloggers I admire. I try to learn from others within the community as well. I don’t really know how I fit into the community on a large scale. On a smaller scale though, I think that I share a lot of readers with other blogs with a similar style and tone to mine. I think that my blog is, especially recently, getting a broader audience. Have you attended any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? I have met up with a few bloggers locally and that has been great. I mentioned Megan, from Take A Megabite. We have met once in person and plan to meet up again. We exchnaged phone numbers and text back and forth almost daily. It is really cool to meet someone with such common interests. I was nervous at first because it was like a first date…except I already knew a lot of information about this person. I also met up with a wedding blogger and that was really fun as well. For me, meet-ups have been great and rewarding experiences. I have not attended any events to date. I would love to though and plan to once I have the monetary resoucres to do so (read, employment!). Conferences and workshops often require regisdtration fees and travel/hotel expenses, which really are not in my budget at the present. When they are possible, I will no doubt be participating in those sorts of events.


Citrus and Candy, email interview, 2 August 2011 Blog name Citrus and Candy Year started 2008 URL www.citrusandcandy.com First name Karen Last name Low City Sydney Country Australia Occupation Tutor/Student Gender Female Age 30 Other blogs or websites



Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? Just before I started my blog, I was holidaying in Asia and I found myself taking lots of photos of the food. When I returned I started reading other food blogs and was hooked. Starting the blog was a welcome distraction from my degree at the time and a writing exercise. I was also curious to see how I would do with a medium that I wasn't familiar with. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? When I started, my blog mainly contained restaurant reviews with a few recipes thrown in. About 6 months after I fell in love with photography and found myself eating out less and loving cooking more. Once I realised that I was posting more recipes than anything else I made a conscious decision to make Citrus and Candy solely a recipe blog. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? At the moment I'm happy to continue blogging but eventually I do want to commit more time to it. The blog is a useful online portfolio so in the future I would love to do photography on a more professional level. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? I've been lucky to have been invited to food events, restaurants, dinners and festivals because of my blog as well as gifts of kitchen appliances and food. There are other personal benefits such as reigniting a love for cooking and discovering new cuisines and learning new skills. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? What I love about food blogging is the encouragement it gives to others to cook more and to try new food. I honestly believe (as cliché as it sounds) that food brings people together and because of this I've met many people who share the same love of food. What I don't like? The weight gain! What has surprised you about food blogging? I'm surprised at how interactive food blogging is. Through it I've met other food bloggers who I now count as friends and I didn't think this was possible when I started. How often do you post? I strive to post on average about twice a week but there has been times wnen life gets in a away and I'd take a week or two off. How do you plan your posts?


My posts usually rely on my moods and cravings! Although generally, there will be certain recipes that I want to cover at certain times of the year eg: seasonal produce, holidays, Christmas etc. How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? I find that a lot of my readers are beginners in cooking and baking so I try to include as much information as I can in my recipes otherwise most of them will end up emailing me questions about it! But I try to keep it succint and as personable as I can. A lot of my recipe ideas depends on my mood or any jolts of inspiration. As for my style, it's essential that I keep the writing casual, personable and open. The appeal of blogs is the interaction between readers and the blogger and the fact that readers do get to 'know' the author so it's important that my writing honestly reflects my personality. How long does it take you to write a post? On average I take a day to completely finish a post including photo processing, writing and editing a post and then formatting the post. But most of the time, I would edit photos one day or start writing a planned post in advance. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? I promote new posts by tweeting a link on my twitter account and by submitting photos to websites such as Tastespotting and Foodgawker. Promoting your blog in this manner helps to increase readership and traffic, plus it's also handy for attracting new readers. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I use cookbooks a lot and they're very influential on my blog. From it I learn new skills, new recipes and sometimes even reading a food magazine will jolt some ideas about what to bake next. What other food blogs do you read? Why? I read a lot of food blogs Australian, American and European. I read them for a variety of reasons, some are my friends, some for recipes and others because I love their writing and photography. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? I think it's essential for any new blogger to engage with other bloggers. For one thing it's exposure for your blog and getting linked to means more traffic. I engage with other bloggers mainly through twitter but also through commenting on other blogs. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? I try not to think about my readers too much. The blog started as a form of expression for myself so I try not to let anyone other than myself influence my content and direction of the blog. I select recipes based on where I live so even though a majority of readers are from the US, I'll only post recipes appropriate for Australian seasons eg winter recipes even though it's Summer in US. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? Comments are very important to me. It's the only way I can tell that my blog is being read and how I engage with readers outside of twitter and email. I always strive to respond to each individual comment separately. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they?


Definitely. Number one rule in food blogging is honesty. The blog should accurately reflect your personality and should be 'your voice'. Also when it comes to PR-related, advertorial, editorial or sponsored content, full disclosure and transparency are essential to maintain the integrity of your blog and respect to your readers. How would you describe food bloggers? Generally I find food bloggers to be friendly, passionate about food and willing to share their knowledge. It's always a thrill to interact with people who are equally enthusiastic about cooking and baking as you are. How would you describe the food blogging community? In Sydney, the food blogging in community in general is fantastic. A lot of bloggers are now my friends so it's been both fun and enlightening. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? It does influence my blogging a little. I have some cooking and baking bloggers who are friends so we're always throwing ideas around and baking together. Have you attended any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? Yes there has been many events that I've attended such as gala dinners, festivals (Good Food and Wine Show, Taste of Sydeny), special dinner events and launch parties of restaurants etc. I attend these for the experience and the chance to do things that I never thought possible.


Veggie Mama, email interview, 3 August 2011 Blog name Veggie Mama Year started 2010 URL http://www.theveggiemama.com First name Stacey Last name Roberts City Sunshine Coast Country Australia Occupation University tutor Gender Female Age 31 Other blogs or websites

none just yet!



Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? I cooked a lot at home, loved photography and wanted to write more than just council reports and stories about the local fete. It was natural for me to write about the food I loved to cook. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? Easy veggie recipes and delicious cakes and treats. It hasn't really changed, although I've become a mama and sometimes post about the baby - but rarely. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? To provide an information about vegetarianism, and to promote it as a fanasitic lifestyle choice for those who may be so inclined. To be a cache of recipes. To have an online presence and to reach out to others in the blogging community. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? That my recipes are shared and eaten by others. That I've made online friends. That sometimes I get things to review and do and am slowly starting to monetise my blog. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? That I get to talk about food! And that I get to play with my camera and that I get to be creative. And that people like what I do and look forward to what I post. I don't personally like to offer myself up for criticism, so am rarely controversial and don't do restaurant reviews, that sort of thing. What has surprised you about food blogging? That people love to read it. How often do you post? 1-2 times a week, but am ramping that up now. How do you plan your posts? Whatever I happen to be cooking that week. And I have an ongoing series where I chronicle a vintage coobook I have and cook a recipe from it. It depends on what I want to make from which book at which time. How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? I write them as I sit down to post. Probably should be more organised than that! I get ideas from everywhere - books, TV, blogs, iPhone apps, people I talk to, produce in the supermarket, magazines, restaurant menus, etc. I write in a very self-deprecating, humorous style, because that's just how I write.


How long does it take you to write a post? It depends, but about an hour. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. I promote it when I post something new. Because I enjoy the feedback, and want to encourage others to try meat-free meals. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? Haha, see my influences, above. They spark ideas of how to vegetarianise or veganise a meal or dish, and I also go off on tangents with their principal ingredient. I see a recipe for eggplant parmigiana, I get excited to use eggplant, feel like eating eggplant that week and wonder what else I can do with it. What other food blogs do you read? Why? Other vegetarian and vegan blogs, and anything with beautiful pictures. I read vegan ones to be inspired and to learn more, and I read regular food blogs to get inspiration about vegetarianising similar dishes. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? Mostly via Twitter, and commenting on their blogs. I think it's important to engage with other bloggers in general, not necessarily food bloggers. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? Mostly mums that want to feed their children more veggies, and my vegan and veg friends who are just learning. They influence me by telling me what they've enjoyed and what they want to see more of. To be honest, I don't consider them overly much when writing and selecting recipes - it really is just what I'm cooking that week. But every now and then if someone asks for something specific I will make it. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I have installed a comment system that allows me to respond to comments. Particularly if they've asked me a question about the recipe. I also ask questions of my readers and read what they respond with. I believe a comments section is very important, because I love to engage with these people. And often they say very kind things and I want to be able to thank them publicly for that. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? No. I am of the belief everybody's blog is their own real estate with which they should be free to do what they like. Push those boundaries, people! How would you describe food bloggers? People that are passionate about food, but not necessarily "foodies". They understand ingredients and are creative. How would you describe the food blogging community? I'm part of a much wider community than just food, so can't really comment. I do find that they mainly stick together and mostly support each other. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? I have a very restrictive niche, but that works for me. I think I fit in by being different. The community itself only influences me to take better photos and write better posts.


