Life's Pleasures Quote by Robert M. Parker, Jr.

Parker’s line is a sly power move disguised as a folksy tip. By calling “a good appetite” the primary requisite, he yanks food writing away from the fussy theater of expertise and plants it back in the body. Taste, he implies, is not a spreadsheet skill. It’s hunger, pleasure, craving, the willingness to want something enough to pay attention to it. That’s a dig at the critic-as-priest archetype: the detached arbiter swirling, sniffing, and withholding delight as if enjoyment would contaminate judgment.

The subtext is even sharper given Parker’s real cultural footprint. As the most influential wine critic of his era, he helped codify a system where numbers and authority could make or break producers, reshape regions, and standardize palates. So when Parker elevates appetite, he’s both defending and laundering his position. He’s saying: don’t mistake my power for arid technocracy; my legitimacy comes from sensual engagement. The line proposes a democratizing origin story for criticism (anyone with appetite can begin) while quietly preserving the hierarchy (not everyone can translate appetite into prose that moves markets).

Context matters: late-20th-century food and wine culture was drifting toward credentialism, jargon, and status performance. Parker’s sentence counters with a reminder that good criticism is not abstinence but intimacy. Appetite isn’t just hunger; it’s curiosity and a tolerance for being moved. He’s arguing that the best writing about food starts where the pretense ends: in the mouth, and in the desire to go back for another bite.