Sometimes I get really annoyed with foodie culture. It's kind of obsessive and stupid. This may seem hypocritical, given the name of this blog and my propensity for talking about food. Yet I do like to think that even though I enjoy food and trying new restaurants, I am not a foodie.
The Observer has an article called The Foodiots discussing this very issue. Jim Leff, the founder of Chowhound.com, has a reaction piece in which he goes even further than The Observer in condemning foodies...
But I also see untold thousands of giddily obsessive food crazies who've made chewing the very center of their existences, and who endlessly scamper after the usual spotlit shiny big things. And who need everyone to hear about it ad nauseum...what I mostly see out there is more and more materialistic, hype-following foodies. As William Shatner famously told the world of Trekkies, these people need to get a life.
Anyway, I have often thought that foodies are just dorky people trying to fill a void in their lives (um, I can't relate to that at all). Yet some of the reactions to Jim Leff's indictment of foodie culture have rightly raised the issue of what would constitute getting a life? If being a foodie is a hobby, what makes it less legitimate than sports or books or politics or whatever? Are not most human endeavors simply a means for justifying our existence and making us feel more significant than we really are?
Discuss amongst yourselves...