Have you attended any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? I have attended a conference (but it was not foodblogging-specific) and also meetups. I go to be more a part of the community as I find it wonderfully welcoming and supportive.


Feasting on Art, email interview, 3 August 2011 Blog name Feasting on Art Year started 2009 URL www.feastingonart.com First name Megan Last name Fizell City Sydney Country Australia Occupation Art Gallery Manager Gender Female Age 26 Other blogs or websites

Please indicate whether your statements can be directly attributed to you or if you would prefer them to be treated anonymously

Directly attributed

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? I have been a freelance writer for 5 years now and I started this blog in order to establish myself in a specialised niche. The blog has worked and through the site I have been sourced to write articles and essays within my scope of research. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? Feasting on Art is an innovative translation from painting to plate. Taking cues from the ingredients depicted in each work, recipes are composed to reflect the artist's creativity. As a broad survey of both the role of food in the history of art and the gastronomic traditions of the culinary arts, the blog acts as a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. Over the years I have incorporated new elements including interviews, a colour project and collaborative recipe posts. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? At this point, my ultimate goal is to gain a regular column with a publication whether it be in an art or food magazine/newspaper. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? People respond to food writing and photography and so it has allowed me to promote the arts to a wider readership. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? I like the freedom of blogging, i work on my own projects at my own pace and have no one to dictate what I write about. However, I work best with a hard deadline looming and so I find it hard to meet self-imposed deadlines. What has surprised you about food blogging? I was surprised about the aggressive networking of food bloggers. How often do you post? IAt the moment I am posting sporadically. I was posting every 5-7 days but at the moment I am posting every fortnight. How do you plan your posts? The process varies depending on the painting but generally I start with an artwork I find interesting and want to learn more about. I have a large archive of paintings I hope to study and find myself picking art based on the season. Sometimes I find beautiful produce at the market and then search for a matching painting to research. Those posts are much harder for obvious reasons.


How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? Each recipe follows a different path from inception to completion. I have a large archive of still-life images amassed on my computer, and every couple of months I cull the collection and make a shortlist of works I would like to feature on the blog based on the season. From that point, I will either select an artwork and start working on a recipe based on the heritage of the artist (i.e. if it is a painting by a French artist I will try to make a French recipe) or I will search through my folder of recipe ideas and then try to match a painting to the food. For each post, I have a day of planning and research, a day of cooking and photographing, and then another day of writing. How long does it take you to write a post? I usually break up the writing into three parts and write them at different stages starting first with the actual recipe. By the time I write the recipe, I have tested it severaltimes and so it is quite easy to write out the process. I tend to write the artwork info before the introduction because I find writing the first paragraph the most difficult. I don't have a specific formula for the intro which makes it the hardest paragraph to write. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? I have a facebook page for people to follow and I used to use twitter quite a bit. I reached out to some media outlets to gain some press exposure in order to bring my blog and concept to a wider audience. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I am an avid reader of several magazines including Bon Appetit and Saveur. The recipes from these publications are often adapted on my blog or serve as the inspiration for the recipes I develop. What other food blogs do you read? Why? I have a few sites I read reaglary for the evocative writing as well as the inspired recipes. The blogs include: Orangette, Poor Man's Feast, The Kitchen Sink Recipes, The Traveler's Lunchbox, Sprouted Kitchen and Whate Katie Ate. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? Last year I did a collaborative series of posts with other food bloggers. I really enjoyed working with another person on a specific topic and found their enthusiasm refreshing. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? In the beginning I was writing specifically for the readers of food blogs and was curtailing my recipes and artwork selections to what I think they would like. The blog has shifted recently to become more of a digital portfolio of my food-focused art writing and so I am writing more for myself and less for my readers. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I used to respond to comments and visit the blogs of my readers but found the entire 'commenting back and forth' process too exhausting. In the end I found that serious readers with real feedback or questions reach out via the email address I included on the bio page and so I have stopped responding to most comments unless there is a question asked that needs to be clarified. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? To credit sources, specifically with regard to recipe adaption and inspiration.


How would you describe food bloggers? I think they are a passionate bunch that take their love of food to the internet in order to share their experiences and interests. How would you describe the food blogging community? From what I can see, the food blogging community is quite active attending events and then writing subsequentposts about their experiences. I have yet to attend any of these events as I am not exclusively a food blogger. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? I do not currently engage with the food blogging community and outside of the few blogs I regularly read, the community does not influence my work. Have you attended any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? No


Aficionado, email interview, 15 August 2011 Blog name Aficionado Year started 2005 URL http://aficionado-x.blogspot.com First name Cathy Last name Xiao Chen City Sydney Country Australia Occupation chef / full-time uni student (B.

Food Sustainability) Gender Female Age 25

Other blogs or websites

N/A


Directly attributed

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? I started to keep a record of interesting recipes that I wanted to archive. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? My blog is a reflection of my interests and as they have expanded into agriculture and sustainability my blog has evolved to reflect those changes. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? Since finding that others often frequent my blog, I try to share some of the things that I've learned about good food and cooking. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? I have amassed a collection of recipes online that I can refer back to any time, anywhere. I've also been offered a number of different opportunities that would not have occurred if I didn't have a blog. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? I like having a fairly free form of creative expression. I like sharing knowledge and being able to meet interesting, like-minded individuals. I don't like trawling through emails from people offering to pay me $5 to include a blatant advertisement in a post. What has surprised you about food blogging? The connectivity between people who live thousands of miles away. Sharing food, even through social media has the ability to bring people closer. How often do you post? I post whenever I feel like writing about something. It works out to be about 3 or 4 times a month. How do you plan your posts? I don't plan posts. I just upload a picture and write whatever comes to mind. How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? I post recipes that I've used in commercial kitchens and experimented with at home. Ideas stem from restaurant dishes to cookbooks, perhaps reading a menu online or watching TV and adapting the ingredients and form. I don't think I have a style per se. I use kitchen jargon like temper and cream, brunoise and beurre noisette. Occasionally I'll remember that a lot of people who read my blog are probably home cooks so I'll explain


the terms or leave them out. How long does it take you to write a post? I usually spend a day or two writing a post. I'll type a little bit, go off and do something else then come back and do a little more. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? I joined a few of those blog ring / networking sites but haven't actively promoted my blog. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? Sometimes I'll watch some free-to-air TV shows like Masterchef or Food Safari. I love cookbooks. I've amassed almost 400. I love reading magazines like Saveur that provide a wealth of information about culture, cuisine, food history and current trends. They all add to my ever growing knowledge of food. Sometimes I'll try a recipe or be inspired by a photograph. What other food blogs do you read? Why? I don't actively follow any blogs. I might google food blog reviews if I'm researching a place to dine that I'm not familiar with to get an idea of what to expect, but that's about it. There are some interesting blogs out there but I just don't have the time. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? I comment on interesting posts that I come across. I blog primarily for personal reasons so interacting with other bloggers and building up a rapport is not high on my agenda. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? I honestly have no idea what my reader demographic is. According to my blog stats they reside in Australia, United States, Belarus (I'm not even sure where this is), United Kingdom, South Korea, Canada, Russia, Malaysia, Singapore and Greece. I use profanities and write about things that would offend some peoples' sensibilities. I write whatever I want to. I only take readers into consideration when using technical terms in recipes that they may not understand. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I think a comments section is important for people to be able to ask questions or provide feedback for recipes that they've tried. I don't try to engage with readers but I do try to respond to any questions posted. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? I think transparency is very important. A lot of people use their blog as a platform to generate income and accept products or payment in exchange for publicity or product reviews. I expect reviews to be unbiased and any conflicts of interest clearly stated. How would you describe food bloggers? They are as diverse as the food that they blog about. Some are industry professionals, some are excellent home cooks, some are food photographers, some don't know the first thing about food, take terrible pictures and use the word 'nice' ten times to describe a 5-course meal at Mcdonalds. How would you describe the food blogging community? In Sydney - predominantly Asian. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say


you fit into this community? I know a few of the people behind the blogs and often connect with them through other means but I don't participate in the online food blogging 'community'. Have you attended or created any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? I once attended a blogger meet in Sydney which was organised by a local food blogger to celebrate her birthday.


