What/Who is a "Foodie"?

[larryroohr]

How about a 'Doodie'?

 

http://www.grubstreet.com/2014/05/food-dude-doodies-and-the-women-who-love-them.html

 

Made me laugh, hit a little close to home.

[Martin Fisher]

When I here the word "foodie" I immediately think of food obsessed David Rosengarten (where I first heard the term ~20 years ago) and that's about it....I don't consider it either positive or negative.

Edited July 14, 2014 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[Martin Fisher]

My serious enjoyment of food and its preparation needs no descriptive term, it just is what it is.

 

I agree.

[bonkboo]

I am a FoodNerd,  but I am not a food snob, which sadly may foodies are.

This is perfect. I think the pejorative "foodie" refers to the age of Yelpsters Instagraming every thing they eat to show they ate at the hottest new restaurant. I think egulleters are more the food nerd types. Always trying new foods and techniques. Often finding themselves eating something and thinking "I could do far better" and then doing so. We read widely from not only cook books but about the industry. Being called a food nerd by the wife of my pig roast partner was a compliment of the highest regard.

[SobaAddict70]

How about a 'Doodie'?

 

http://www.grubstreet.com/2014/05/food-dude-doodies-and-the-women-who-love-them.html

 

Made me laugh, hit a little close to home.

I remember that article. It was a "thing" on social media when it came out.

"Why are you against deliciousness?" Josh asked indignantly a few months ago, when I said I didn't think he needed to make a special trip to get soppressata for a salad that already had like 20 things in it.

I'm not against "deliciousness", just everything-and-the-kitchen-sink syndrome.

[DianaB]

The Doodie article made me think of Tim Hayward who writes a food column most weeks for the FT Weekend magazine. Recently he's written on how modern dining trends are spoiling the pleasure of sharing a meal with someone special, on egotarian cooking and on the impact of the laminator on restaurant etiquette. Mr Hayward's weekly columns are one of the reasons I maintain my FT subscription although they all appear to be available legally and without charge on the FT site via this link.

http://www.ft.com/life-arts/tim-hayward

Worth glancing through if you have time, as are the recipes of Rowley Leigh (and his introductions) to be found on the same site.

[SylviaLovegren]

I've never understood people who don't respect cooking and eating, who consider the growing and preparation of food beneath them and eating a not very interesting but boringly necessary job.  Eating is a daily necessity, essential to our life and health, and something (most) people take pleasure in from the first moments of life to the end (in fact, I know many old folks who find eating to be one of their last surviving pleasures).  We have to do it, why not approach it in a thoughtful way and enjoy it? 

[dcarch]

It seems to me that "Foodie" is used mostly in the written form.

 

I have never been called, nor called myself a foodie, I have never heard anyone calls him/herself a foodie. I have never asked anyone "Are you a foodie?"

 

"Foodie" communicates effectively to most people the meaning of one whose eating interest goes beyond the mere satiation of hunger.

 

dcarch

[liuzhou]

Many years ago, in the 1970s, back in London, I was briefly hospitalised for a minor operation. As I was recovering, I got chatting to the man in the next bed. As you do. 

The hospital food was horrible. Grey, flavourless and overcooked. And cold.

 

Mister X turned to one day and said something like "Wow! The food here is so good!" I honestly thought he was being sarcastic, but no. He meant it.

 

I asked what he usually ate. And he told me a story which still brings me to the verge of tears.

 

Mister X: "I go to the café near my house and have a chicken pie with chips (fries)."

 

Me: "What else?"

 

Mister X: "Oh on Sunday I have fish and chips instead."

 

Yes, he had chicken pie with chips six days a week, but treated himself on a Sunday. The hospital food was a revelation to him. But, I'm fairly sure after his discharge, he went back to his previous diet.

 

It emerged that his mother had cooked for him, but when she died he didn't know how to cook, so he went to the café. He had never married.

 

I asked when his mother died. 1953. He had been eating this for twenty years and more.

 

The odd thing was that he wasn't in hospital for any diet-related problem (unless you subscribe to the rather silly theory that all illness is diet related.)

I'm not really sure why I'm relating this here, now, I'd like to think that examples like this are rare now, but they probably aren't. A clear case for cooking and nutrition to be part of any national curriculum. I am of one of the last generations where, in the UK, cooking classes were only given to girls - the boys made wooden pipe racks instead. Now, I believe, every child gets some cooking nutrition education. 

Not all of then will become "foodies", but they might eat better.

[BeatriceB]

I don't like the term "foodie" and would never call myself that.  There are a number of reasons:  The childish "ie" at the end bothers me; I don't like labeling myself as any one thing, ever. 

 

Most of all, though, I find it to be an over-broad term, encompassing way too many things to be useful as a single label.  "Foodie," as it is currently used, seems to include:  People who spare no expense in going to the most new/haute/elaborate restaurants they can; People who spend their time seeking out "hidden gem" ethnic/rustic restaurants, generally inexpensive; People who shop for esoteric and/or very expensive foods that are eaten as purchased; People who cook at home, learning to make food similar to that served in the elaborate restaurants with expensive ingredients; People who cook at home, making food from sometimes expensive, sometimes less so, ingredients, who want to try new techniques and "ethnic" ingredients; People who cook at home, perfecting the cuisines they already love; People who actually work in some capacity in the food business.

 

To me, these people are all "foodies," and all valid ways of loving food, and if you did a Venn diagram, there'd certainly be some overlap, but many of them have nothing at all in common with each other.  I don't like being put into this group, because to some people it implies things about me that are very much not the case.

 

An anecdote: Several years ago a woman moved into an apt. down the hall from mine.  We had the "welcome to the building" conversation, and almost the first thing she said was "I'm a foodie."  As described above, that said little to me about what she actually did or liked.  It rapidly appeared that what she meant was she got most of her food from Trader Joe's and put pretty much all her trash into the glass/plastic recycling bin regardless of whether it belonged there.  I don't trust a self-described "foodie." 

Edited July 15, 2014 by BeatriceB (log)

[Porthos]

 

...  cooking classes were only given to girls - the boys made wooden pipe racks ...

 

I think that a basic cooking and nutrition class and a class on money, its management, and borrowing should be a part of child's education.

 

I had a friend at church years ago who had no sense of smell and didn't really care much about the food he ate, he just needed to eat to survive.

[gfron1]

I'm simply food obsessed.  Always have been.  Now I find myself to be most commonly disappointed when I eat out even at nice restaurants with stellar reputations.  Food always seems bland, uncared for, over cooked, under cooked, poorly plated, too tweezered.  And yet I survive and have simply learned to not write the bad review.  It is a sad existence, but its mine.  I'll save all year just to fly to Helsinki for dinner (this December.  If you want to call me a foodie, that's fine, because my mind is filled with much more demanding things such as how to use my fresh duck stock that I made this weekend.

[Alex]

Banished!

 

 

The tradition created by the late W. T. Rabe, former public relations director at Lake Superior State University, begins its fifth decade with this year's annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

...

 

"It's ridiculous. Do we call people who like wine 'winies' or beer lovers 'beeries'?" – Randall Chamberlain, Traverse City, Mich.

[Alex]

thekitchn.com chimes in, with "21 Food Words & Phrases That We Should All Probably Quit Using". And which word was #1?

 

 

1. Foodie – The worst food word crime of them all.