About

photo: Dave Tacon

French Food Fool,

…well, that’s me. I‘m working as a world affairs reporter for DER SPIEGEL magazine, Germany, living in Paris and New York. I‘ve been around a bit in the last decade, in the Middle East, in Asia, in America, all over Europe, many times covering wars and crisis, but I never forgot that this world is quite a lovely place, too, especially when you sit down – and eat. I’ve done it over and over again in the best and the weirdest places, enjoying the highly refined art of 3-star-chefs in Paris and New York and the simple perfection of street food in China, Indonesia, Vietnam.

I‘ve written – in German – a non-fiction book about the modern food culture or, let’s face it, the absence of it. “Tellergericht” was published in 2003 and again in 2004 and helped foster the debate about our way of life. I’m a fan of Michael Pollan, who isn’t?, Sasha Issenberg’s report about “The Sushi Economy” is my favourite book about food and Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” has only strengthened my views on (and disgust about) what’s going on out there in the industrialized food supply chain of our times.

So I wrote a weekly food-column on our SPIEGEL‘s website for a while, but my feeling was that a column is somewhat too heavy in the long run, and blogging showed up quite naturally. And thanks to the generous bright people of WordPress even people like me, good, old print journalists, can go digital without pain.

Let’s talk about food. From Paris. From all over the world. With love.

Yours,

Ullrich Fichtner

PS: As a SPIEGEL reporter, I’ve quite regularly nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears. But sometimes, I can deliver features dealing with food – check this one, for instance, about the French Cheese War. Or, more recently, a reportage telling the story of America’s shocking obesity problems. Feel free to read it.