How A Ditmas Park Upbringing Made Melissa Clark Such A Foodie

Did you know New York Times food columnist and cookbook writer Melissa Clark grew up in Ditmas Park? We did, since her sister and former Ditmas Park Patch editor Amy Sarah Clark still lives in the neighborhood–but what we didn’t realize is just how Melissa’s local background contributed to her fascination with food.

Edible Brooklyn published a piece this week talking to Melissa about how she first got into the culinary world. Besides growing up taking in all the delicious food New York had to offer, it was a yearly house swap for a place in France that really got Melissa enamored with, as she calls it, “cuisine and other products of appetite.”

Says Edible:

… every August, her psychotherapist parents took their two daughters to a tiny town in France for what amounted to a monthlong tour of French farm stands—long before Greenmarkets got to Grand Army—and the country’s best restaurants.

“My parents were big foodies, and my dad’s dream, his goal in life,” says Clark, “was to eat at every Michelin-starred restaurant in France. My sister and I got to go to the one-star and sometimes the two-star. And then [my parents] would go to the three-star.”

Melissa’s formative French years were from the ages of 10-16, since which she has worked in Brooklyn and Manhattan restaurants, earned degrees from Barnard and Columbia, run a catering business, and finally found her footing as a food writer. And now, her fans know they have the French folks who loved summertime in Ditmas Park to thank!

Photo via Melissa Clark