Whisk Kid, email interview, 15 August 2011 Blog name Whisk Kid Year started 2009 URL http://whisk-kid.com First name Kaitlin Last name Flannery City East Lansing Country USA Occupation Blogger Gender Female Age 20 Other blogs or websites

N/A


Directly attributed

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? I started a food blog because I wanted to get better at baking, chronicle my progress and just have a solid reason/incentive to practice baking, photography and writing. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? The focus of my blog is the baking (recipes/photos), but also the stories. I've tried to bake more complicated things as time has passed just because I've learned more, but that's the only thing that's changed. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? The first thing I hope my blog can do for me is look good on a resume. It shows that I've been comitted to a project for a long time! I also hope it can be a platform to getting some attention in the food world. I'd like to open a bakery and I think it will be a good reference for potential investors to see what I'm capable of. At its simplest though, I really just want to inspire people to bake. What benefits do you get from blogging about food? It's an excuse to bake, bake, bake! I like to give people ideas and inspire them to get into the kitchen, too. Oh, and I receive ad income if that's the kind of benefit you're talking about. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? I like that I have the freedom to post about whatever I want. I also like that the popularity of food blogging is increasing. I think it shows that people are beginning to care more about what they eat. As for what I don't like… I dunno. I think it's all pretty great. Anyone can blog about food. It's very communal and open. What has surprised you about food blogging? The sheer amount of food bloggers! There are so many of us. How often do you post? I post once a week. How do you plan your posts? I post whatever sounds good, to be completely honest. I prepped about 27 recipes (with photos) in advance for this past summer because I thought I wouldn't have a kitchen in the apartment I was living in, but I ended up being wrong and only used a portion of the recipes I had "saved up." I like to do everything kind of spur of the moment. I really enjoy being able to post what I bake in the week I baked it. It's nice to share on that time schedule with my readers. Realtime.


How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? I usully find my recpies from other sources and just reword in a way that I like. I try to be as clear as possible, because I know I like that in a recipe! That said, however, I do write for a slightly advanced baker. Someone who knows what they're doing. Anyway, I try to find recipes that utlilize in-season ingredients and just catch my attention. If that means combining multiple components into something insanely complicated, well… That just means it'll be more fun! How long does it take you to write a post? It takes anywhere from 2-3 hours to a couple days. Writing a post, to me, involves penning the actual story, then writing/converting the recipes AND tweaking the photos. It takes quite a bit of time, but I enjoy it. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? I promote my blog through Twitter and Facebook. I do it because, I admit, I would like to increase my ad revenue, but also just for establishing myself in the food blog universe. I want to stand out and I think that increasing the amount of people who view the blog will help that happen. Having a solid, well-known blog will help me out more with future food-related endeavors. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I watch Food Network occasionally and like to watch The Martha Stewart show when I can. I also like flipping through Good Housekeeping and Taste of Home while I'm at my grandparent's place. Sometimes they give me recipe inspiration, other times I just look at the photos. What other food blogs do you read? Why? I like Bravetart because the author is very inspiring and inventive. I want to make just about everything she posts! I also love Tartelette, Canelle et Vanille, Verses from my Kitchen and What Katie Ate. I love reading their musings and their gorgeous photography. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? I engage with other bloggers via Twitter, Facebook and comments. It's important to engage or else they'll think you're stuck-up or full of yourself, and no one wants to be thought of like that! I like letting other bloggers know that I appreciate their work and what they're doing. It just makes food blogging more fun to know that we're all in it together. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? I think my readers are generally 30-50 year old mothers/grandmothers. I certainly write for a female audience and I do consider them when considering word choice and which stories/details I really want to share. It's good though - it keeps me professional. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I engage with my readers via Twitter, Facebook and comments. It's crucial to engage or else they'll feel insignificant and forgotten! They'll think (well, I always do) that you're just blogging for fame and that you don't really care for input/feedback which will make them not want to read what you write. That's been my experience, anyway. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they?


Always give credit where credit is due. How would you describe food bloggers? I think food bloggers are generally very kind and sharing people. Food makes us happy, we want to make other people happy, so we share our food with them. How would you describe the food blogging community? Open and inviting. Anyone is welcome and encouraged to join! You just have to stick with it and talk to people to make it fun. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? I try to bake what hasn't been baked. I don't want to do repeats because that's boring! I'm not really sure where I fit in though besides the baking category. I just do what I do because I like to do it. Have you attended or created any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? No, I haven't. I would like to, though! It would be nice to meet the people behind the words/photos/utensils,


A Cozy Kitchen, email interview, 17 August 2011 Blog name A Cozy Kitchen Year started 2009 URL https://www.acozykitchen.com First name Adrianna Last name Adarme City Los Angeles Country USA Occupation Blogger, Video Director Gender Female Age 28 Other blogs or websites


Directly attributed

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? I started a blog on a whim, actually. I was working a job that left me uninspired, so I took to my kitchen at night. Soon thereafter, I was introduced to food blogs and became totally obsessed. I decided to start my own to share what I was cooking in my kitchen on the weekends. I didn't set-out with any goals except to share. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? The focus has always been grown-up comfort food, hence the name "A Cozy Kitchen." What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? My hopes aren't that much different from what they were when I started. I enjoy sharing, writing and communicating with an audience. It's definitely developed into something that was beyond what I initially imagined. So yeah, making a full-time living off of it is currently the goal. I'm about half-way there! What benefits do you get from blogging about food? The conversation that exists between my readers and myself is really beneficial. I learn a lot from the tips and information they leave in the comments. It's become a wonderful two-way street. Also, I just love it so much that the benefit of blogging for me has become the process itself--it’s very much a pleasure. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? My favorite thing about food blogging is when I get an email, tweet, or comment about someone enjoying a recipe I posted. A small piece of me is in their house with them--it's a beautiful thing. Oh my least favorite is staying on schedule. There times when I'm just swamped with other work and I have to force myself to keep up with posting three times a week. It's a self-imposed schedule, but I try my hardest to keep to it. What has surprised you about food blogging? How I never grow tired of it. That's really surprised me. There are times when I feel sort of uninspired, but I never dread it. Ever. How often do you post? Three times per week. On the rare occasion I'll post only twice. How do you plan your posts? Oh gosh. Nothing is ever really planned. I have a notebook where I jot down food and recipe ideas and then I'll do some research, but it's usually impromtu. I'll make something one day and post it the next day. It truly is about what I feel like eating.


How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? I get recipes ideas from everywhere: restaurants I frequenent, magazines, other blogs, etc. I try to write recipes with a certain amount of casualness. I feel like that's how I am, it's how I like to cook and how I want people to feel when they come to my blog. I'm not a fan of formality and strictness--I'm a blogger, not a chef. How long does it take you to write a post? Sometimes it takes me thirty minutes and other times it takes me three hours--it sort of just depends on my mood. How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? The only ways I've really promoted my blog are Tastespotting, Foodgawker, Twitter and Facebook. I promote it because I want people to be part of the conversation. That's what makes it fun. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I hardley watch TV so I don't take much from shows, but I absolutely pay attention to new cookbooks and the latest magazines. They don't influence it too much but I definitely read them and see if anything piques my interest. What other food blogs do you read? Why? I read a ton! I love seeng what others are posting and writing about. My favorites are: eatliverun.com; joythebaker.com; smittenkitchen.com; howsweeteats.com; thepioneerwoman.com; lottieanddoof.com; thewednesdaychef.com; yummysupper.com. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? I absolutely do. I'm internet friends with a handful of bloggers. I think it's natural we speak because we're all a part of the same community. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? Ooooo…I dunno, actually. I guess I picture them like myself; even though I do know my audience ranges in age. I definitely think of them when picking recipes and writing. If I want to cook something, I'll generally do some research to make sure it hasn't been posted on another blog recently. I don't want to make something people have seen a million times before. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? I think blogging definitely has to feel like a conversation. If they post a funny comment, or question, I respond to them in a friendly, conversational way. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? Hmmm…I suppose they are. I mean, I don't really think about rules, per se, but I do think there's a way to credit people back, not steal people's content, etc. How would you describe food bloggers? Food Bloggers are usually food obsessed people that LOVE to share. ;) How would you describe the food blogging community? The food blogging community is a beautiful group of people. Last year a fellow blogger's house burned down, and a few of them organized a fund for her and her family. In three days they raised $10,000--it was remarkable. They're a good group of people. I'm proud


to be apart of this community. How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? Oh there's a lot of influence. I've adapted plenty of recipes from fellow bloggers as well as taken note what works for them and applied those things to my own blog (in my own way). I think we all feed off of each other, creatively speaking. I'm not sure where I fit in, but I do know that I have a group of fellow bloggers that I adore and am huge fans of. I feel like we all cheer each other on. Have you attended or created any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? I haven't…yet. My best lady friend and food photographer, Teri Lyn Fisher, and I have discussed about throwing an LA event so we'll see what happens. I have attended a few, like The Joy the Baker picnic a few years ago and loved it.


