Course Information Page

Course Information Page

Welcome to Writing American Food

This page will introduce you to the content and structure of the course, and help you navigate the material of its five units. Those of you who have already taken Innovators of American Cuisine will be familiar with the approach. if you have not taken the course, you can get access to all its content by signing up at Enroll in Innovators of American Cuisine.

Fabio Parasecoli, the director of Food Studies Initiatives at the New School, wants to welcome you and tell you more about the background and the goals of this course.

Meet Andy Smith, your instructor for this course. Andy will introduce every unit, providing background information about all the experts that will appear in the course videos.

Although this course does not require any prerequisite knowledge, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of the FREE course, Innovators of American Cuisine, which introduces many of the themes that we will further explore throughout our five weeks together. All the material will be available to you for the duration of this course.

To successfully complete the course, please follow the directions that we provide each week on the front page when we introduce a new unit, focusing on a different giant in American food writing.

Each unit is composed of short texts and videos that you should read and watch in the suggested order. You will discuss and exchange ideas with your fellow students in the Dinner Chats forums we will set up to help you reflect on specific topics related to each unit. Please make sure to maintain a respectful and constructive tone in your posts, or you will be removed from the interactive portions of the course.

To be successful in this course, you should plan to spend approximately 2-4 hours each week working in the course. If you need any help with the course, please check the Canvas Student Orientation page.

We appreciate your feedback. Please feel free to send us reflections or suggestions at innovators@newschool.edu. For more information about online courses in Food Studies from the New School (both for credit and non-credit) please email foodstudies@newschool.edu.

Structure of the course

Get Started

Week 1

Craig Claiborne: The Restaurant Critic

Week 2

MFK Fisher: Food Writing as Literature

Week 3

Clementine Paddleford: The First Food Journalist

Week 4

Judith Jones: The Art and Business of Food Publishing

Week 5

Michael Batterberry: The Food Magazine Industry