"Dinner at the Foodies"

[Carrot Top]

An interesting article in today's NYT.

for some hosts in the age of the armchair Boulud, even a laid-back dinner with friends can be a challenge to their sense of self-worth. They may not care whether they wear Gap or couture. Their place in the Hamptons might be a share. But they would no sooner serve their guests grocery-case Drunken Goat cheese than a Vogue minion would wear an Ann Taylor dress to a party given by Anna Wintour.

“Entertaining and cooking have become an integral part of how certain people demonstrate their cultural cachet,” said Joshua Schreier, a history professor at Vassar College who lives in Harlem and says he is a victim, and a propagator, of culinary anxiety. “There is a specific cachet that only a fiddlehead fern can convey. Saying, ‘I got this olive oil from this specific region in Greece,’ is like talking about what kind of car you have. And people don’t want to be associated with the wrong kind of olive oil. It becomes less about having people over and more about showing off your foodie credentials.”

Ms. Bass also pointed out that the new strain of entertaining anxiety extended well beyond food. “You can’t just serve purslane,” she said. “You have to serve purslane on Limoges you found in a Connecticut consignment shop with a fork that has a carved ivory handle you found in a flea market somewhere.”

Is "who we are" defined by the foodie-ness of our tables?

If they have invented pharmaceuticals to deal with other sorts of mind/body problems that limit opportunity in the world, will they invent something to cure or assist in helping foodie anxiety?

And where is that consignment shop located?

[Busboy]

Looks like an axis of anxiety stretching all the way from Park Slope to the Upper East Side. (on the Upper West Side, Steve Shaw is gleefully serving hot dogs and slaw to his guests, all of whom are laughing up their sleeve about those who lose sleep over the obscurity of their Olive Oil's origins).

An amusing article but, let's be real, relevant to the lives of about 800 people in the world.

[Carrot Top]

Looks like an axis of anxiety stretching all the way from Park Slope to the Upper East Side. (on the Upper West Side, Steve Shaw is gleefully serving hot dogs and slaw to his guests, all of whom are laughing up their sleeve about those who lose sleep over the obscurity of their Olive Oil's origins).

An amusing article but, let's be real, relevant to the lives of about 800 people in the world.

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And of course we know that Washington DC is foodie-anxiety free in all relevant geographic areas, too.

Guess the NYT blew it again in getting the story wrong.

[danf]

Shocking to hear that big-city wealthy folks now are using food to show off their position, they've never done anything like this before...

Don't know much about NYC society, but that sounds totally on the money Busboy. People like this are in everywhere, I think their food obsession is probably just one more example of a whole bunch of other social competitions that the author of the article seems to want to just gloss over. I bet you that before these people were so into their food they were freaking about the breed of their pets or their wallpaper or whatever. Now there's just a new language to dinner party oneupmanship, instead of the money you spent now you can talk about the miles or the cultivar. It means the same thing but you sound like less of a jerk I guess.

Purslane is just the new french bulldog. (those are cool right?)

Thank you for the original post, it was entertaining on a boring morning at work. I laughed at that line about serving food copied from a restaurant being like reading a book with the Opera Book Club sticker. (an aversion that I am totally guilty of, btw)

[Carrot Top]

Thank you for the original post, it was entertaining on a boring morning at work.  I laughed at that line about serving food copied from a restaurant being like reading a book with the Opera Book Club sticker. (an aversion that I am totally guilty of, btw)

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You're welcome.

I'm glad to hear that it's only big city New Yorkers that are subject to this particular insecurity.

And even more glad to know that only 800 people in the world are affected by it.

It's good to be around the real, down-home folk here.

[cakewalk]

And people don’t want to be associated with the wrong kind of olive oil.

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Heavens no.

[Busboy]

Looks like an axis of anxiety stretching all the way from Park Slope to the Upper East Side. (on the Upper West Side, Steve Shaw is gleefully serving hot dogs and slaw to his guests, all of whom are laughing up their sleeve about those who lose sleep over the obscurity of their Olive Oil's origins).

An amusing article but, let's be real, relevant to the lives of about 800 people in the world.

←

And of course we know that Washington DC is foodie-anxiety free in all relevant geographic areas, too.

Guess the NYT blew it again in getting the story wrong.

←

DC is not a foodie town like New York. Our big anxieties all center around politics and law firms. Plus, since we prefer raw power to big money, we can't afford thousand-dollar brunches for our kids. (We can get them tickets to the White House Egg Roll, though).

[Carrot Top]

And people don’t want to be associated with the wrong kind of olive oil.

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Heavens no.

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cakewalk, I'm enough of a snob that I'd love to be the one that wrote that quote, for it would mean that the NYT had paid me to write something, which they didn't.

Unfortunately, it came from the linked/quoted article.

