Department of Pathetic Indignation -- Stinky Fruit

Paul Levy's article, "Food, Inglorious Food: My decision to opt out of the macho food-writing movement." is just begging to be included in the Department. Levy compares his own food writing--replete with high brow allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Damon Runyon (yeah I had to look him up)--to that of younger food writers. These writers do not have the same decorum, the same respect for their audience, that Levy has.

Let's look at his example:

"In its recent food issue, John McPhee describes durian as 'a fruit that smells strongly fecal and tastes like tiramisu.'"

Compare this with Levy's earlier declaration:

"No editor today, for example, would be content with the way I dealt with durian, the cherished oriental fruit that looks like a giant hand grenade, which I wrote about for the Observer in 1984: 'Some find the smell excremental, some find it reminiscent of sick.' I'd now be booed off the fellas' food-writing team for excessive gentility. Today the correct vocabulary is shit and puke."

Wow Paul, good thing Slate wanted to squeeze two pages out of your article, otherwise you would have included a whiny complaint and its direct contradiction on the same page!

Levy laments the current style of macho, shock-driven food writing, and criticizes articles written about eating silk worm eggs and baby trout. He then proceeds to describe eating a stolen dog in Macau on assignment for The Wall Street Journal. Paul, you're not only full of crap, you're an asshole who ate someone's pet. Pathetic indignation at its finest.