Blog Assignment 3

FOODIES & SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS: ARE THEY RELATED?

A foodie is generally regarded as an aficionado with some degree of expertise in matters concerning food and the culinary arts. The burning question here is: what kind of food? The rich and the poor obviously don't have the same diet, and it would be absurd to imagine a caviar-appreciating critic finding positive reception from those who've never even seen a plate of fish roe in their lives. Perhaps someone who appreciates eggs and toast would find greater leverage influencing the tastes of the masses.

The concept of appreciating food and refined taste is primarily a product of the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. The shift of labor from small farms in the countryside, where the emphasis was on growing produce, to the factories in large towns and cities, where the emphasis was more on value-addition and consumption, had a significant impact on how people looked at what they ate. It was also accompanied by a gradual shift in the tastes and sensibilities of the public, symbolized by the Renaissance.

So, for most of human history, 90% of the population consisted of poor farmers, hunters and soldiers, ruled over by a privileged 10% comprising the aristocracy and clergy. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the decline of the feudal way of life, the middle class came to the fore. Suddenly, there were infinitely more opportunities for people in the towns and cities, accompanied by a reduction in demand for agricultural labor stemming from the rise of mechanized techniques of farming. As a result, farming was reduced to an occupation for the minority and the culture of consumerism started taking root.

Acquired wealth brings with it acquired attitudes and tastes. In revolutionary-era France, whole-grain bread and white bread symbolized the class divides, so much so that, once the revolutionaries had deposed Louis XVI, consumption of white bread was explicitly banned. There are several such examples throughout history that give us a clue as to not only the socioeconomic, but also the political and cultural significance of certain varieties of food.

Today the divide between the diet of the rich and the masses is diminished, but it still exists. However, it is more of a philosophical divide than a materialistic one. Most of us have enjoyed fine dining and cuisine at some point in our lives, relishing the few hours of bliss of looking and feeling rich before returning to our Cheesy Macs and Ramen staple the next morning. More than the elite food, we yearn for that feeling of being someone rich, someone important and being looked after by people we’d normally consider our equals.

Flip the coin. Perhaps the rich secretly fantasize about oatmeal and cereal, and the simple things in life, including a simple diet. Maybe they want to enjoy a cup of good ol’ coffee once in a while, and take a break from the herbal tea and red wine. The grass is always greener on the other side.

But what if you could balance the two? Maybe someone who can evaluate your bread-and-butter and foie gras with equal diligence and insight is the true foodie. Or at least it could be an ideal the true foodie should strive towards.

The intriguing fact here is that the term “foodie” itself is a relatively new one. It was coined in 1981 by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, who used it in the title of their 1984 book, The Official Foodie Handbook. Since then, people like J.P. Norton (who operates The Heavy Table, a foodie website for the Upper Midwest), Jason Perlow (who founded eGullet), and Ruth Reichl (editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine) have generally come to be regarded as foodies. While it may seem that these people are rich and evaluate only the rich man’s diet and the high-end restaurants, a crucial distinction must be made here.

A foodie is not the same thing as a gourmet. Although the two terms are used interchangeably, foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation and news. So while gourmets simply want to eat the best food, foodies want to learn everything about food, both the paramount and the ordinary, including the science, industry and personalities surrounding food.

Still, it's not simple as that. If one looks at the issue objectively, being a foodie has nothing to do with socioeconomic status. The “caviar-appreciating critic” is in fact a gourmet, not a foodie, catering to the elite of society where top-notch cuisine with the highest quality of ingredients is found. This is not to say that someone who appreciates only rich-people food cannot be a foodie. There is a very subtle difference between a foodie and an epicurean gourmet, and it has to do with the attitude of the person towards food.

If you like food for its own sake, an end in itself, you’re a foodie. On the other hand, if you think food defines your social standing and character, as a means to an end, you’re a gourmet.

Most of us put undue pressure on foodies, giving them the responsibility of dictating our eating habits, grading eateries and restaurants, not to mention coming up with recipes every now and then. The first two tasks are something we should be doing by ourselves anyway. What most of us fail to understand is that foodies are not public servants; they are just satiating their love of food by engaging in activities that food-centered. One could even go so far as to call them egotistical and self-centered.

Back to the question at hand: are foodies different depending on your socioeconomic status, or should a foodie try to appeal to all classes of people?

From the preceding analysis, it is clear that foodies don’t care either way: they love food for the sake of it, and not because they wish to appease to a particular section of society or make themselves look particularly sophisticated. The question thus boomerangs back to us, the audience, in how we perceive foodies. We may be rich or poor and have deeply diverging views on what constitutes a foodie, or we may share a common understanding of the same. It is all a matter of perception.

CITATIONS:

Weston, Nicole: What is a foodie anyway?, Slashfood.com: February 10th 2006. (http://www.slashfood.com/2006/02/10/what-is-a-foodie-anyway/)

Restione, Dan: A Call For Revolution, MyNorthWest Blog: March 17th 2009. (http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=408&sid=146250)