Food review makes the news

I am loving a story that is developing today in the world of food criticism. It began when Grand Forks Herald columnist Marilyn Hagerty reviewed the new Olive Garden that has just opened in town. The article is headlined,  “THE EATBEAT: Long-awaited Olive Garden receives warm welcome,” and I take away two things from that. One: She liked it. Two: I am thoroughly cross with myself for not coming up with “EatBeat.”

But it’s what happened next that is the interesting part.

Not too surprisingly, Internet snarkers chewed over the review like so much chum, roundly mocking the idea of getting excited over a chain restaurant that is, let’s say, not exactly where the elite meets for meat. “Saddest town in America?” was one tweet accompanying a link to the story.

Then, my favorite truism of journalism, “(just about) no such thing as bad publicity,” came into play as the review went viral. Thirty-six hours in, it had 107,000 views compared to the paper’s second most-read story, about the UND Fighting Sioux nickname, which had 5,000 reviews.

Here is a follow-up story by the Herald. (h/t to food writer Regina Schrambling who tweeted this on her @gastropoda Twitter account, which is how I saw it.)

Just in case you need a primer, Grand Forks is the third-largest city in North Dakota and is at the fork of the Red Lake River and the Red River of the north.

It may interest you to know that my first newspaper job was not that far from the Red River of the south, in Wichita Falls, Texas, to be precise. So, I’m a little bit familiar with this cultural territory. I can remember the near-unbridled excitement when a Red Lobster (owned by the same company that owns Olive Garden) opened in our town back in … some years ago. The city council reporter and I were among the first to dine. Lobster with butter! Popcorn shrimp! I cannot remember how much trouble it was to get a drink, at that time there was a Byzantine series of drinking rules in place that for all I know may still exist, but I do seem to recall ordering glasses of wine which came in those well-regarded varietals, Red or White.

Luckily we were a PMs (afternoon) paper so no one expected us to do any actual work after 2 p.m. Well, I suppose an editor or two might have expected it, but it didn’ t happen.

In the newspaper follow-up story, Hagerty says she’s been working 30-40 years. (This is someone who subscribes to my views on time specificity.) She also says her daughter urged her to read the FB comments on the review. But, according to the Herald, “`I told her I’m working on my Sunday column and I’m going to play bridge this afternoon, so I don’t have time to read all this crap.”

Could I love this woman any more?

No, I could not.

Cheers, populist-ically.