are you a 'foodie'

in london being a foodie seems to mean you enjoy queuing up

foodies are pretentious idiots who think they have amazingly refined palettes but couldn't actually tell the difference between a good steak and a cabbage

yes

by most definitions i am a foodie

food is great, i like food.

^^^

dont really get the foodie hate tbh

i voted "I am markers"

I enjoy good food but I can't be arsed to go find it out, I'm just as happy eating rice and pasta at home

(eating pizza goldfish atm btw)

enjoying food is great tbh.

Yeah, I am. (Or at least, to claim that I'm not would require a rather narrow definition of the term.)

I love food and drink but I'm far too lazy to ever be called/accused of being a foodie. But I love trying new things, reading about food, having people prepare special and amazing food for me.

I'm sort of a would-be foodie.

And I love Taco Bell.

dont really get the foodie hate tbh

Then you have never tried to cook with any of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_K0qNHdNzs

i need a definition before i can proceed

foodies are pretentious idiots who think they have amazingly refined palettes but couldn't actually tell the difference between a good steak and a cabbage

depends on if it's locally sourced

Voted 'eh... sorta'; I love cooking and I'm quite fussy about getting good ingredients, eggs and chicken are always free range, meat is either from British farms / supermarket premium ranges or else from the local award-winning posh butcher. We've used a couple of veg box suppliers but as there's only two of us we tend to shop at the supermarket for that now to prevent waste. We use the local posh delicatessen a lot, we're picky about what restaurants we go to, but... every so often a quarter pounder with cheese hits the spot.

you're gonna really love this locally sourced stabbage

foodie is fine as long as one isn't using more than 5 adjectives to describe the cucumber they've just eaten, having sourced it from an artisan farm near a small village in the yorkshire moors

oh lol xposts

I've always enjoyed trying new restaurants, but I think I only really became a foodie (i.e., discriminating about what I ate, interested in food trends, willing to spend $$$ on a meal) when I started dating my now-wife, because it was something that we discovered we could share.

It also helped that I started eating seafood (after eight years of vegetarianism) around the same time, because it opened up the door to a lot of restaurants I previously couldn't have eaten at (or at least wouldn't have enjoyed myself at).

p. s. i have a great nose, as in, I can smell/distinguish tons of things people around me think I'm making up. Same with food, I can taste all sorts of weird off-flavors/chemicals that people are convinced aren't there, until - say - the next day. And sorry, foodie friends, but Doritos, Red Vines, and milk chocolate are all awesome.

Absolutely, I am a foodie. I am willing to travel a long way for an exceptional meal, or for the ingredients I need to make one. I try not to be an asshole about it.

oh btw this is as good a time as any to revive i suppose
Ipso Fatso

^ guess i'm a foodie!!!

does being a foodie exclude liking certain junk food or something?

Half our meat / eggs fussiness comes from my wife having been vegetarian for years; it's about not wanting what we're eating to have had a shitty life.

I wrote a 1,500 word blogpost about the Shackburger last year.

does being a foodie exclude liking certain junk food or something?

Not as far as I know.

I am absolutely a foodie and also I love Taco Bell.

Not so much Taco Bell for me (couple of times a year, it's great), but I can murder a Sonic chili dog and onion rings any day.

foodie vs chowhound

does being a foodie exclude liking certain junk food or something?

Absolutely not, IMO.

I like this development a lot
http://www.zagat.com/fastfood

foodies who like taco bell: what would you consider the limits of foodiedom?

foodies who like taco bell: what would you consider the limits of foodiedom?

i ordered my new years eve chinese food 24 hours in advance from a restaurant 45 minutes away, does that make me a foodie

Actually, I don't like it a lot. I like it, but among those surveyed are the worst monsters of foodie-ism.

xp

What do you mean "the limits" of foodiedom?

word limit

for reference, btw:

defend the indefensible: FOODIES

in the highly unlikely event I ever get rich becoming a foodie is probably gonna be my most profound lifestyle change

What do you mean "the limits" of foodiedom?

idk I think if someone can enjoy *everything* then they're not really a foodie, they're like, idk, something else. there is some element of 'refinement' w/ this subculture, no?

'foodie' definitely implies class distinction imho

in my head foodies are people who use yelp a lot and talk about how much they like bone marrow

oh man I didn't have any bone marrow today, I gotta get some bone marrow, nothing is better than bone marrow

I'mna put some in my coffee

I think being a foodie is about your approach to food rather than preferring particular kinds of food. A foodie is someone who will devote time, energy, and money in search of new food experiences, regardless of whether that's a 15-course meal at a fine-dining restaurant or a hole-in-the-wall taco shack. Foodies might be skeptical of food that's commercially produced, but only because it often doesn't taste as good.

and doesn't even have any bone marrow in it

and doesn't even have any bone marrow in it

Foodie is a terrible word, worse than "hipster."