But I like the line and love your response even more.

[Busboy]

Purslane is just the new french bulldog. (those are cool right?)

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With the difference that French Bulldogs must be expensively purchased from elite breeders, but purslane is a weed that grows in my driveway.

Of course, most New Yorkers don't have driveways, so the stuff probably seems a little more exotic.

[Carrot Top]

DC is not a foodie town like New York.  Our big anxieties all center around politics and law firms.  Plus, since we prefer raw power to big money, we can't afford thousand-dollar brunches for our kids.  (We can get them tickets to the White House Egg Roll, though).

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Oh. Raw power, huh?

No food anxieties there? Wonderful.

[Carrot Top]

I can't imagine why the song from the movie "Ghostbusters" keeps running through my mind as I read this thread.

You know, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts!"

Oh well. Must leave for a while to chop the overgrown purslane in my driveway and also vaccum the fast-food crumbs out of my SUV.

I look forward to returning later to hear more of the vast and encouraging egalitarianism that exists throughout the countryside where foodies are only foodies but never anxious.

[srhcb]

I'm not going to accusingly quote, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." but who amongst us hasn't, either in person or post, been guilty of at least tossing a small pebble of oneupsmanship or vainglory hard enough to crack our dining room window?

Edited June 6, 2007 by srhcb (log)

[cakewalk]

And people don’t want to be associated with the wrong kind of olive oil.

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Heavens no.

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cakewalk, I'm enough of a snob that I'd love to be the one that wrote that quote, for it would mean that the NYT had paid me to write something, which they didn't.

Unfortunately, it came from the linked/quoted article.

But I like the line and love your response even more.

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My skills with links and quotes are nothing to write home about, which is why the quote ended up looking as it did. Sorry.

But it is a great line, isn't it?

[Carrot Top]

I'm not going to accusingly quote, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." but who amongst us hasn't, either in person or post, been guilty of at least tossing a small pebble of oneupsmanship or vainglory hard enough to crack our dining room window?

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Gosh, SB, you got me back to the table with that.

I am definitely guilty. I like to win, when I can.

Plus, I read somewhere that that is what men do in their communications, men who accomplish things, rather than women whose communication style it try to get along with each other and spread peace, supposedly.

Do you have a dining room window? What sort of glass is it made out of? I've read of a new kind that reflects the food on any table in a quite exquisite manner.

My olive oil comes from the grocery store, though, Kroger actually, and is mid-level cost. I hope people will still talk to me after this confession.

[danf]

True srhcb, but dropping a grand on salumi for a one-year-old's birthday party or worrying so much about what particular guests will think of your food that you stop cooking for them seems pretty ridiculous.

I totally like to impress people with my culinary ability (erm...such as it is) and ingredient selection (same) but I appreciate this article more on the satiric side. I really like the New York Times but in anything other than the news like the food or society section I read most of the stories as "LOL, rich new yorkers doing crazy things."

[Carrot Top]

My skills with links and quotes are nothing to write home about, which is why the quote ended up looking as it did. Sorry.

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It took me two years of hardship to learn how to link and still sometimes I have problems.

This is much more acceptable to me as a fault than say, I dunno, someone who uses Food Lion brand frozen peas. I feel badly to be this way, but it is true.

[Busboy]

I can't imagine why the song from the movie "Ghostbusters" keeps running through my mind as I read this thread.

You know, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts!"

Oh well. Must leave for a while to chop the overgrown purslane in my driveway and also vaccum the fast-food crumbs out of my SUV.

I look forward to returning later to hear more of the vast and encouraging egalitarianism that exists throughout the countryside where foodies are only foodies but never anxious. 

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Ramps are where the real money is in DC. Five bucks for a handful of weeds!

Much more important to get the Subcommittee chairman or hot political columnist to your soiree than to serve the right organic peach for dessert. People here cater.

And, I never said we don't have our own anxieties here (you could get dirty looks at parties here for working at the World Bank decades ago), nor that we never play a little "one up," with our biodynamic merlots, or new BMWs or whatever. But I will say I've never met anyone -- in DC or anywhere -- with the paralyzing food angst the people in the Times article have.

(Perhaps they should have a friend FedEx them the $8 eggs from this topic, so they can one up the commoners buying $6 eggs from the Greenmarket. )

[Fat Guy]

Looks like an axis of anxiety stretching all the way from Park Slope to the Upper East Side. (on the Upper West Side, Steve Shaw is gleefully serving hot dogs and slaw to his guests, all of whom are laughing up their sleeve about those who lose sleep over the obscurity of their Olive Oil's origins).

An amusing article but, let's be real, relevant to the lives of about 800 people in the world.

←

I grew up on the Upper West Side, but I live on the Upper East Side now. I can't afford the Upper West Side anymore. Soon, all I'll be able to afford is the Bronx.

