The Blissful Glutton Review - Vikrum Sheorey

For this week's post I have chosen to review the blog The Blissful Glutton. Like Kinza I chose a blog about food in Atlanta. It only makes sense to review this blog seeing how important food is to college students (which explains unlimited meal plans at the dining halls).

The Blissful Glutton unofficially dubs itself "your guide to eating in Atlanta" and is interesting for a number of reasons. The about page for Blissful Glutton states that the blog is a "labor of love" for the author Jennifer Zyman. She emphasizes a love for food over profit by running the site out of her own pocket and keeping the site ad-free. She even visits the restaurants on her own dime. This style of food reviewing leads to better reviews that are more applicable to experiences that all of us would have at restaurants.

The main problem in creating a food blog is that the internet is not a medium well suited for transmitting the two main aspects of food: taste and smell. Zyman manages to get around this limitation with the heavy use of pictures and video. Though smell and taste cannot be felt by the reader, smell and taste are two senses that are well associated with memory. The pictures allow for the reader to relate to the food using their past experiences as a reference.

This high-detail image of a brownie will invoke the memory of a smell or taste in most people

The blog is very diverse in the range of foods it covers, ranging from Cuban flan to Japanese traditional foods, so there is no one specific focus on type of food. However this is very telling and speaks to the concentrated diversity here in Atlanta. Food and culture are often closely intertwined and food reflects values that a society holds close. Whether it be food as a cheap way for people to get together or food as the main event, these cultural differences make up a larger culture of Atlanta. The blog also covers food-related events like the Attack of the Killer Tomato Festival.



Whether or not you are of the "foodie" niche that Blissful Glutton seeks to entertain, food is such a central aspect of our lives that one cannot help but be entertained by the wide varied of foods to choose.

- Vikrum Sheorey