Bone marrow is pretty great.

Jaymc OTM.

in my head foodies are people who use yelp a lot and talk about how much they like bone marrow

― iatee, Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:21 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my mom is half a foodie!

'foodie' is basically 'connoisseur' but easier to spell

i don't know if foodies are supposed to loudly suck the marrow out of the bone, though; maybe that's just a kashmiri peasant thing

does she like anthony bourdain?

put this in your coffee

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VuvHPiNTR9w/TgFK9WnuAsI/AAAAAAAAAqs/78JjfZTZXTg/s1600/giada-delaurentiis-bathing-in-blood-or-tomato-sauce.jpg

foodie vs chowhound

I know the website Chowhound.com posits that foodies are insufferable snobs, and that the people that I just described are more accurately termed chowhounds. But since that term isn't used much outside of that particular site, I use "foodie" in its place.

bleu cheese burgers for everyone

Foodieism is basically the province of bores, gluttons and people with more money than sense. Down with these scoundrels!

Possibly I'm not a real foodie, though, because I don't eat meat!

my foodiedom extends to occasionally getting caught up in one of the Food Network's reality shows with my mom; otherwise I eat more trash than a goat

dammit jaymc, I was about to copy a post from the thread I linked where you basically take your above foodie definition and say "that's a chowhound"

I think real foodies h8 the food network

Personally I'd rather read a good recipe than rapturous descriptions of a restaurant experience.

Possibly I'm not a real foodie, though, because I don't eat meat!

This isn't a disqualification.

'foodie' is basically 'connoisseur' but easier to spell

― i think this is serious (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:23 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's it. There's a kind of in-cultural distinction being made by foodies (who 'appreciate' the food, and 'search it out') vs. the strawmen who just stumble across the food and don't know any better, all pearlsy-swiney.

taking photos of food using a D-SLR at an angle of around 30 degrees though - gotta love it.

Oh, I don't actually think it is, WmC, but I bet some people would question it.

I think we can all agree that people who take pictures of their food in a restaurant deserve the death penalty

I'd rather be a fooder

Being a chowhound or foodie or whatever does not have to equal spending $$$$$$$$.

What's wrong with being a connoisseur?

being a veggie foodie is like riding a bike that has gears.

voted 'nah'

people eat bone marrow? why

I think one good litmus test for foodie-ism is: Do you plan vacations around food?

because nothing is better than bone marrow?

xpost

people eat bone marrow? why

it's delicious?

although I will say that bone marrow extracted from the bone and served in a little cup on the side of your meal is a degree of food fastidiousness that young chicken-bone-crunching me would have found incredibly perplexing (and adult me just finds silly and unnecessary)

we have 'paleos' on this board y/n

paleos are the anti-foodie

or maybe there's like a triangle of 3 tribes w/ paleos, markers, foodies

little cup??

surely it has to be served inside the bone?
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5224/5634910770_034376323e.jpg
then have a photo taken from a 30degree angle?

gourmand>>chowhound>>foodie

mmmm, bone marrow.

good food is so great! people are gauche about it but that's okay, people are gauche about everything. what are we supposed to do, only eat prepackaged supermarket sandwiches because that's the only thing left that can't be made pretentious?

Bone marrow is a standard of old-style 'bourgeois' cooking in France. It's funny that it's so new here 'cause it's awfully retro to me. It's awfully good.

jaymc, I kind of do plan vacations around food or at least food and wine (liquor) are definitely factors in choosing somewhere to go.

i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being a connoisseur, i think people can and should develop specialized knowledge and opinions about subjects that interest them, it makes for interesting people. but the concept and practice of 'being a connoisseur' does imply a sense of cultural superiority in some ways, & it's not a term devoid of class implications. idk, it's tricky.

ken c, otm. In a cup would be kind of foolish; it wouldn't stay as hot and it's not so fastidious a food as to warrant such delicacy. It's part of the 'bonne chère' tradition which is kind of like 'hearty food'.

The "little cup" thing came from a story a friend of mine told me, where he was at a business dinner and he ordered a meal that had bone marrow served on the side in a little dish. He was dubious about it but decided he wasn't going to puss out in front of his business associate, so he dipped his spoon in it to taste it and a cockroach half the size of his thumb crawled out onto the table.

