And that 'y', along with its sibling 'ie' has spread beyond the terraces and out on to the terrasses, the pavement cafés, into the land of the gastronome.
Wikipedia defines a foodie thus:
A foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food[1] and who eats food not only out of hunger but due to their interest or hobby. The terms "gastronome" and "gourmet" define the same thing, i.e. a person who enjoys food for pleasure.
This article by Kashmira Gander speaks up in favour of the foodie, saying that we all should be looking to know more about the food we eat; its provenance; the ingredients in our "ready meals", the production and seasonality of food. This sentence sums up for me the quintessence of the positive side of being a foodie:
High quality food isn’t the same as expensive food. Having money doesn’t buy taste, and nowhere is that truer than with grub. Overpriced food markets, bizarre products like asparagus water, and bamboozling fad diets are just as much the enemy as the junk that rots your insides.
If you want a counter argument read this piece in the Washington Post, you will never refer to yourself as a foodie again.
The problem with the word "foodie," ... boils down to a simple truth: You can’t possibly call yourself a "foodie" if you’re actually a "foodie." There is a great irony in describing yourself as a food insider in a way no actual food insider ever would. The act itself precludes you from being part of the world you want to associate yourself with.
And, of course, the growth of the foodie tribe has thrown up all manner of uneducated, ill informed, out and out snobbery.
Sure, given access to time, money, ingredients and equipment, anyone could, with a little application produce a stunning, delicious, nutritionally balanced and Instagrammable meal. But the majority of people do not have all, or even any of those resources.
People are time and cash poor, education about food is abysmal (there's a whole and separate soapbox climbing, blood pressure raising, rant inducing article to be written on that topic; what's the point of stigmatising a 6 year old's lunch box, when it's their parents who have missed out on the healthy eating classes).
Buying your vegetables ready prepared may be the only option for someone with a physical disability and a fierce sense of independence; tinned and frozen fruit and vegetables are a better option for many, being cheaper, easier to store and accessible.
And then there is the question of location. Are we foodies? I don't know. Personally, I am not keen on the term, but there again, I have never been one of the cool gang. We DO love food; we grow it, read about it, cook it, talk about it, write about it and we eat a LOT of it. We eat home made dinners, takeaways, occasional dinners in fancy restaurants, packets of crisps and only ever English asparagus. We do our best to respect other people's attitudes and approaches to food, it is not our place to judge.
Being a "foodie", however you define it whilst being based in rural Shropshire is not always easy. Shropshire has some fine restaurants and towns such as Ludlow have some great shops. However, the more rural locations have their retail limitations - we do not have Asian shops, high class bakers, Mediterranean delis, fish or cheesemongers on our doorstep.
But what we do have is the bounty of the hedgerows.
This week we have foraged 5 different varieties of plums; we picked 4 kilos of egg plums alone!
What's more, we got to meet one of our neighbours, who, seeing me picking plums from the verge, invited me into his garden to help myself to as many greengages as I could carry! He never picks them himself, but hates to see them fall to the ground and rot.
Does this put me more "in touch" with my food, elevate me to forage heroine status, make me feel superior to hose poor folk who have to indulge in the dirty commercial transaction of exchanging money for food.
No, it just means that I have a whole heap of fresh, probably organic, free fruit and the challenge of what to do with it all before it ferments! Jam making here I come and a plum cake recipe will follow shortly.
Additional reading on the topic of foodism:
This extract from 2012 in the Guardian
.....The term "foodist" is actually much older, used from the late 19th century for hucksters selling fad diets (which is quite apt); and as late as 1987 one New York Times writer proposed it semi-seriously as a positive description, to replace the unlovely "gastronaut": "In the tradition of nudist, philanthropist and Buddhist, may I suggest 'foodist', one who is enthusiastic about good eating?" ..... its taint of an -ism. Like a racist or a sexist, a foodist operates under the prejudices of a governing ideology, viewing the whole world through the grease-smeared lenses of a militant eater.
From the New Republic
The basic principle of the food industry is the exchange of cash for edible objects, so its social architecture has been built by the people who have traditionally been the wealthiest. If cooking is a working class profession, dining is the province of the bourgeoisie and fine dining, where cooking as an art reaches its pinnacle, is the dominion of the rich. This structure has implications for food culture as a whole, trickling down to influence what the foodie cooks at home, what she buys at the supermarket, what she posts on her social media account.
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