The Food Section delivers the food news and insights you deserve.
Our mission at The Food Section is to serve eaters across the American South by providing them with the information and analysis they need to enhance their food and drink experiences. You can count on The Food Section for original, inclusive, and independent reporting about restaurants, bars, farmers, fishermen, and food artisans—and everything else that influences how and what we eat and drink in the region today.
Hanna Raskin’s The Food Section is an excellent example of the kind of in-depth culture reporting disappearing from mainstream publications. A dogged and thorough reporter, Raskin is considered by many in the food writing world to be one of the top, and it’s easy to see why. Raskin treats local subjects, sources, and storylines with reverence and an intellectual curiosity typically reserved for hard news beats.
The Food Section has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation, Online News Association, New York University’s Arthur. L. Carter Journalism Institute, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals as one of the best newsletters—about food or otherwise—in the country.
Here’s what you won’t find in The Food Section:
Breathless new restaurant coverage orchestrated by swanky PR firms
Mindless parroting of popular opinions or reflexive veneration of popular people
Unsubstantiated rumors, unearned praise, unfair treatment, or unquestioning acceptance of authority
Instead of propping up the status quo, The Food Section offers intelligent food journalism that helps make sense of the South’s extraordinary and complex culinary scene.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
On Mondays at 8 a.m., paid subscribers receive the week’s showpiece article, which could be an investigative expose, reported feature, topical essay, or restaurant review.
On occasional Fridays at 8 a.m., paid subscribers receive a rotating selection of diverting columns highlighting overlooked stories from Southern food history, restaurants opening far from the beaten path, country cooking institutions, and some of Southern food’s most interesting thinkers.
On every Friday at 8 a.m., non-paying readers receive a reminder to subscribe.
The Food Section was founded in 2021 to bring quality food journalism to the South’s underserved states, cities, and towns. The best way to support its work is to subscribe today.
The Food Section offers two subscription levels:
A basic subscription costs $5 a month or $49 a year. In addition to receiving the weekly newsletters described above, The Food Section’s paying subscribers can join the newsletter’s private Facebook group, and look for exclusive invitations to virtual and in-person events, including tastings, receptions, and sit-down dinners.
A Food Journalism Champion subscription costs $199 a year. In addition to receiving the basic membership benefits described above, Champions receive The Food Section’s print quarterly as soon as it’s published.
All subscription revenue is used to underwrite and advance The Food Section’s award-winning food journalism from and about the diverse and complex American South, including monthly freelance contributions.
The Food Section offers free subscriptions to out-of-work journalists and others for whom the standard price represents a hardship. E-mail readthefoodsection@gmail.com to join the list.
Background info
Hanna Raskin, who received a Substack Local grant to launch The Food Section, was formerly the food editor and chief critic for The Post and Courier. Here’s a sampling of her work at the paper.
During Raskin’s eight-year tenure, she was nominated for four James Beard Foundation awards, winning the organization’s first-ever prize for local impact journalism. Her work has also been recognized by the Society of Features Journalism, National Center on Disability and Journalism and the South Carolina Press Association, which in 2018 named her the state’s top beat reporter.
Raskin served as president of Association of Food Journalists and headed its ethics committee. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina, but is frequently on the road (or the rails) in the South.
The Food Section’s logo was designed by Gil Shuler. Steve Fennessy serves as its consulting editor.
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