Chocolate & Zucchini, Skype interview, 23 August 2011 Blog name Chocolate & Zucchini Year started 2003 URL http://chocolateandzucchini.com/ First name Clotilde Last name Dusoulier City Paris Country France Occupation Food writer and recipe developer Gender Female Age 32 Other blogs or websites


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Jen Lofgren: I just wanted to check as well ah, so, what you’d say your occupation is now, do you describe yourself as a full-time blogger or as something else? Clotilde Dusoulier: I describe myself as a food writer, ah, cause writing about food is my main occupation, I do it on the blog but also for magazines, um, newspapers and books, JL: Cool CD: I develop recipes as well. JL: OK, that’s great, thank you. And also, are you happy for me to um directly attribute statements to you or did you want them to be treated anonymously CD: Oh, that’s fine, you can mention my name. JL: Great, thanks very much. Alright. So, when you started your blog, there mustn’t have been that many around, what was it. CD: No, I would say about a dozen back in 2003. JL: Yeah right, so what was it that ah, made you want to start one yourself? CD: Um, it was very much a desire to find an outlet for my passion for food, I felt like I was spending a lot of time you know shopping for food, cooking it, thinking about it, and um, there was just this energy that needed to go some place where it could be turned into something else, rather than be this thing that just disappears once the food is eaten, so I wanted to keep track of the things that I was doing and have a place to discuss those things that I was doing in the length and detail that I wanted without, without the fear of you know, boring my friends who might not be as passionate as I was about it JL: Sure, and um, so the focus of your blog, was that sort of just generally like what you were eating, or was there a particular focus at the time, and has that sort of changed? CD: The focus has always been since day one, um sharing my passion for something, so my enthusiasm or my excitement for something and that something might be a recipe, an ingredient, a place, a producer, um, a cooking tool, so it’s very much um, it’s always around food, in, but in different, um, under different angels. JL: So um, what you wanted to achieve with your blog, um, hasn’t really changed, is it still the same?


CD: Um, I would say that the basic premise of wanting to, um wanting to share and wanting to hold on to, you know, and, you know, the tiny joys of food, um that’s really what I’m interested in, ah so this hasn’t changed. What has changed is that this used to be just a hobby and now it’s become part of my occupation, so I guess, I just approach it in a slightly different way because it’s become more of a professional activity, the sheer enthusiasm remains, um, but the novelty of it obviously has worn of, it’s become more this, um, ah more something that kind of sustains me. I guess I’ve also had to find a rhythm that works for my life in terms of time commitments, ah, because initially you know, it was just this very bubbly thing, um, and now I’m more, I’m more, on a more regular and sustainable schedule. JL: So the benefits for you, were they sort of um, about sharing that passion and also um, becoming professional, were there other benefits that you get from it? CD: Um, so many benefits it’s hard to count, but um, the most obvious one is that it’s allowed me to switch to a new career that I feel a lot happier about, ah even though I wasn’t unhappy with my previous career, still, this is, this is much closer to, you know, something that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life, whereas as a software engineer I was kind of thinking, you know this, I don’t know that I can, you know sit in an office and, sell software, you know for the rest of my life, even though some people do and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I aspire to something more creative and fun, I guess, so that’s I guess, the most, obvious benefit, but aside from that there is very much a sense that the blog kind of keeps me going, it’s… [recording dropped out] CD: … you know, where you’re in kind of, your beginner years, it can feel a little overwhelming this idea that you have to keep feeding the blog, you become, kind of, um, you feel like you have to, um, you know maintain it, post something new, and sometimes it kind of be a burden on your creativity because you feel like it’s you know, something that you have to do and that you can’t escape from, unless you want to risk losing readers or disappointing readers, but over time I’ve just kind of, decided that if there’s a week during which I just can’t post, um, you know it’s kind of a last resort thing, because I still try to, I try my best not to find myself in those situations, but, I’m just a lot calmer about the whole thing because I have, you know, eight years of experience to draw from to know that people are not just going to disappear just because I don’t post during, you know, the whole week. JL: Yeah, exactly CD: But it takes, I guess it’s a question of maturity, as a blogger and probably as a person, ah because when I started out I was 24 and now I’m 32 so you know, between the ages of 24 and 32 you learn a few things about life in general, and that applies to the blog as well. JL: Sure, and so I guess like you say then that’s how your posts would have sort of changed over time, like, the frequency, and you don’t have that kind of pressure, and do you um, find it’s easier to write, to do the actual writing than it was when you started? CD: Not really… it’s um, I guess initially, no I, I don’t really have trouble writing for the blog, just because it’s, um, a rather spontaneous kind of conversational style and it’s always, I mean my posts are always coming from a place of enthusiasm, so it’s, it’s always something that I can just jump in to and follow that, that enthusiasm and that excitement, and, and the post doesn’t exactly write itself but there’s always that kind of core energy to draw from. JL: Yep. Yeah, cause I noticed that in that um, Dianne Jacobs book where you said that you’d, um, you’d calmed down a bit over time as you first were so enthusiastic and you feel like you’d calmed down, I guess it’s um, I guess… CD: I might, I can tell you, I’ve probably calmed down in my writing style um, but not in my enthusiasm. I think, when I read the posts that I wrote initially it’s, um, it just feels very bubbly to


me, and um, and now I feel like it’s, more, um, yeah it’s just calmer [laughs], I don’t now how to explain it better than that. JL: Cool CD: But I guess, it’s there was a very, ah, and I don’t feel old but I feel like the posts from 24-year-old me feel very youthful, um and, where I was, it feels like I was drawing more from enthusiasm than, um, than knowledge and expertise and feel like I’ve learned a lot over those eight years and now I just feel like it’s more about, um, I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to explain it better than that, it’s um, I just feel more, more confident, and it just, I think I guess it, it comes across in my writing as well. JL: Yep, cool. Um so and the ideas for your um, your posts, or for your recipes where do you, where do they come from? CD: Um, it’s very much about what I’m most excited about at a particular point of time and whether or not I have a photo to illustrate with those. That’s kind of like the, you know, the smallest common denominator, because sometimes I have an things that I could write about but if I don’t have a photo to post I feel like the post is not going to be complete so I’ll keep it on the back burner until I have a photo to um, to use it with. JL: Sure. Um, and, do you promote like, when you started, or, do you, how do you promote your blog, like, do you promote it, um, has it changed how you promote as you’ve become more established, or do you not, is it not something you really do? CD: Well, I don’t feel like I’ve ever um, actively promoted my blog in any kind of strategic way. Initially it really grew very, it has, it has grown over time very organically, ah, just kind of a snowball, word of mouth kind of effect, with the benefit of some media attention um, during the first two years I would say, when, especially in the US, but also, you know, in many Western countries there were you know, newspapers, ah, caught on to the phenomenon of food blogs, and they would write about them, and every once in a while, and actually more often than not mine would be mentioned in it, because it was, you know, French, a French woman writing in English so it was kind of accessible and, um, I guess it was just a good complement to other blogs in their selection, so I benefited from that a lot initially, and then… But now it feels more than, more than promoting, I guess what I do is, I make sure that um, um, that I’m out there, um. You know, I tweet and I have a Facebook page for the blog, but, rather than, I don’t really feel like I’m trying to promote my blog but rather to be where readers um, want and expect me to be. Um, you know, I have a Facebook page because, um, people, readers, would friend request me and I didn’t want my Facebook account to become, you know, ah… JL: enormous? CD: …with a strange mix of real friends and readers, so I created the page so that people could still find me on Facebook without, without it kind of mixing with my personal Facebook account, um, and... So I’m on Facebook and I’m on Twitter because I, I enjoy the medium, you know, the kind of, the snippets of information. But… I use those to let people know that I have new posts, but I don’t feel like I’m in the process of, um, you know trying to recruit new readers, I kind of, I’ve learnt that good content is really the best way to promote your blog, really it’s... you know… If you, if you produce value for readers, they will, they will find you, you know, you don’t need to do a lot more than that. JL: Sure. And, so, do you use um, other kinds of food media, like, um, TV shows, or you cookbooks and um, do they influence your blog in any way? CD: Um… Not that much. Um… I don’t watch any food-related television show. Um… Food TV in France is not very… good, ah, at least not to my taste. I just don’t really… There’s a couple of shows that are good, but I don’t watch them religiously or anything, every once in a while I might watch one, but, ah that doesn’t influence me very much. But I like cookbooks. So I do read


