Pro-"Foodie" and Proud

foodie

/ˈfuːdɪ/

noun (pl) -ies
1. a person having an enthusiastic interest in the preparation and consumption of good food

The term “foodie” found itself on the 40th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and Uselessness, published in 2014 by Lake Superior State University in Michigan. This made me wonder: Why is this word so despised by so many? Let’s explore.

Urban Dictionary, the crowd-sourced “reference” site for millennials, defines the term as “A douchebag who likes food.” Sorry, but that’s kind of “douch-y” in itself. Huffington Post has published an online article claiming to “hate” the word, calling it a “badge of self-entitlement.” They offer three substitutes – food lover, gourmand, and food nerd. Doesn’t “gourmand” sound a bit entitled to anyone? Also, not quite a year later they published “The Eleven Greatest Foodie Cities in America.” Must not hate it that much. The Daily Beast wants to “flambé” the epithet. To set it on fire? My goodness. These are only a few examples. Countless others can be found by entering this latest “F-word” into any search engine. 

Some abhor it because they don’t like labels. Others because it is overused. Still others because they think it sounds juvenile. I wonder if these same people want to trash the term “techie,” defined by Dictionary.com as “a technical expert, student or enthusiast, especially in the field of electronics.” What about “Trekkie” – “an avid fan of Star Trek science fiction, television shows and films?”  Will they refuse to watch the movie Goonies, or to call the new person at work a “newbie?” Aren’t premature infants referred to as “preemies” and people addicted to drugs “druggies?” Locals are “townies,” carnival folk are “carnies,” and people who have a particular love for a certain musical group are “groupies.” All of these words imply a singular, refined interest in something, or a certain expertise regarding it. How is the word “foodie” any different? 

Many people claim that since everyone eats, everyone is a foodie. To them, I contend that in today’s world, nearly everyone uses technology, but surely we are not all “techies.” Being able to do something does not automatically imply a keen interest or expertise. Some people eat to live. Foodies live to eat. It’s a hobby, not just an activity in which we engage three times a day to survive. 

And yet I propose an even further definition of “foodie.” That it’s more than having an enthusiasm, preoccupation, perhaps obsession, for all things food. On this, I refer you to the article “Rethinking the Word ‘Foodie’” by Mark Bittman, whom many would call a foodie indeed. In this article, Bittman encourages people to rethink the “foodie” label to be something “less demeaning-sounding” and “more meaningful.” That it’s not just giving yourself a label, but living a certain way. It’s not just eating out at the trendiest restaurants, but shopping at farmers’ markets, exploring local foods, and cooking hearty, healthy meals at home whenever possible. It’s educating yourself, not only about the best food truck in town, but also about how and where food is produced and sold and consumed. And it’s not only knowing about it, but making a conscious effort to do something about it. 

Yes, I’m proud to be a foodie if that’s what it means. And to me, that’s exactly what it means.

Foodie Book Friday: The Various Flavors of Coffee

If one could sum up how a typical foodie feels about food and wine, I think a good word would be “passion,” and passion is what Anthony Capella’s novel The Various Flavors of Coffee is about. This, and the fact that coffee is at the center of everything that occurs in the story, is what makes this novel our choice for today’s Foodie Book Friday.

The central character is Robert Wallis, a struggling poet and man-about-town in turn-of-the-century London. A chance encounter at a café brings him much needed employment but also changes the entire course of his life. His new employer is Samuel Pinker - coffee distributor, entrepreneur, visionarynd father. Pinker’s passion is his business, and he wants to create a tasting guide for coffee that will help him buy and sell it more effectively. He thinks Wallis’s writing skills and distinguished tastes make him the man for the job.

But this is only the beginning. A hesitant yet loyal relationship between Wallis and Pinker’s eldest, Emily, develops as they work on the tasting guide together. When Wallis is sent to Africa to oversee the development of a coffee plantation for Pinker, he is seduced into a passionate love affair by a defiant slave who changes his outlook on life and love. Upon his return to England, he finds it is not only he who has changed – Emily is in a dispassionate marriage to a government official, Pinker’s business ambitions have become much more grandiose, and the suffragist movement (Emily’s true passion) is in full swing.

Although it is tempting to focus only on the intriguing characters of this novel, the historical events happening behind the scenes are also enthralling. Capella offers up the tale of coffee – from plant to pour – which is interesting in itself. Yet he also teaches lessons in the economics of the industrial revolution, the abolitionist and early feminist movements, and the colonization of Africa, all the while showing how each of these affects not only those very characters but also the society at large.

Now, to the foodie part. This is the third of Capella’s novels to feature food, making him an appealing author for lovers of fiction and flavor alike. His descriptions of “the various flavors of coffee” and other foods are skillful and mouth-watering. As if brewing a cup of the title’s elixir, the author craftily blends story with history, violence with romance, sweetness with bitterness, all of which only serve to make the reader thirst for another. Grind some freshly roasted beans, make a big pot, and dig into this passion-filled novel.