What Is A Food Blog?

A food blog, especially here in Malaysia, usually means an online demonstration on just how much one or more people can eat over a given period of time. Not only does it involve constant eating, it also involves figuring out where to eat and what to eat as multiple posts about the same food/ restaurant is avoided as much as possible.

A food blog involves a personal critique of the restaurant that the food blogger (or flogger for short) is currently eating at, accompanied by carefully taken photography of the food in question. This encourages floggers to start buying better and better cameras, so as to be able to capture the ‘taste’ of the food through the ‘look’ from the picture.

Even for myself, I knew I needed something a bit better than my old film based camera to take decent photos, coupled with the fact that with film, you can’t review and delete and retake as required. Hence taking the plunge and getting myself a nice DSLR (Nikon D80).

Further still, food photography for a food blog requires the flogger to learn the skills (through self study or trial and error) of macro photography, lighting, composition etc.

About the personal critique, some floggers can be no holds barred when it comes to describing the food they eat. A dry chicken chop can be described as ‘tasted like old cloth’ and a slightly salty dish can be described as ‘tasted like I was sucking on the ocean’.

Whereas others take a more critical approach to the dish with comments like ‘it could have used the sour note of a lime, rather than a lemon’ or ‘a white cream sauce would have been much better with this type of fish’. Which type are you? (Are you wearing boxing gloves? Or a chef’s hat?)

A food blog can also be a constant drain on the wallet and a constant addition to the flab on the stomach, by eating too much too often, too expensive too often or a combination of both. The solution can be found by blogging about street food (for the wallet) and going to the gym (for the gut) although both can be hard to stick to all the time.

A food blog is all things food, from eating out to maybe even a recipe or two here and there, but what lies beneath the surface (or sometimes on top) is the uncanny love of a good meal out, usually with friends and family.

Especially here in Malaysia, where both are a plenty. So keep on eating! [Photos from Flickr by: altemark's, gimmie_shoes, azure_elixir]

Blog flogger, food blog, what is a food blog