[Carrot Top]

I can remember paralyzing fears from when I lived in Brooklyn Heights. It was like "I really can *not* be seen going into Key Food." Because, of course, one had to go to D'Agostinos.

But of course that's Brooklyn Heights. I doubt if people in other parts of the country worry about which grocery store they should go to because of foodie anxiety.

[Abra]

Horseshit. We're all guilty as hell, all over the country, and we all know it. Almost by definition, being here means we're among the skewered snob set. And you know what? If food snobbery is my worst sin, then I think I'm in with the angels.

[MarketStEl]

Thank you for the original post, it was entertaining on a boring morning at work.  I laughed at that line about serving food copied from a restaurant being like reading a book with the Opera Book Club sticker. (an aversion that I am totally guilty of, btw)

←

You're welcome.

I'm glad to hear that it's only big city New Yorkers that are subject to this particular insecurity.

And even more glad to know that only 800 people in the world are affected by it.

It's good to be around the real, down-home folk here.

←

There where a defunct local bank ran an ad in the Metro with the legend:

"The most important bank in the most important city in the world thinks you're important too."

Yeah, no status anxiety in DC, no siree.

We're all content to feast our hearts out in cute BYOs, clog our arteries on meat- and cheese-filled sandwiches, and pick over produce at the Reading Terminal (or pick over picked-over produce on 9th Street) up here (or down here, depending on which side of 30th Street Station you're reading this from). You want real lack of pretense, I can show you where to find it.

Yes, I know your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek. Just be careful to move it out of the way before your next mouthful of food, lest you bite it.

DC is not a foodie town like New York.  Our big anxieties all center around politics and law firms.  Plus, since we prefer raw power to big money, we can't afford thousand-dollar brunches for our kids.  (We can get them tickets to the White House Egg Roll, though).

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Oh. Raw power, huh?

No food anxieties there? Wonderful.

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DC is the only city I've been in where you really can eat prestige. Okay, maybe that's not really prestige that's being served on Capitol Hill, 'cause that wouldn't complement either the power or the black bean soup in the Senate cafeteria. But it's something like it.

I'm not going to accusingly quote, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." but who amongst us hasn't, either in person or post, been guilty of at least tossing a small pebble of oneupsmanship or vainglory hard enough to crack our dining room window?

←

My one-upmanship is of the Sam-Walton, more-frugal-and-practical-than-thou, you-can-get-better-for-less variety, which usually doesn't play well among the wannabe elite, for whom conspicuous consumption is the name of the game.

But just you wait until I win the million dollars.* Then, once I get that house in town with a yard (or deck), you're gonna see barbecue the likes of which is unknown to Northeasterners, even those who participate in Kansas City Barbecue Society-sanctioned contests.

(*I auditioned for the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" contestant pool in NYC last Thursday. I'm still waiting to hear if I'm in the pool. I did pass the qualifying test; eight of us did out of a group of about 50.)

Looks like an axis of anxiety stretching all the way from Park Slope to the Upper East Side. (on the Upper West Side, Steve Shaw is gleefully serving hot dogs and slaw to his guests, all of whom are laughing up their sleeve about those who lose sleep over the obscurity of their Olive Oil's origins).

An amusing article but, let's be real, relevant to the lives of about 800 people in the world.

←

I grew up on the Upper West Side, but I live on the Upper East Side now. I can't afford the Upper West Side anymore. Soon, all I'll be able to afford is the Bronx.

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I'm sure we will be welcoming you to...to...to...

...to the sixth borough before too long, probably with a nice dinner at Pif or someplace like it.

[Kouign Aman]

Sandy, :laugh: :laugh:

Well-skewered, sir!

[dockhl]

Almost by definition, being here means we're among the skewered snob set.

Gotta have this as a sig.......may I?

Sandy~

Please make sure you let us know about WWTBAM ?!

[bavila]

I will say unabashedly that I am a better cook than all but one of my immediate circle of friends. Even my husband the non-cook has some anxiety about how well a dish will turn out -- though neither of us give too much thought to the status of origin of our food. Ok, well, maybe we brag a bit about our CSA produce and our beyond-organic meats, but that's a greener-than-thou issue.

Here on the boards, though, I cower in my unworthiness to be surrounded by such culinary prowess. There. I admit it. You all scare me.

[MaxH]

Haven't read full article, but the excerpts above don't make plain just what in all this is "new?"

Paul Fussell commented acidly about similar behavior a quarter century ago in his popular best-seller, citing Diane Johnson's then-recent review of 24 food books and cookbooks in the New York Review of Books. " 'Here eating is not the thing,' " Johnson is quoted. Instead the books stress "anxiety," fear that the host's position "may not really be securely anchored" (Fussell, who goes on with many little examples).