cookbooks. It’s, um… Every once in a while I’ll use a recipe from a cookbook and write about it but it’s more, I feel like I’m more just drawing general inspiration. You know, I read cookbooks, and things, you know, ideas, concepts and techniques kind of get stashed away and then, it might come out in, you know, in an unexpected fashion at some point because I have this or that ingredient. Um… And that’s one thing I’m interested in in the blog is to kind of track the, the inspiration process. So I always try, when, um, to the best of my knowledge because sometimes inspiration is kind of an unconscious thing and you realise that you’ve made something and hadn’t realised that it was the exact same recipe from a book that you have but you just forgot about it and then it came out again. But as much as possible I like to say, you know, this, I’ve made this, because this pairing is inspired from this book and I found that ingredient there and I thought I would replace it and then, and then so and so from such and such blog, you know posted about something, and so, I, I like to kind of recreate the kind of the family tree of a recipe because I feel that no one cooks in a vacuum, and I think that, people who don’t cook um, are, are intimidated about cooking, often times what kind of holds them back is that they don’t about know what to make and they don’t understand, um, you know when they open their fridge how are they supposed to figure out what to make. And so I like to explain my kind of, the process of my own food creation so that people understand that um, you know, it’s completely, it’s something that they can do too, you know, remember something from a cookbook and just mash it in with what they have on hand and their own ideas. And, so I like to document that because I feel like it’s encouraging to people. JL: Yeah, I know what you mean because I think some recipes are so prescriptive like, you have to have all these exact ingredients and I chop and change stuff when I cook all the time cause I don’t want to buy one thing, or go out for one thing. And yeah, CD: Yeah, and over time um, I’ve sort of identified that my, my goal with when I write about food on the blog, I guess, my, um, I feel like my, um, my motivation is to get people motivated to cook, um… and especially those who are kind of intimidated or unsure, or… And I, I try my best to create um, a friendly environment where they feel like it’s doable, you know, they can do it, it’s not complicated and, and to kind of point out along the way the skills they are learning as they’re doing this because it’s skills that they can reuse or knowledge that they should, that, they should realise that once they’ve made that recipe they haven’t just made that recipe but they’ve learned how to poach something, or, how to, you know, how, you know a clever to, you know, cut zucchini or, you know, just, um, pointing out… JL: …two things that might go together CD: Yeah, exactly. Kind of, sort of a cooking empowerment, kind of thing I guess. JL: Oh that’s lovely. And so is this how you sort of picture your, your readers as people who are learning to cook more, or people who already know how to cook, or just a bit of everything? CD: I guess I have kind of have a dual readership in mind. There are people who are like me who um, already have, um, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and are not easily intimidated, um, but, it’s very easy to cater to those people because usually you know, you don’t have to explain to much to them, so I always make sure that my recipes are, also catering to um, kind of mid-level cooks who are not complete beginners. I often think of my sister actually, um, who, ah, who has the same kind of um, culinary background as I do but a lot less experience. And, so she doesn’t, she can tell an eggplant from a tomato, but she doesn’t necessarily have a lot of ideas of what to do with them or how to handle them, or, or, she doesn’t really know equipment she should get just because it’s not her primary passion. Sometimes it kind of helps to have a specific person, um, that you know in mind when you write, just to know, you know the kind of person that you’re writing for and, um, so you know how much to put in and how much to leave out. JL: Sure. Um, and so, you’ve got, like, lots of comments and also the forums on your blog, like, are they important parts of your blog, and how do you sort of keep track of that that’s going on, all that activity on your blog?


CD: I have kind of a routine where, um, you know, when I wake up in the morning and then throughout the day I, you know, I have alerts when people leave comments and I flag the ones that I want to specifically respond to, um, and I also have a kind of a dashboard thing where I see what’s going on in the forums and so that I see, you know, what people are talking about and whether or not it needs my intervention, and um, and, and then I have my, the feeds from the blogs that I follow and I have Twitter and I have my email, so I’m kind of, but I guess in any type of job that’s what you have to do, you have to keep track of several kind of areas of your activity. Yeah. JL: Um, and so just sort of about generally for food blogging, do you think there are kind rules, I guess sort of more like, I guess, sort of conventions that food bloggers are expected to follow or do you think it’s more kind of a free for all I suppose? CD: Um, I think, most bloggers follow, ah, a kind of pattern where they post a photo, they write the story about that recipe or that dish and then they give the recipe. JL: Yeah CD: Um, it’s kind of become, this, um, kind of general format. Ah, but there’s more to food blogging than blogging about recipes, even though recipes are definitely the bulk, the bulk of it. And, um, some, some just write about food, or you know, food ethics, or food politics, or review restaurants, so I guess there are different formats, but, um, in general it’s kind of, ah, you know, you have a few different formats that people follow, and there aren’t very many people who just do wildly different things. Ah, you know you have the Q and A format also, you know where people might talk to a producer or you know, ah, a food professional and, and just ask them questions. Um… JL: Yeah CD: So, yeah, there are a few formats, I would say, established. JL: And so, since you started, how do you think, has it changed, just blogging in general, food blogging I suppose? CD: Yeah, it has, ah. One, the main thing is that there are very very many more of us than when I started, and that because, ah, quite a few of us now have um, switched from being just cooks to um, professional food writers, um, there are probably a lot more bloggers who have professional ambitions, ah, over time just because they, they want to follow in the footsteps of those for, it has worked out, um, which I think is fine, because I feel like, if you have professional ambitions you’re probably going to devote a lot more energy and professionalism to your blog so it means better content. So, um, I guess the only thing is that, you know not, not everyone who has professional ambitions is going to be able to turn them into, you know an actual career or at least professional commitments, so, it’s, um, I guess it’s harder, if you, you know, if this is what you set out to do, um, it’s it’s harder to take it if it doesn’t work out, than. You know, if it hadn’t worked out for me, um, it would have remained this thing that I set out to do, which was just a hobby. So, um, I guess, you know, it depends on your expectations. If you have the expectation that you’re going to become a famous food writer with maybe a show on television, you know, it’s kind of, you have a good chance that you’ll be disappointed, ah, statistically speaking, um. But then again, you know, if you don’t try, you’re not going to get there, so I encourage anyone, you know, to try, because, you know, talent just speaks for itself. JL: And do you think, um, if your, you hadn’t been, um, able to make it professional, you’d still be blogging, as a hobby? CD: Um. I think so, I think so, just because, it, um, beyond the professional aspect of it, it just, it’s infinitely gratifying, and I think, for the two years that I did both, worked as a software engineer and blogged, it had made my life so much richer that I would not want to let that go.


