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The Food Section is cracking open its archives

When I launched The Food Section, I subscribed to four newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Post and Courier. Now I subscribe to more than twice that many papers, since it’s hard to contextualize what’s happening in a city’s dining rooms if you don’t know what’s happening in its council chambers.

But I bet for every paper on my list, I’ve turned down 10 solicitations to bypass a paywall by buying an annual subscription: I can’t afford to plunk down several hundred dollars just to read one story about the fate of a flagging salad bar—and that’s assuming I can pull off a cancellation in one year’s time.