Although maybe it was still in the bone and I'm misremembering.

p.s. this is how bone marrow should be served

http://img1.hoto.cn/pic/recipe/l/16/79/162070_c08012.jpg

p. s. i have a great nose, as in, I can smell/distinguish tons of things people around me think I'm making up. Same with food, I can taste all sorts of weird off-flavors/chemicals that people are convinced aren't there, until - say - the next day. And sorry, foodie friends, but Doritos, Red Vines, and milk chocolate are all awesome.

― rocognise gnome (remy bean), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:07 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

heh I often brag that I am a supertaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

which is why I have all the qualities to be a foodie but not the drive

Interesting food is usually, but not always, my first consideration when planning a holiday. (cf. Vegas/New Mexico 2010; New Orleans 2012)

I'm really only a foodie about chinese food cuz that's the food I grew up eating, and I can tell the diff between good and bad chinese food the easiest

I really can't be arsed about mediterranean pesto basil thyme oregano herbfests

I have a friend who spends all of her money on food vacations. She is a professional chef, though.

I don't want to seem like I'm the voice of reason, it really is tricky, and that's why idg why some people are taking such a hard stance against the evil "foodies."

Loving bone marrow or baluts is OK.

Not really caring too much about food is OK.

Can't we all just get along?

Actually, loving baluts is not OK. But we can still all get along.

re: cockroach - haha if someone blogged about it people will go queue up to try this fancy cockroach marrow.

practice of 'being a connoisseur' does imply a sense of cultural superiority in some ways, & it's not a term devoid of class implications.

Mainly because for whatever cultural endeavor you've become a connoisseur, you are 'superior', at least in knowledge, compared to many other ppl. You still don't have to be a dick about it but if the opposite is egalitarian ignorance, that can go fuck itself, too.

I had cricket tacos in Mexico in December

re: cockroach - haha if someone blogged about it people will go queue up to try this fancy cockroach marrow.

― Alan Shearer (ken c), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

insect sushi, insects as food (don't click if you're squeamish)

I think the "little cup" serving of bone marrow might be b/c it was served inside the bone that was cut short and placed upended, making it look like a little cup. That's the only way I've seen it served, and the cut-lengthwise looks a lot easier to deal with.

I used to sing with a group of self-described foodies who inflicted upon me:

- a pasta dish with Gorgonzola sauce in which they doubled the amount of Gorgonzola and sprinkled crumbled Gorgonzola over the top
- a communally-made paella recipe where they had guests bring ingredients for the meal and assigned my wife and I to bring lobster while other people brought rice and smoked paprika; they then used maybe a pat of butter and a teaspoon of salt in a recipe intended for approx. 20 people and spent the whole meal raving about the complexity of the paprika

based on those experiences, foodies can suck it

I do think some of the macho extremism about conquering "unappetizing" foods is a little silly. (I like the Chicago Reader's Key Ingredient series) best when it's not "I'm going to assign this other chef something really gross, like fish jizz!!!)

yo dawg I heard you like gorgonzola

xp oops, preemptive closed-parens

I would probably eat fish jizz

Live it up.

dayo, what part of China are your family from?

an actual comment from one of the foodies on the Gorgonzola nonsense: "oh my god, this is so amazing, I can actually feel myself gagging it's so rich"

DJP, I don't like those people very much.

they then used maybe a pat of butter and a teaspoon of salt in a recipe intended for approx. 20 people and spent the whole meal raving about the complexity of the paprika

hahaha

MW, beijing (i.e. the part of china where american chinese food doesn't draw any influence)

I would eat pizza every day if I was allowed. But I don't like sweets and slurpees, so I'm not markers.

http://static.lulu.com/product/paperback/natural-harvest---a-collection-of-semen-based-recipes/5198959/thumbnail/320

I'd definitely try milt.

This always reminds me of the anecdote about the English lady at table who's fastidious about the tongue that's just been served.

"How can you eat that when you know here it's from?"

"Milady," says her French dining companion, "have an egg instead."

Using foodie to describe someone who is adventurous with restaurants or recipes is only ok. When someone calls himself one it's usually awful.

I sorta believe there is avery strong correlation between food pickiness and mental illness, and self-professed foodies have done little to disprove it. P.S. I used to call myself a foodie on account of cooking/eating a lot, and varied, and with - you know - "discrimination." but then i realized it was hogwash, and now i just call myself chubby.

MW, beijing (i.e. the part of china where american chinese food doesn't draw any influence)
― bob loblaw people (dayo), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 17:51 (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

peking duck?

"Milady," says her French dining companion, "have an egg instead."

tbf if eggs came out without the shell I might not want to eat them

what is served as peking duck in america is most definitely not peking duck!!

you eat the shell?