JL: Cool. Um, and so do you find, like, so that, that food blogging community is that something important to you and is it important to you want other bloggers think of your blog? CD: Um. The community is very important to me, um, because, it’s, um, I guess bloggers are the most vocal readers of other bloggers. They’re, you know, they comment a lot more and they interact a lot more, and it just feels, um, like this sense of connection is really what I was looking for initially, you know I wanted to have other people, you know to discuss food with other people, and other people who have blogs, just make that conversation, um, you know contribute to that conversation as much as, as readers do, um, and so yeah, this sense that we’re all a big family of like-minded um, people, is, um, is a very comforting thought, and, and it does matter what other bloggers think, not in a kind of everyday fashion. You know, I don’t think every time I post I hope so and so from such and such blog is going to enjoy this. But I, I do strive to be a member of a community that’s, you know, respected and um, that treats others with respect and I want, you know, when people um, write to me to ask for help with a project or to promote something, or, you know I try my best to ah, to help, and to be a yeah, to be good member of my community. I’m not the most, um, ah the member who’s the most involved, you know, I don’t like launch big operations, fundraisers, and that sort of thing, um, ah, just because it’s not really, my, you know, my, the kind of person that, that I am. I’m more of a, I guess, slightly solitary, kind of, you know, I’m good on my own [laughs]. JL: Yeah CD: But, but I, I do, I do love the interactions, and Twitter is very important in that, in that respect. It um, that, to me, that’s where the community, the blogging community, right now, is the most ah, vibrant. JL : Yeah, I’ve notice that, it’s quite interesting that it wasn’t Facebook, like a lot of bloggers have a Facebook page but it really seems to be Twitter where there’s a lot of interaction goes on. CD: Yeah, yeah. And I guess um, you know, um, there are bloggers on whose blog I never comment, but I interact with them on Twitter a lot. So, you know, it’s just it’s a different kind of interaction. JL: Sure, um, that’s half an hour, so if you need to um, go I understand. Um. CD: Ah, no that’s that’s fine, you can, do you have many more? JL: No I just have one more, if that’s ok. CD: OK JL: Um, just more about how, you were talking about, how, enriching I guess you found, it, blogging for your life. Has it um, changed the way you approach food and think about it or, um, affected, how, yeah, how you cook? CD: I think so, just because, um, as I was, I was saying earlier it just gives me more of a, um, ah, a drive and a purpose, you know, when I, when I cook or when I buy food, um, it’s not just about what I’m going to cook today, it’s also about how can I make this interesting enough to write about, just so I can kill two birds with one stone, you know, it’s just, ah, trying to, to make sure that everything I cook is, um, potentially blog-worthy. JL: That must be hard when… CD: That’s not, I mean, that’s kind of the ideal JL: Yeah


CD: …um, it’s not, it’s not what I do, and that’s part of, um, you know, what I’ve learned over time, is that you have to have meals where you just don’t care, and you know, whether or not it looks good enough to be taken, um, to take a picture of, but, even so, even when I know that I’m not going to blog about it, um, that’s when I might stumble upon an idea that I will reuse on another day, when, you know I will take a picture and I will write about it, so um, so still, it’s always at the back of my mind, so um, so yeah it definitely influences what I cook. JL: I guess it must be hard to continue to come up with new, unique recipes when you’ve got this massive archive on, on your blog already. CD: It’s, you would think that and still, I guess, um, it’s probably the same with everyone who’s interested in food is that, the world of food, you know, has no boundaries, you just, your interests kind of grow and change over time. I don’t, I don’t cook the same way that I did you know, eight years ago, so. You know, I, I got interested in Japanese food so, um I wrote about that, and you know, something else might strike up my interest next. And, I just feel like food is something that you can explore your whole life and never, um, and sometimes I revisit a dish that I’ve already written about on the blog but I feel like it’s been so long that it’s worth, you know, writing about again, and then I look at the way I did it five years ago and it’s different, I thought it was the same dish but it’s really not, or, you know, so, um. I feel like, any. What I strive to be on the blog is real, also, and so, I feel like, I, I’m not, I’m not worried about you know, sometimes posting about a dish that I’ve written about before just because I feel like normal cooks, you know, cook the same dishes over and over again and still, obviously if I posted about the same dish all the time, you know, it wouldn’t be of much interest, but I feel it’s interesting to readers to know that, um, that, you know, that a blogger, you know, that people who cook a lot like me will have their standards that they cook over and over again, and, what are those standards? You know, people would be interested in knowing about those, so um, I, I don’t really um, edit, you know, the way that I cook to kind of tailor it to the way people would expect me to cook, or to do, or to think, or to, to write, I’m very, I feel like I’m being very honest and straight forward about, you know, the reality of my kitchen life. And, sometimes I’m uninspired, and you know, that happens to all of us, and, ah, and then I might write about something, you know, I might write about saying, you know, I might write about my lack of inspiration, you know, it’s, it’s, um, nothing is um, out of, you know, off topic, as long as it’s food related. JL: Yeah, well I can understand that, I always find I make something that I like and I think, do I make it again or do I make a new thing, cause there’s so many things to try and I’ll never get through them all if I keep making the same dish over and over again. CD: That’s true, and then again, I feel like, you know, the cooks that I admire the most in my personal life are cooks that have developed a repertoire of dishes that they can do with their eyes closed, and I aspire to having, you know, a set of recipes that are, that I’ve worked on over time and, and that I’ve, not perfected because I, I don’t think a recipe is ever perfect, but um, you know, things that I can reliably cook and where people might say, oh, yes please, you know, make your chicken in a bread crust again, please, you know, and that feels, that to me feels nurturing and, and the kind of cook that I want to be too, so um, I feel like there’s room for both kind of, both kinds of behavior, as a cook. JL: Great, oh well thanks very much for that, I can, um, I’ll leave it there cause I could keep going on. But thank you so much. CD: You’re very welcome and, and good luck with your, with your thesis and um, let me know if you have any follow up questions down the line, you know, I’ll be happy to help. JL: Sure, thanks very much


Mrs Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen, email interview, 20 October 2011 Blog name Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen Year started 2009 URL http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com First name Cathy Last name Barrow City Washington, DC Country USA Occupation food writer Gender Female Age 54 Other blogs or websites


Directly attributed

Why did you start a food blog? What did you hope to achieve? My business (landscape design) was adversely affected by the financial woes of 2008. I was at loose ends, a little depressed, and decided to write about my cooking. Friends had been pushing me to do this for a long time. What is the focus of your blog? Has it changed over time? How? I write about everything I cook, but the focus has definitely been honed to food preservation - jams, pickles, meats, and so on. What do you hope to achieve with your blog now? I would love to write a book about food preservation and entertaining What benefits do you get from blogging about food? I love writing, so that's been great. And I've now met a huge contingent of like-minded, lunatic foodies. What do you like about food blogging? What don’t you like? I love it all What has surprised you about food blogging? Comments from people I don't know How often do you post? I would love to post three times a week. Seems like once a week is more likely How do you plan your posts? Seasonally, holiday focus, what's in the market How do you write your recipes? Where do you get the ideas for them? What style do you write in? Most of my recipes are original, but I also adapt and cook other people's recipes. I have no idea where the ideas come from. I think about food a lot. My style is loose, friendly, and instructional. How long does it take you to write a post? two to three days for most. some are spur of the moment quick posts finished in an hour or so How do you promote your blog? Why do you promote it? On twitter and facebook. Book publishers look for blogs with potential all over social


media sites.. What other forms of food media, such as TV shows, cookbooks and magazines, do you use? How do they influence your blog? I use all sources for inspiration What other food blogs do you read? Why? I read about 400 blogs all the time. Partly because I'm running Charcutepalooza, a world-wide, year long blogger project. How do you engage with other food bloggers? Do you think it’s important to engage with them? Twitter and Facebook, as well as get-togethers in Washington and NYC, when I can get there. How do you picture your readers? How do they influence your blogging? Do you consider them when you are writing posts or selecting recipes? They are so diverse, I can't write to that audience, although I do think about what content would attract readers. How do you engage with your readers? Is a comments section important? How do you respond to comments? Twitter, Facebook and comments. I think comments are vital, and I try to respond to most. Do you think there are ‘rules’ for food blogging? What are they? Don't use other people's recipes or photos without permission and/or attribution How would you describe food bloggers? Type A, competitive, loners How would you describe the food blogging community? Embracing How does the food blogging community influence your blogging? Where would you say you fit into this community? Well known but private Have you attended or created any food blogging events, such as conferences or lunches and dinners? Which ones? Why? Yes, several lunches, dinners, happy hours as well as BlogHer conference. Next year will attend IACP

Appendix 2: Blogs and other websites cited 128

Appendix 2: Blogs and other websites cited

17 and Baking, http://17andbaking.com • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”, http://17andbaking.com/2010/05/25/lemon-

scented-pull-apart-coffee-cak/, accessed 7 July 2011 A Food Year, http://www.afoodyear.com/

• “Pull Apart Cinnamon Loaves”, http://www.afoodyear.com/2011/03/16/pull-apart-cinnamon-loaves/, accessed 7 July 2011

Anger Burger, http://www.angerburger.com • “The Lemon Bread That Changes Your Life”,

http://www.angerburger.com/2010/01/lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffeecake-recipe/, accessed 9 March 2011

Annie's Eats, http://annies-eats.net/ • “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”, http://annies-eats.net/2011/03/23/cinnamon-sugar-

pull-apart-bread/, accessed 8 July 2011 Baby Hedgehogs, http://babyhedgehogs.wordpress.com/

• “Adventures in Bread Making: Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread with Apple Slices”, http://babyhedgehogs.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/adventures-in-bread-making-cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread-with-apple-slices/, accessed 8 July 2011

