With the advent of the Food Network, Celebrity Chefs, a wider range of farmer’s markets and gourmet grocery stores offering the best in fresh and global ingredients, this popular, yet slightly silly label seems to stare us directly in the eyes, draw a line in the sand and demand this self-defining question of everyone: Are you or Aren’t you a foodie?
Depending on your response, you are then either “in” or very much “out.”
But the definition of this ubiquitous slightly abrupt, and altogether broad and vague term hardly begins or ends with me. I’m just someone who likes to eat… So I enlisted a few friends to hopefully help give more structure to the word: foodie.
Foodie: A love/hate relationship -- Tyson Cole, Executive Chef, Uchi
Foodie - As a chef I can't stand the term. The last thing I want is more "know-it-all'" customers professing their misinformed expertise about the food I make. But as a restaurant owner, I love it. A general public with a deeper interest in food gets them out on the streetlooking for it.
Foodie – The term has everything to do with the media, mass marketing, the Internet, and the Food Network. Whoever coined the phrase, it must have come from one of these sources, rather than simply a pure food lover.
Foodie - It's changed the playing field. People are watching what they eat, where their food came from, and how it was made. It's the next step for America in an attempt to catch up to the rest of the planet. To eat seasonal and healthy, to pay some respect to what they are eating rather than buying things in bulk and packing their fridges full—which is consequently why we’re becoming the most obese society in the world.
Foodie – It may just be a new way of life.
Foodie: A mild obsession – Pat Sharpe, Executive Editor, Texas Monthly Magazine
A foodie is a person who is semi-obsessed with food: eating it, deconstructing the tastes, reading about it, and thinking about it in his or her spare time. The food in question can be high-brow or low-brow, expensive or cheap, modern or traditional.
It doesn't matter to a true foodie…
… I do think "foodie" is a silly word—but "gourmet" is pretentious and "epicure" is worse.
Foodie: Knowing Yuzu from Yoo-hoo -- Quincy Adams Erickson, Chef/Owner, Fete Accompli
Well it must be someone who works for Central Market. Aren’t they all foodies? I love going in there in playing my own personal game of “stump the foodie.” To be honest, I’ve found they are quite on the money with most of the things I ask them.
The funniest CM experience was when I was looking for Yuzu some years back. My son and I were making sushi on the spur of the moment. I went to about 4 Asian markets in town and no one had any and no one knew what it was. I finally called Central Market to see if they had Yuzu. I gave a description of what Yuzu is to the guy on the phone and he said “Absolutely, we have Yuzu!”
I sent my son to purchase it. He soon called me from the store to report that there was no Yuzu. He said that he even talked to a "foodie" on duty and they said they definitely did NOT have Yuzu.
Confused, I called CM again and asked to speak to someone in grocery, this time I got a different guy. Again, I carefully explained what Yuzu was—a Japanese citrus juice, usually in a glass bottle, somewhat pricey.
Again, this new guy said "Absolutely we have it! In fact we have it in both cans and bottles!"
I asked exactly where was it located in the store so I could go straight to it on our FINALY attempt to find Yuzu. I drove to Central Market, walked into the store, to the aisle that he said it was on and there before me was a fully-stocked shelf YOO-HOO!!!… in cans and bottles. Needless to say, I left the pseudo-chocolate milk drink where it was and went back home to re-work our menu WITHOUT Yuzu.
Despite this one-time Central Market foodie-failing. I think a foodie is a person that knows what something like Yuzu is. And knows of such an ingredient well ahead of the pack. Not only would they know what it is, but they would likely have an arsenal of ideas of what to do with it and could describe just why a person might or might not want to consume it.
A foodie is a person that reads voraciously and knows both the new and the classic techniques for making food but also knows which trends are likely to last, and which ones will not. They know what tastes good—yuzo… And what does not—Yoo-Hoo!
Foodie: In Equal Parts -- Laura Kelso, New Media Editor and Writer, www.dishola.com
I think the term foodie means different things to different people. For me, a foodie is someone who first and foremost loves food. Foodies adore eating, but they may also love to cook, bake, study the origins of food, write about food, or read news about it.
We say that dishola.com is a site for foodies—a place to share the love of food, dish by dish. I’ve heard some people call foodies “food snobs,” but I’d beg to differ. A foodie savors street food as much as she or he revels in a five-star haute-cuisine experience.
In short, a foodie is an equal opportunity lover of all things food-related. :)
Foodie: Natural Curiosity. Not a Food Snob. – Jessica Dupuy
It’s not as simple as simply liking food. After all, we all have to eat, and chances are we like the majority of things we put in our mouth. (As evidenced by the frightening growth in obesity in the Unites States over the past decade.) Being a foodie requires a little more than just liking to eat. But the broad gamut that ranges from amateur to expert is as wide as it is deep.
A stay-at-home mom who clings to daily re-runs of 30-Minute Meals with Rachael Ray slinging while Italian-ish ingredients and EVOO around the kitchen might consider herself a “foodie.” But so would the seasoned chef with a degree from the CIA-Hyde Park who meticulously plans a daily menu of fresh, local ingredients and always has his mise-en-place long before the early dinner crowd arrives.
I recently heard a radio broadcast in which a foodie was defined as a consummate “food snob who likes to frequent fancy restaurants.” Though it’s true this ubiquitous term is tossed around restaurants and food markets like pinches of salt or hits of Emeril-packed spice “Bams!,” this trite definition of a foodie completely rubbed me the wrong way.
Not only for placing a whole world of food lovers into a very narrow, and elitist box, but for its lack of depth. After all, perfect food can be as simple as a fresh homegrown tomato drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with fleur de sel, or as layered and complex as a classic beef bourguignon.
Don’t get me wrong. I love fine dining. I’ll take an omakase/chef’s choice menu from Uchi in Austin or a seven-course tasting menu from Paris’ illustrious Il Cortile any day—with wine pairings, thank you very much. And I’d even consider taking out a second mortgage to snag a reservation at La Tour D’argent or Spain’s El Bulli.
But I also love grabbing an ice cold beer and taking a seat on a well-worn picnic table at San Antonio’s Chris Madrid’s for a big ass Macho Burger. I may not finish the colossal package of greasy goodness, but I’ll savor every bite.
The list of differences in all of these examples may be fairly extensive, but they do have one thing in common: quality, flavorful, all around good food. It doesn’t matter the culinary prestige, ethnicity, or price point.
The proof is in the kitchen, with the guy prepping, stirring, tasting, and working up a sweat with rolled-up sleeves and a penchant for perfection. His spattered apron, once a blank canvas, is the evidence of culinary art.
If you want to know whether or not you’re a foodie, perhaps you should take a look at your own apron. (Or whatever cloth you use to wipe your hands clean.) Tinkering with recipes, tasting each subtle tweak to your culinary concoctions, fine-tuning your list of ingredients to always have on hand… These are the toilings of a foodie.
And if you’re not much of a home chef, you likely at least have an affinity for tasting, comparing, and analyzing food whenever you dine out—whether it be the peculiar flavors of a dark and mysterious mole sauce at your corner taqueria, or the splash of Spanish olive oil enriching a delicate caprese salad. Being a foodie absolutely does not mean you’re a snob.
But it does mean that you’re probably a little more discerning about what you eat and where it comes from. I think an incessant curiosity about the things you put in your mouth is what drives someone to be a foodie.
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