Eating their Words

Former food critic for the New York Times, William "Biff" Grimes reviews the new Sartre/Beauvoir biography today (already examined in a previous post)

As a book reviewer Grimes is not entirely incompetent; he holds a PhD in English from the University of Chicago for whatever that's worth (not much, in my book). As with his restaurant reviews, he manages to be both mildly intelligent and amusing on occasion. He describes Sartre, for example, as a "Hugh Hefner — without the bathrobe, but with a more highly evolved line of patter."

What interested me, however, was not his opinion of the book, nor his opinion of Sartre/Beauvoir for that matter, but the evolution of his position at the Times. When he gave up the restaurant gig, he was widely acknowledged to be at the top of his game. Where does one go from there? Apparently wherever one wants.

As cultural critic extraordinaire he had his pick of assignments, including the ridiculously self-indulgent. His first non-restaurant review at the Times was a review of a new Lamborghini valued at nearly $300,000. At the time, he gushed:

For decades I dreamed of getting my hands on a top-flight Euro sports car, the kind of precision-tuned mechanical marvel that gives out a throaty, animal roar when a toe tickles the accelerator.

It never happened - until a few weeks ago, when I lowered my now middle-aged frame, creaking and groaning, into a 2004 silver Lamborghini Murciélago.

There's no question that the Lambo qualified for a starring role in my personal fantasy.

So when a critic in mid-life crisis wants to take a break from the grueling schedule of having to dine out at some of the world's finest restaurants three times a week at the man's expense, what does he do? Why, he reviews books about French philosophers of course (after taking the Lambo out for a spin naturally).

Book reviews, frankly, require the least amount of effort or talent to write up at the Times. It's what you do when you want to start smelling the roses, or when you're put out to pasture. That is why former head film critic Janet Maslin, whose movie reviews were risibly uncritical, now writes rather dreadful book reviews on cruise control after being dumped unceremoniously from the movies desk. (The film critic falls somewhere between the restaurant and the book reviewer in the scheme of things; thus the critical hierarchy of activities, from most to least prestigious, runs: eating food, seeing movies, and reading books.)

Grimes replacement at the foodie desk, which is understandably the most coveted position at the paper, is Frank Bruni, former Rome bureau chief for the Times. In today's issue he reviews a Park Slope Italian eatery that specializes in baby meats and vegetables.

"Youth must be served," he notes archly, before quoting this bit of dialogue between his dinner companion and a server:

"Are the artichokes really, really young?"

The server didn't miss a beat. "They're mewling," he said.

Ah, when even the waiters are more literate than today's readers, no wonder the restaurant critic is infinitely more important than the book reviewer.