Friday, June 18, 2010

Foodie vs Foodiot: No one cares about my cheese? But it's artisan!

So, I was procrastinating and reading archived entries of this awesome, local food blog Fidel Gastro and I saw how he highlighted an article from the New York Observer in 2009 about how the culture of food has changed since the advent of the organic/slow food/local food movement. The author of the article, Joe Pompeo, went on to discuss how there is an over saturation of talk about food and what we're eating and how we meticulously document everything we are "shoving down [our] pie holes". He went on to indicate that no one cares about the awesome artisanal cheese we, the foodies/foodiots, get our hands on or how we paid for the feed for a pig that will be slaughtered at the end of a year (a venture that I am attempting and will get back to you about if it actually comes to fruition).  He also says that most people are discusted and grossed out by all the talk of food and are pretty tired of it.

This hit home and really irked me. I consider myself a foodie and am always afraid that I am crossing that line between foodie and just annoying/boring/grossing people out with my talk of food. I love food. And I think more and more that the average person cares more about not only what they are eating but where it comes from and I don't think it's a bad thing as Pompeo implies. I think that the more people care about what they eat and where it comes from the more the industries that supply and produce food are forced to care. I think that a lot of the foods marketed as natural and organic are using the term as a marketing ploy instead of a movement in better, healthier, and more sustainable ways to produce food. I think if the public starts caring more, prices will start to become more competitive and that maybe organic will become the new mandate instead of a choice for those who care/can afford it. To me, it is a crime that healthy, fresh food is more expensive than packaged "food" and is a huge contributing factor to the so called "obesity epidemic".

One of the things I have struggled with in the creation of this blog is whether or not I wanted to have it be a "food blog" specifically or have more of a blog with foodie posts, or just not include food at all in my contributions to the blogosphere. I have read a lot of successful blogs, some of which I will highlight when and if I try recipes from them or springboard posts from things they write (like Fidel Gastro mentioned above). There is also the fact that so many of them document their dining experiences outside their own kitchens and how they have really high quality cameras they take to restaurants with them. I have been debating whether or not to do this and chose not to (alike in one of my first posts about El Rey where I detail the food and restaurant but have no pictures). I read somewhere, I forget where now, how some chefs/restaurateurs think that people are obnoxious taking pictures of their food or posting blogs about their dining experiences. I would really hate to put the people who work so hard for me to eat so well in an awkward or unwanted position, but I also want to share and publicize the best places to eat in my fair city.

Oh the conundrum! The choices! The decisions! I guess this will have to be a continuing struggle and ultimately determined by how good my camera is. Hint hint T ;).

PS I agree with Senor Gastro, Joe Pompeo can suck it.

1 comment:

  1. I totally agree that the term "organic" is sometimes questionable and yes, it's all about marketing and the new "it" thing. But I will confess to loving organic veggies. YUMMY they taste sooooo good.

    ReplyDelete