Bake Five, http://bake5.wordpress.com • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”,

http://bake5.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake/, accessed 7 July 2011

bakeme.eatme., http://bakemeeatme.wordpress.com/ • “My happy place :)”, http://bakemeeatme.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/my-happy-place/,

accessed 7 July 2011 Baking and Mistaking, http://www.bakingandmistaking.com

• “Conquering Fears with Fragrance”, http://www.bakingandmistaking.com/2010/05/conquering-fears-with-fragrance.html, accessed 7 July 2011

Being Random, http://cheryl.weblogs.us/ • “Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread and Green Tea Red Bean Bread”,

http://cheryl.weblogs.us/2011/04/02/cinnamon-pull-apart-bread-and-green-tea-red-bean-bread/, accessed 9 July 2011

Betsy and Charlie in Charlottesville, http://bandcincville.wordpress.com/ • “1 am baking”, http://bandcincville.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/1-am-baking/, accessed

8 July 2011 Bittersweet Baker, http://bittersweet-baker.com/

• “Pull-Apart Loaf - Infinite Layers of Possibilities”, http://bittersweet-baker.com/2010/10/09/pull-apart-loaf-infinite-layers-of-possibilities/, accessed 7 July 2011

Blog Tutor, http://blogtutor.com/ • “Has Food Blogging Jumped the Shark?”, http://blogtutor.com/has-food-blogging-

jumped-the-shark/, accessed 26 July 2012 Bloggers Without Boarders, http://www.bloggerswoborders.org/

• “A Fund for Jennie: The Final Update!”, http://www.bloggerswoborders.org/2011/10/a-fund-for-jennie-the-final-update/, accessed 7 September 2012

Blue Ridge Baker, http://blueridgebaker.blogspot.com • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”,

http://blueridgebaker.blogspot.com/2010/01/lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake.html, accessed 7 July 2011

Blue Spoon, http://bluespoon.blox.pl/


• “Podróże kształcą czyli ciasto do walizki i nie tylko”, http://bluespoon.blox.pl/2011/04/Podroze-ksztalca-czyli-ciasto-do-walizki-i-nie.html, accessed 8 July 2011

bred cred, http://breadcred.wordpress.com • “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-apart”, http://breadcred.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/cinnamon-

sugar-pull-apart/, accessed 7 July 2011 Buttercream Barbie, http://www.buttercreambarbie.com

• “Lemon Pull-Apart Loaf”, http://www.buttercreambarbie.com/2010/09/lemon-pull-apart-loaf.html, accessed 7 July 2011

Caffe Ina, http://caffeiiina.blogspot.com • “A Saturday morning of celebration: marbled pull apart bread with orange sugar filling”,

http://caffeiiina.blogspot.com/2010/09/saturday-morning-of-celebration-marbled.html, accessed 7 July 2011

Camp Blogaway, http://campblogaway.com/ Chez Beeper Bebe, http://chezbeeperbebe.blogspot.com/

• “What I Ate for Breakfast Today”, http://chezbeeperbebe.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-i-ate-for-breakfast-today.html, accessed 9 July 2011

Chocolatesuze, http://www.chocolatesuze.com/ • “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”,

http://www.chocolatesuze.com/2011/03/30/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread, accessed 9 July 2011

Clockwork Lemon, http://seddy5.typepad.com/blog/ • “Pull Apart Lemon Coffee Cake”, http://seddy5.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/pull-apart-

lemon-coffee-cake-.html, accessed 7 July 2011 Cupcakes Take the Cake, http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com.au/ Dallas Duo Bakes, http://dallasduo.blogspot.com/

• “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”, http://dallasduo.blogspot.com/2011/04/lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake.html, accessed 8 July 2011

David Lebovitz, http://www.davidlebovitz.com, • “Writing Your Own Cookbook”, http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2007/07/writing-your-ow/,

accessed 7 September 2012 Delicious Days, http://www.deliciousdays.com/

• “Foodblogging – do’s and don’ts”, http://www.deliciousdays.com/archives/2007/03/07/howto-foodblog/, accessed 7 September 2012

DessertStalking, http://dessertstalking.com/ Digella Emporium, http://digella.blogspot.com.au

• “Baked Relief”, http://digella.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/baked-relief.html, accessed 12 January 2011

Domestic Resignation, http://domesticresignation.com/ • “Pull-Apart Cinnamon Banana Bread”, http://domesticresignation.com/2011/04/29/pull-

apart-cinnamon-banana-bread/, accessed 8 July 2011 Eat your books, http://www.eatyourbooks.com/ Farrah's Kitchen, http://www.farrahskitchen.com/

• “Sunday Brunch with Pull Apart Bread”, http://www.farrahskitchen.com/2011/03/sunday-brunch-with-pull-apart-bread/, accessed 9 July 2011

Feast for One, http://feastforone.blogspot.com/ • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”,

http://feastforone.blogspot.com/2011/04/lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake.html, accessed 9 July 2011

Food Blog Alliance, http://foodblogalliance.com/ • “Recipe Attribution”, http://foodblogalliance.com/2009/04/recipe-attribution.php,

accessed 8 July 2011 Food Friday, http://www.sunshineandpotatoes.com/

• “Cinnamon Sugar Bread”, http://www.sunshineandpotatoes.com/2011/03/food-friday-cinnamon-sugar-bread/, accessed 7 July 2011


foodbuzz, http://www.foodbuzz.com/ foodgawker, http://foodgawker.com/ Food Press, http://foodpress.com/ FoodWoolf, http://www.foodwoolf.com/ Foy Update, http://foyupdate.blogspot.com/

• “Cinnamon Leaves - Sweet Bread Recipe”, http://foyupdate.blogspot.com/2011/03/cinnamon-leaves-sweet-bread-recipe.html, accessed 8 July 2011

From My Own Home-Grown TV, http://bahnfahrt.lima-city.de/wordpress/ • “a variation of”, http://bahnfahrt.lima-city.de/wordpress/?p=3751387905, accessed 7

July 2011 Hanaâ's Kitchen, http://hanaaskitchen.blogspot.com/

• “ABC - Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”, http://hanaaskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/04/abc-lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee.html, accessed 7 July 2011

How to Cook 4 Children, http://www.cook4children.com/ • “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”, http://www.cook4children.com/?p=308, accessed 8

July 2011 Hungry Girl Por Vida, http://www.hungrygirlporvida.com/

• “Meyer Lemon Pull-Apart Bread”, http://www.hungrygirlporvida.com/blog/2011/02/18/meyer-lemon-pull-apart-bread/, accessed 9 March 2011

If You Give a Girl a Cookie, http://www.giveagirlacookie.com/ • “lemon-scented pull apart cake”, http://www.giveagirlacookie.com/2010/03/lemon-

scented-pull-apart-cake.html, accessed 7 July 2011 In Jennie’s Kitchen, http://www.injennieskitchen.com/

• “The First Thanksgiving {chocolate chess pie}”, http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/11/baking-again-chocolate-chess-pieday-108.html, accessed 30 November 2011

• “For Mikey”, http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/for-mikey.html, accessed 7 September 2012

Ineffectual Retardant Prints, http://ineffectualretardantprints.blogspot.com/ • “Sometimes things don't work out”,

http://ineffectualretardantprints.blogspot.com/2011/04/sometimes-things-dont-work-out.html, accessed 8 July 2011

ItsBakedIn, http://www.itsbakedin.com • “Lemon Scented Pull Apart Coffee Cake”, http://www.itsbakedin.com/breakfast/a-lemon-

and-coffee-cake-delight/, accessed 7 July 2011 Jasmine, http://www.jasminezheng.com/

• “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”, http://www.jasminezheng.com/2011/04/04/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread, accessed 9 July 2011

Jenius, http://www.jenius.com.au/ • “Top 50 Australian Food Blogs”,

http://www.jenius.com.au/top50australianfoodblogs/, accessed 10 February 2012 Joy the Baker, http://joythebaker.com/

• “10 Real-Talk Blog Tips”, http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/11/10-real-talk-blog-tips/, accessed 8 November 2011

• “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”, http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/03/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread/, accessed 8 March 2011

Just Lychee, http://lycheelassi.wordpress.com • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”,

http://lycheelassi.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake/, accessed 7 July 2011

Kitchen Corners, http://www.kitchencorners.com/


• “Blueberry Pull Apart Bread”, http://www.kitchencorners.com/2011/04/blueberry-pull-apart-bread.html, accessed 8 July 2011