"oh my god, this is so amazing, I can actually feel myself gagging it's so rich"

They sound suspiciously like ppl using 'foodyism' to show off since they obviously don't have much in the way of taste or discernment. I bet they like using 8 times to much truffle oil, too.

I've definitely talked about the nuances of peking duck in other threads

p.s. I am an expert in DUMPLINGS!

They sound suspiciously like ppl using 'foodyism' to show off since they obviously don't have much in the way of taste or discernment.

*ding ding ding*

"foodie" will always be a pejorative to me as a result of these ppl

i voted sorta bc i'll eat anything, but my wife is a foodie, so i only really eat good stuff by default

a pasta dish with Gorgonzola sauce in which they doubled the amount of Gorgonzola and sprinkled crumbled Gorgonzola over the top

oh god

i'm sorry, they're not foodies, they're savages w/o tastebuds.

'adding more of a delicious thing does not mean it will taste more delicious' is surely like the first thing you learn cooking

i ate fish jizz, it was pretty tasty iirc

i know im little behind here but you shouldnt put bone marrow in your coffee

My gf (5th gen SF-er) and her family are big into Asian food and several of our friends are Chinese Americans. I wasn't big into it as a kid but mostly because my dad's taste was definitely 'anglo'. I feel shitty about shark fin soup but I've really gotten into Chinese food. My friend Ray had us make siu mai the other night. It was a revelation.

Of course, most of the Chinese food in SF is Cantonese, Taiwanese, Shanghai or Hong Kong style. I don't know a thing about Beijing except from a travel channel thing I saw once about street food.

dayo, have you read andrea nguyen's book? if so, what are your thoughts? it is my first exposure to good dumpling making, and i have enjoyed everything from it. but but but i do buy dumpling wrappers b/c while they are easy to make, they are a pain in the ass to roll to the correct thickness.

fwiw a lot of chinese people feel shitty about shark fin soup too (it's not even that good, that and bird's nest)

I am in foodie world a bit (I work/have worked for a few food magazines - 'foodie', incidentally, is usually on their banned words list), but am not myself a foodie, I think - don't have much of a palate, can't engage with that form of social knowledge trading/competition (books, music come much more easily), it's just not my world, tho' some has rubbed off.

Friends and employers definitely are, tho' they wouldn't self-describe as such, or would only reluctantly. I've got no prob with it.

Re: fast food, yes, I think many foodies like certain bits of junk - often one item from a megachain menu. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/19/food-guilty-pleasures-jay-rayner

remy, no, I am just an expert in northern chinese DUMPLINGS! (饺子）

bone marrow is pretty "choice." i'm probably someone who has been called a "foodie" before, idk. terrible term. i've driven 2,000 miles in 40 hours in dead of winter to make a reservation in time (flight was canceled, wouldn't have made it otherwise.) there is a food writer couple in the other half of the duplex where e live who've gone all over the world, bourdain-style (the husband was even on 'no reservations' once.) they kinda hate the typical "foodie" shit too, and i usually think of self-professed foodies as not really being serious about food but more being loud about their love of it.

i've learned a lot about food from the neighbors, who tend to bring over amazing chinese dishes and superior cocktails they're testing out at least once per week.

most commercially sold dumpling wrappers suck imo, I hated DUMPLINGS! as a kid and when my family started making dumpling wrappers from scratch I started loving them, I figured out it was because the commercial ones taste really 'chemically' (and are yellow for some reason)

true story, I had donkey DUMPLINGS! in beijing once, which gave me really bad indigestion

great story, I know, I'll tell it again if you want

Re: fast food, yes, I think many foodies like certain bits of junk - often one item from a megachain menu. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/19/food-guilty-pleasures-jay-rayner
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 18:00 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ah yeah but that's just like musos being a 'fan' of girls aloud.

The other thing I love is finding all this weird new veg in the Asian markets on Clement Street

Yeah, the yellow wrapper is weird. Homemade wrappers do taste a lot better, but my DUMPLINGS! come out really funny looking. I can't fold any of the complex shapes, only half moons, pea pods, and the nurse's hats. I'm always embarrassed to serve delicious DUMPLINGS! that look like festering cancerwads, and have nobody eat them.

x-post I did a tour of Chinatown in NYC when I was living on the edge of it where the guide told you all about the produce and how to cook it. It was great.

