Craig Claiborne

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Craig Claiborne
restaurant criticism
)
  • journalist
  • book writer

    • Craig Claiborne (September 4, 1920 – January 22, 2000

    cookbooks and an autobiography. Over the course of his career, he made many contributions to gastronomy and food writing in the United States.[2]

    Early life

    Born in Sunflower, Mississippi, Claiborne was raised on the region's distinctive cuisine in the kitchen of his mother's boarding house in Indianola, Mississippi.

    He essayed in premedical studies at the Mississippi State College from 1937 to 1939. Finding it to be unsuitable, he then transferred to the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism and got his B.A. degree.[3]

    Claiborne served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War. After deciding that his true passion lay in cooking, he used his G.I. Bill benefits to attend the École hôtelière de Lausanne (Lausanne Hotel School), located in Lausanne, Switzerland.

    Career

    Claiborne in 1982

    Returning to the U.S. from Europe, he worked his way up in the food-publishing business in New York City, New York, as a contributor to Gourmet magazine and a food-product publicist, finally becoming the food editor of The New York Times in 1957 following the Times' first food editor, Jane Nickerson. Journalism historian Kimberly Wilmot Voss said Nickerson had laid the foundation for modern professional food writing and that while Claiborne has been credited with modernizing the profession, Nickerson had started down that path years before he was hired as her replacement.[4][5] According to Voss, Nickerson "discovered" both Claiborne and James Beard.[6]

    Claiborne was the first man to supervise the food page at a major American newspaper and is credited with broadening The New York Times's coverage of new restaurants and innovative chefs. A typical food section of a newspaper in the 1950s was largely targeted to a female readership and limited to columns on entertaining and cooking for the upscale homemaker. Claiborne brought his knowledge of cuisine and own passion for food to the pages, transforming it into an important cultural and social bellwether for New York City and the nation at large.

    Claiborne's columns, reviews and cookbooks introduced a generation of Americans to a variety of ethnic cuisines – particularly Asian and Mexican cuisines – at a time when average Americans had conservative tastes in food, and what little gourmet cooking was available in cities like New York was exclusively French (and, Claiborne observed, not terribly high quality). Looking to hold restaurants accountable for what they served and help the public make informed choices about where to spend their dining dollars, he created the four-star system of rating restaurants still used by The New York Times and which has been widely imitated. Claiborne's reviews were exacting and uncompromising, but he also approached his task as a critic with an open mind and eye for cooking that was different, creative and likely to appeal to his readers.

    Inspired by food writers including

    Cajun culture or its unique culinary traditions
    .

    Along with chef, author and television personality Julia Child, Claiborne has been credited with making the often intimidating world of French and other ethnic cuisine accessible to an American audience and American tastes. Claiborne authored or edited over twenty cookbooks on a wide range of foods and culinary styles, including some of the first best-selling cookbooks dedicated to healthy, low-sodium and low-cholesterol diets. He had a long-time professional relationship and collaborated on many books and projects with the French-born New York City chef, author and television personality Pierre Franey. Claiborne was an advocate of a fad diet known as the Gourmet Diet. With Franey, he worked out two hundred low-sodium, low-cholesterol recipes for this diet.[7]

    The $4,000 meal

    In 1975, he placed a $300 winning bid at a charity auction for a no-price-limit dinner for two at any restaurant of the winner's choice, sponsored by

    truffles, lobster, caviar and rare wines. When Claiborne later wrote about the experience in his New York Times column, the newspaper received a deluge of reader mail expressing outrage at such an extravagance at a time when so many in the world went without. Even the Vatican and Pope Paul VI criticized it, calling it "scandalous."[8]
    It was also noted that he and Franey ordered nearly every dish on the menu, but they took only a few bites of each one. Despite its scale and expense, Claiborne gave the meal a mixed review, noting that several dishes fell short in terms of conception, presentation or quality.

    Death and legacy

    Claiborne, who suffered from a variety of health problems in his later years, died at age 79 at

    St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, New York. No cause of death was given.[8] In his will, he bequeathed his estate to The Culinary Institute of America, located in Hyde Park
    , New York.

    Bibliography

    Quotes

    • "Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love."
    • "I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words." (A Feast for Laughter, p. 150)

    See also

    References

    1. ^ "Craig Claiborne, 79, Times Food Editor And Critic, Is Dead". The New York Times. January 24, 2000. Retrieved October 17, 2021.
    2. ^ Wells, Pete (May 8, 2012). "When He Dined, the Stars Came Out". The New York Times.
    3. ^ Mortiz, Charles (1970). Current Biography 1969. New York: The H. W. Wilson company. p. 96.
    4. ISSN 0362-4331
      . Retrieved September 28, 2023.
    5. ^ Voss, Kimberly (October 1, 2014). "Dining Out: New York City Culinary Conversation of James Beard, Jane Nickerson, and Cecily Brownstone". New York Food Story.
    6. ^ "The History of Food Journalism". Journalism History journal. September 16, 2020. Retrieved September 28, 2023.
    7. Journal of the American Medical Association
      244 (20): 2355.
    8. ^ a b "Craig Claiborne, pioneering New York Times food critic, dies at 79" (January 24, 2000) Mount Carmel Daily Republican Register, Mount Carmel, Illinois

    External links

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