The Case For a Black Food Review Rubric.

Because "bussin" and "nasty" can't be the limits of how we talk about Black-owned food.

Jan 17, 2025

Earlier in the week, I posted a video explaining why I only post recommendations and not reviews. I choose the recommendation route because: 1) I don’t want my negative review of a Black-owned food or beverage business to go viral and lead to the downfall of a business. And 2), I feel that reviews which do not explain why a particular score was earned is a disservice to both the business and the consumer of content. To make sure everyone is on the same page, I’m of the opinion that a rubric should be used for any type of documented judgements of food.

A rubric, with it’s clear definitions and specific criteria, is an important step in building trust between the reviewer, the preparer of the dish, and the person consuming the content. By creating a shared language that all parties can operate from, everyone will know what is being graded and how it’s being graded. Go to any food or beverage competition worth its salt, I can guarantee you that there will be a detailed rubric for each and every judge to use!

For example, the state government of Tennessee has a “Cooking Competition Judging Rubric” for the Tennessee Junior Chef Competition. Contestants are judged on five areas: Presentation of Dish (30 possible points), Overall Appeal (55 possible points), Recipe Appearance and Execution (30 possible points), Taste (35 possible points), and Sanitation and Safety which was worth a whopping 50 points—meaning a student could lose this competition just by being nasty! Each category was further subdivided into smaller categories, again, allowing each competitor to know exactly what they would be judged on. Like in the Taste category, students were judged on the following:

Did the dish include appropriate contrast in flavors (i.e. strong, mild, sweet, tart, salty, etc.)? If so, the student could earn a maximum of 8 points.
Did the dish include appropriate contrast in textures (i.e. soft, chewy, crisp, tender, etc.) and textures are appropriate (i.e. tender meat, crisp veggies, etc.)? There was a 7 point maximum for this one.
Was the dish pleasant in taste and properly seasoned? 10 points—and for good damn reason!
And lastly, was the dish served at proper temperature? Another 10 pointer!

In addition to listing a score, judges were asked to give comments after all five sections. So regardless if a score was high or low, each contestant would know the why behind the number. To be fair, this is not a fool-proof process. One person’s “properly seasoned” is another person’s “underwhelming”. And unless the dish has a tried and true texture profile, words like “tender” and “crisp” are left up to the individual palettes of each judge. But still, it’s better than just telling some kid from Nashville that their fried chicken was “mid”.

WHAT’S ON MY LIST?

First of all, this is not an attempt to create the END-ALL-BE-ALL of Black food rubrics. If anything, think of this as a template that anyone can modify for their use. Secondly, this is a LIVING DOCUMENT! What is created will not last forever. In fact, I expect things to change once this gets out into the world. At least, that would be my hope! I could work on this and it lands with the same impact of a single tree falling in the Amazon forrest. Which is to say, very little impact at all. Without further ado, here are the categories I’m putting on VERSION ONE of this Black Food Review Rubric:

TASTE
EXECUTION
APPEARANCE
AESTHETIC
SANITATION

In future editions of this newsletter, I will give a breakdown of what exactly TEAAS (I’m pronouncing this as TEE-ahs) will be critiquing. For example, under the TASTE category, there will be questions that ask about a dish’s “seasoning”, “temperature”, and “texture”. And as this develops, I’ll be seeking guidance from professionals in the game to make sure restaurants and chefs are being judged on things they can actually control slash that actually matter and not just whatever random ideas I come up with. Their insights will help me shape this rubric into more than just an idea but a useful tool.

So what do you think: Is this a good starting point? What questions should be asked under each heading? Are their other criteria that should be considered? Give me all of your ideas! If we work on this together, I’m sure we can make something special!

» KJ «

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