The following transcript was meant to run in the Indianapolis alt-weekly dining section in lieu of my usual restaurant critique. My editor killed it, saying we should save it for the October dining guide. He reasons (I’m reasoning) that this is more of a state-of-the-local-dining-scene piece, which just goes to show how out of touch traditional media can be about the power of blogging. To me, the move regarded food blogging as a fad or hallmark of 2009, when it is neither of those. Try as they might to be “interactive,” print media does not want to unclutch their slipping grasp on agenda setting.

Anyway, as you’ll read, the piece was about a popular local food blogger who recently went M.I.A.—and just last week announced the reasons for her two-month hiatus. (She’s since blogged twice. Publicity stunt, perhaps?)

The whole episode, in my opinion, highlights a local food scene crossroads that’s reflected in other markets as well. With the recent explosion of food shows and blogs that breaks down the barriers between paid journalists, professional chefs and home cooks (which, by the way, have been on the rise during the current recession), the snootiness once reserved for food critics has been liberalized in the blogosphere and beyond.

Case in point: The Indianapolis blogger in question takes for granted that there could be such a thing as universal good taste in demanding food bloggers demand better from local restaurants. This viewpoint irks me. The fact that this albeit worthy writer of good taste has raved about the sushi I found cloying at a new downtown Asian lounge should illustrate why: there’s no such thing as universal good taste. (In my published review, I was purposely tacit about the food, praising the drinks and scene instead.)

But then, so does the fact that my magazine higher-ups somewhat refuse to recognize that food bloggers can be at least as knowledgeable as people who get paid to print their thoughts. (There is other stuff I’m not yet mentioning here.)

“A Food Scene for the Blogs”

You know times are hard when the people who write about food for the sheer joy of it start throwing in the towel, or even turning against the local scene.

Indianapolis has long had a healthy food blogging community, but as long as the economy limps along on life support, monies to sample the dining scene run thinner. The Hungry Hoosier’s Scott Hutcheson, co-author of “Home Grown Indiana,” says he is “eating out less than [he] once was,” accounting for the lack of posts in his well-regarded blog about Indiana farms and food joints.

Renee Wilmeth has also put her popular fine dining and chef-centric Feed Me/Drink Me blog on a diet. She has different reasons, though: She was tired of being hounded by PR people and those from the blogosphere to review and link to everything under the sun. She made no bones about being generally disappointed in the local fine dining scene, farmers markets and food writers. Generally, she says, we are not being hard enough on local restaurateurs, and not demanding enough from specialty catering shops. Her commenting readers, generally food bloggers themselves, generally consented to her opinion. One of them chattered on how any “fat-headed” person could write a dining blog. Oh, the irony.

Is the Indy dining scene that dire? Are there really precious few good dining options at a time when eating out is no small investment? Do people in Indy just have bad taste buds? I’m not so sure about all of that.

First of all, there’s no such thing as a universally good-tasting food, or restaurant, for that matter. Many, many things go into our food preferences, from our own personal background and experiences to our physiology. The science of taste is still something we don’t totally grasp, but we do know that people do not taste things the same way (it’s not just our taste buds, but the way our brains process the sensation). Add to that the fact that there are many, many acquired tastes in the world—many of them revered by self-proclaimed “foodies.” Take the Chinese century egg, which is proclaimed a delicacy after weeks-long preservation in ash, lime, salt, and other curing materials turns the whites into a gelatinous brown substance and the yolk smelling of sulfur.

To me, then, taste can be largely relative. The goal is to identify the kinds of things that you like, so that others with similar backgrounds and sensibilities know if and when to follow suit.

We live in an age where information abounds, and there is still no shortage of that in the local food community. There are many quality local food blogs still, each with its own little niche and spin. Let’s not let any more of them go by the wayside. Visit. Participate.