Blog Post #3: A Foodie Doesn’t Have to be Gourmet

A Foodie Doesn’t Have to be Gourmet

The term “foodie” has not always been in existence. It entered the English vocabulary in 1981 where it was used in the title of a book published in 1984, The Official Foodie Handbook written by Paul Levy and Ann Barr. In those days, foodies were usually referred to as “gourmets.” Gourmets were thought of as snobby, upper class persons who were only interested in eating the best foods possible. They had no interest really in the food itself. If it was expensive, they would eat it. Nowadays, being foodie is more about having an appreciation for food; knowing how it is cooked, what the ingredients are, and just learning about it in general. Foodies like to learn about food, cook food, and most of all eat food. If a person gets excited just going to the grocery store to buy ingredients or searches for fun recipes to try or even makes up their own, they are a foodie. Being a foodie doesn’t require one to go and spend $100 on one meal. It requires one to appreciate the $10 shrimp linguine in alfredo sauce that is consumed on a Wednesday night. Given the choice between an overpriced filet mignon and a slice of homemade cheese pizza, the gourmet will choose the overcooked, dry piece of meat and the true foodie will choose the slice of pizza because they know it isn’t about price, it’s about taste.

As incomes increase across socioeconomic groups, the amount of this income spent on food decreases (Kinsey 1878S). As more methods of growing, shipping, and storing food are discovered and implemented, the cost of production has decreased, therefore decreasing the cost of food. This supports the claim that to be a “foodie” you do not need to spend a large amount of money to enjoy the gourmet experience. Enjoying food and being a foodie, whether it be on a grand or small scale, does not require the large amount of money that people claim. Buying cookbooks, watching TV shows, and preparing your own meals, while it may be slightly time-consuming, does not need to be very expensive. Going online to look up recipes can be done at home or even at a local library. Going to a local library to borrow cookbooks is also an option. The amount of cooking shows online and on the TV increases in number each week. Just typing in “cooking” to YouTube.com generates 378,000 results. Not all of these are the most helpful but some show how to cook or offer cooking tips and suggestions. Some are about foodaholics (foodies) who implement chemistry in the kitchen to improve food by making it better tasting. There is so much to learn about cooking and there is always something interesting on the internet. A Google.com search for “30 minute meals” produces over 2,500,000 results! These staggering results show that becoming a foodie requires little effort at all. The American culture today is greatly influenced by food and food is around all of us. A search that takes less than five seconds returns thousands of ways a person can become involved in food. The stay-at-home mom can find recipes to feed her family of four that are quick and easy and for a tight budget. The college student can find recipes that require only five ingredients and use a microwave or toaster oven. The working dad can find recipes that get the whole family involved so that there is some bonding happening in the kitchen. There are recipes for everyone to try, and if you find one you like there are always more where that came from. Have a recipe you want to share? Submit it to a magazine’s online website. Your recipe could possibly be chosen to appear in their next issue. If it is, you are contributing to the foodie culture.

People have more and more become aware of the fact that eating “good food” doesn’t have to happen in a fancy five-star restaurant. “Good food” can be cooked at home, with your own hands, using fresh ingredients. Using prepackaged foods isn’t a dreadful thing, even Rachael Ray uses pre-sliced carrots and dough from a tube, however in some peoples eyes it may mean a person is not a “true foodie,” but if while making the meal the cook is learning and enjoying what he or she is doing, then they are a foodie. The meal doesn’t even have to be a over-the-top fancy, five-course meal. Cooking a dinner for your family might consist of chicken tetrazzini, a french loaf (from a tube), a side of green beans or beets (either freshly cut or from a can), and a side salad (made from a fresh head of lettuce or bought in a bag). This simple meal can start a person on the way to becoming a foodie. Cooking meals at home, for yourself, family, or friends, is a great way to start down that foodie path. As long as a person in enjoying what they are doing and learning something from it, then they are a foodie.

Kinsey states that food preparation is being taken increasingly away from the home. This is due partly to women having more force in the work industry and due to the food industry’s push for simple-made, ready-to-eat food. These foods decrease the amount of time people spend cooking their own meals, which also decreases the foodie experience. Going out and letting someone else do the cooking is a great way to enjoy good food but when no one is doing the cooking, throwing a frozen pizza in the oven or putting a pre-made bag of pasta in the microwave for dinner doesn’t count, the experience of enjoying food is greatly diminished. Half of the foodie experience comes from preparing the food yourself, or sitting in an environment where all around you people are enjoying a meal that was cooked especially for them. Letting a machine cook and package a meal for you, where all you have to do is cut open the bag and stick it in the microwave on high for seven minutes is not being a foodie. While it’s cheap and requires very little effort and time there is no enjoyment behind it. You eat your food and you are done. No gratification.

With cable TV being offered at prices most families can afford, the amount of cable TV watched in households has increased dramatically in the past few years. Cable cooking shows, such as ones offered on The Food Network and FoodTV, have made it easier to enjoy food without having to cook it or eat it. As long as the person watching TV is still learning something and enjoying what they are watching, they still obtain “foodie” status. No, they are not directly cooking the food and getting a hands on experience, but just having the interest in food and want of gaining food knowledge is enough. Watching an episode of Ace of Cakes or Iron Chef America lets viewers watching take a ride into the culinary experience without putting themselves into the kitchen. This is helpful for the viewers who cannot spend hours making a three layer cake or preparing a four course meal. They can watch a team of chefs and bakers do these amazing feats on their television set during an hour. They can eat their own meal that they cooked during that hour or work on something else and have the show on in the background. More and more it seems people are enjoying their meals in front of the television. Whether as a family or individually, more people are eating food while watching a show about food. In some ways this seems like the “perfect” foodie experience. However others might view it as the perfect slob experience. Sitting in front of the TV as a family while consuming a meal is almost consider the norm nowadays. Few families sit down at the table all together, and at the same time, to enjoy a meal. It’s usually spent sitting, watching a TV show that the whole family can enjoy.

With the amount of resources available to a person wanting to become a foodie it comes as a surprise that some people still believe you need to have a large wallet to enjoy good food. The shift in the attitude from “gourmet” to “foodie” is due to the middle-class and working-class. These people wanted to partake in the enjoyment of good food, and as incomes have increased they have done so, but not in the form of going to fancy restaurants and buying the most expensive meals. They have started cooking their own food, creating their own entertainment (mostly in the form of TV shows), and learning about food from a hands on perspective and not merely as just a consumer. This change shows the working- and middle-classes that they too can appreciate food without spending an exorbitant amount of money and time.

Kinsey, Jean D. "Food and Families' Socioeconomic Status." Journal of Nutrition (1994): 1878S-1885. The Journal of Nutrition. Web. 24 Oct. 2009. <jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/124/9_Suppl/1878S>.