Kohler Created, http://www.kohlercreated.com/blog/ • “Vegan Cinnamon Raisin Pull-Apart Bread”,

http://www.kohlercreated.com/blog/?p=10786, accessed 9 July 2011 Kitchen Garden Foundation, http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/ la mia vita, http://nikymarie.blogspot.com/

• “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”, http://nikymarie.blogspot.com/2011/03/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread.html, accessed 8 July 2011

La Tartine Gourmande, http://www.latartinegourmande.com/ laualamp, http://laualamp.wordpress.com/

• “Kaneeli ja suhkruga sai (natuke teistsugune)”, http://laualamp.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/kaneeli-ja-suhkruga-sai-natuke-teistsugune/, accessed 7 July 2011

Le Petit Brioche, http://lepetitbrioche.blogspot.com • “A Farewell to Summer with Lemon Blueberry Pull Apart Bread”,

http://lepetitbrioche.blogspot.com/2010/08/farewell-to-summer-with-lemon-blueberry.html, accessed 7 July 2011

Legume Loyalist, http://legumeloyalist.com/ • “Weekend Baking: Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”,

http://legumeloyalist.com/2011/04/11/weekend-baking-cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread/, accessed 8 July 2011

Leite's Culinaria, http://leitesculinaria.com • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”, http://leitesculinaria.com/535/recipes-lemon-

scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake.html, accessed 9 March 2011 Life in YYC, http://lifeinyyc.wordpress.com/

• “Cinnamon goodness in a pan”, http://lifeinyyc.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/cinnamon-goodness-in-a-pan/, accessed 7 July 2011

Liina nurgatagune, http://linnaliina.wordpress.com/ • “või, suhkur ja kaneel”, http://linnaliina.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/voi-suhkur-ja-kaneel/,

accessed 9 July 2011 Lisa’s Foods, http://lisasfoods.com/,

• “Why Blog? For Community”, http://lisasfoods.com/2010/06/29/why-food-blog-for-community/, accessed 25 April 2012

LiveJournal - Cooking, http://cooking.livejournal.com • “Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”, http://cooking.livejournal.com/8536410.html,

accessed 7 July 2011 Manna and Quail, http://mannaandquail.wordpress.com/

• “Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread”, http://mannaandquail.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/cinnamon-pull-apart-bread/, accessed 8 July 2011

Mansurovs Photography, http://mansurovs.com/recipes/ • “Lemon Scented Pull Apart Coffee Cake” http://mansurovs.com/recipes/lemon-scented-

pull-apart-coffee-cake, accessed 7 July 2011 Martha’s Circle, http://marthascircle.marthastewart.com/Food/ Meeshiesmom's Blog, http://meeshiesmom.wordpress.com/

• “Let's Monkey Around”, http://meeshiesmom.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/lets-monkey-around/, accessed 8 July 2011

Minta Eats, http://mmintafood.wordpress.com • “Ciasto Cytrynowe – Do Dzielenia”,

http://mmintafood.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/ciasto-cytrynowe-do-dzielenia/, accessed 7 July 2011

Mrs Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen, http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com/ • Charcutepalooza,

http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com/recipes/charcuterie/charcutepalooza-info/, accessed 6 September 2011

Multiply Delicious, http://www.multiplydelicious.com/


• “Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread”, http://www.multiplydelicious.com/thefood/2011/05/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread/, accessed 8 July 2011

My adventures in baking, http://bakedtoorder.blogspot.com/ • “Avid Baker's Challenge: Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake”,

http://bakedtoorder.blogspot.com/2011/03/avid-bakers-challenge-lemon-scented.html, accessed 7 July 2011

My Kitchen Addiction, http://www.mykitchenaddiction.com • “About”, http://www.mykitchenaddiction.com/about/, accessed 4 December 2011

Naturally Ella, http://naturallyella.com/ • “Cinnamon Pull-Apart Fantails”, http://naturallyella.com/2011/04/18/cinnamon-pull-

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Appendix 3: Survey of food blog readers 136

Appendix 3: Survey of food blog readers

As my research looks specifically at recipe blogs (rather than restaurant review blogs), the

survey questions focused on recipes. I surveyed 130 people who read food blogs. Of these

readers, 71 (55%) had their own food blog, and 59 (45%) did not. As the question asked if

people had a food blog or not, it is possible that the non-food bloggers in this survey have a

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Figure 7: All respondents' responses to the question "Do you have a food blog yourself?"

I filtered the results to look at some of the differences, when it comes to reading food blogs,

between food bloggers and non-food bloggers. In my project, I consider readers as important

community members, although they can be invisible and difficult to access at times (unlike

bloggers, who are more prominent).

General findings

• The majority (86%) of food blog readers surveyed were women.

• Food blog readers are most commonly (47%) 25-34 years old, with the second most

common age bracket being 35-44 (26%).

• Food bloggers seemed to follow more blogs than non-food bloggers.

• Food bloggers were more likely to comment on blogs than non-food bloggers.

• More food bloggers have attended a food blogging event than non-food bloggers.

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Figure 9: All respondents' age

Using food blogs

Most of the respondents (83%) said that they read food blogs for inspiration and recipe ideas.

For food bloggers, the second most popular reason (79%) was to keep up to date with particular

bloggers. In the free text ‘other’ field, several respondents said they also read food blogs for

restaurant reviews.

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Figure 11: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you read food blogs?"


Of the 130 participants, only one (1%) said they never cooked recipes from food blogs. Overall,

33 (25%) said they often cooked from food blogs, 75 (58%) said they did sometimes and 21

(16%) said they rarely cooked from food blogs. These figures were pretty similar for food

bloggers and non-food bloggers.

Overall, people were more likely to trust the recipes on food blogs, at least to some degree, than

to not trust them.

Finding food blogs

Ninety per cent of all respondents said that they found new food blogs through links on other

blogs. Internet searches and word-of-mouth were the second and third most common ways of

finding food blogs. Although not included as an option, many respondents who selected ‘other’

said they found food blogs through Twitter. Food bloggers were more likely to use aggregator

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Figure 12: All respondents’ responses to the question “How do you find food blogs?”

Using other food-‐related media

Both food bloggers and non-food bloggers were similar in their use of other food media.

Cookbooks are evidently still popular, with 93% of all respondents saying they use them, while

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Figure 13: All respondents' responses to the question "What other types of food media do you

use?"


About the blogger

Overall, most respondents (67%) said they were interested in knowing about the person writing

the blog. Still, this leaves almost a third (33%) of readers saying it is not important for them to

know about the blogger. These figures are similar for food bloggers and non-food bloggers.

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Figure 14: All respondents' responses to the question "Is it important for you to know about the

person writing the blog?"

Non-food bloggers were most interested in where the blogger lived (74%), while food bloggers

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Figure 16: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "What do you want to know about food

bloggers?"

In the free text ‘other’ field, respondents commented that they were also interested in health

issues, food politics, experience and credentials, food preferences, cultural background and

their reason for blogging.


Comments and community

Almost all the food bloggers surveyed read comments on food blogs, with 46% saying they

often did and 48% saying they sometimes did. Only 6% of food bloggers said they only read

comments rarely, and none said they never read comments.

Of non-food bloggers, 27% said they often read comments, 51% said they did sometimes, and

20% said they rarely read comments. Only one respondent (1%) said they never read

comments.

Perceptions as to why people commented on food blogs varied between food bloggers and non-

food bloggers. Most food bloggers (94%) thought that people commented to interact with the

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Figure 17: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you think people comment on food

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Figure 18: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Why do you think people comment on

food blogs?"

When it comes to commenting themselves, 41% of food bloggers commented often and another

55% said they commented occasionally, while no non-food bloggers commented often and 58%

did occasionally. Almost half (42%) of the non-food bloggers never commented. Most non-food

bloggers (44%) said they did not comment because they did not have comments to make, and

in the ‘other’ free text field some said that they did not comment because they were too lazy or

could not be bothered, did not have time, did not see the point seeing as the blogger did not

know them, or did not think their input mattered.


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Figure 19: Food bloggers’ responses to the question "Do you comment on food blogs?"

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Figure 20: Non-food bloggers’ responses to the question "Do you comment on food blogs?"

Of the respondents who did make comments, food bloggers were more likely to do so to engage

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you comment on food blogs?"

Food bloggers were more likely to have attended a food blogging event, with 56% of the

respondents saying they had and 27% saying they would like to. However, perhaps surprisingly

as food blogging events are often exclusively for bloggers, 10% non-food bloggers had attended

an event, while 25% said they would like to.

References 143

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