Whoa foodie thread exploded.

pick out one wrap that you can do, and do it well, imo xp

I eat some nice restaurant meals but most of the time it is frozen pizza and Indian food from a box.

my parents never let me wrap DUMPLINGS! because they know I'll mess them up and I'm just like, well if I never practice how will I learn to wrap them well?!?!

it's true though my DUMPLINGS! always open up in the pot ://///

okay, what is with the capitalization of DUMPLINGS!? I adore it, but it is hard to read srsly.

blame I LOVE CRICKET: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX

I derailed this thread to talk about DUMPLINGS! purely because of the autoreplace

if this were the sandbox I wouldn't even be here

DUMPLINGS!

i can't afford to be a foodie.

DUMPLINGS! protip: properly seasoned DUMPLINGS! don't need any sauce at all. if you must, you should make one using a base of chinkiang (zhenjiang) vinegar, not soy sauce.

really only wrote that DUMPLINGS! protip just to see DUMPLINGS! in all caps again DUMPLINGS!

now seeing upthread people saying you don't need to eat expensive meals to be a foodie but i almost never eat out these days at all because of $$$ so i maintain that i can't afford to be a foodie

ah yeah but that's just like musos being a 'fan' of girls aloud.

foodie taste expressions/positions/distinctions ('taste' being both tongue-taste and culture-taste there I guess) can work analogously to music fan ones (poss pre-broadband, because instant availability of object under discussion makes a diff).

I'm closer to being a girls aloud fan than I am a foodie.

if you must, you should make one using a base of chinkiang (zhenjiang) vinegar, not soy sauce.

I like to add chile and mustard (but I also have something like ten different kinds of mustard in my house)

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-on-internet-almost-falls-into-world-of-diy-mus,17013/

btw I'm looking forward to the New Orleans Insectarium because they apparently have an edible bugs demo involving fried crickets

mustard is maybe acceptable with 'dry' DUMPLINGS! like potstickers. but with boiled DUMPLINGS! - oh man. get out. get OUT. *stands stiffly, points at door*

Ha, the Mustard Museum is actually worth checking out if you're in Madison.

I love greens and the difference in price between, say, broccolini and chinese broccoli from an upscale market to one of the Asian markets is huge.

This time of year, to me = pea shoots

test:

sbuıןdɯnp

The Britisha and the Anglo-American palate is similar imo, and I'm just not that suited to it so much of traditional American fare leaves me cold and I've wandered away from much of it. (Thanksgiving, for example, is not one of my favorite meals.)

In that sense, I'm a foodie but I also insist on having fun and not belittling other ppl's joys.

but what if the only fun you know is belittling other ppl's joys?

foodie taste expressions/positions/distinctions ('taste' being both tongue-taste and culture-taste there I guess) can work analogously to music fan ones (poss pre-broadband, because instant availability of object under discussion makes a diff)

Interesting observation. I wonder if some of the success of foodie-ism as an acceptable hipster obsession is due to displacement from music/culture, due to the difficulty of maintaining exclusivity in a post-broadband world.

^^^ Good point

Luckily in the Bay Area we have a fair amount of locally sourced, artisinal buzz bands

that's an interesting thought actually xp

that's an interesting thought actually xp

but what if the only fun you know is belittling other ppl's joys?

Then your have the greater worry of being Dr Morbius.

Last time I downloaded bone marrow from a torrent, it tasted funny

voted "sorta," probably should have voted "friends might describe me as one but I also like taco bell"

i'm an aspiring foodie

i think the "foodie" explosion is probably just because of the internet and the ability to come across different types of food, i'm not sure it's necessarily a wish for exclusivity, really. i think it's more about exploration and being inspired by new options.

in some ways it probably predates the internet or 'the internet' in that the american food culture seems to have improved over the last few decades, like you couldn't find a thai place in a small town etc.

*I am relatively young and mostly basing this off what I've read

omar otm. I'm a little discomfited by elmo's assertion that there's a cultural superiority at play. Sometimes there is, definitely. But I don't feel like I'm trying to stand on someone else's back to get a peek into the restaurant window, and there's room on this bench for anyone else who wants to peek with me.

are you a good foodie, or a bad foodie?

I think I can never be a 'real' foodie because for me the enjoyment of food is too predicated and intertwined with the notion of mortality. as soon as you swallow the food all that's left is a memory, that will be forgotten, etc. etc. *makes jerk-off motion*

a goodie or a boodie, if you will

this is probably why I am interested in things that are rituals (coffee) and which last (photography)

all this bone marrow will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. time to dine.

don't put bone marrow in your coffee btw a friend warned my agaisnt it

he's a foodie so he'd know

oh wmc, i'm not trying to accuse present company of affecting class-cultural distinctions (that would be so rude!)

When I moved back to the States in the early 90's, the local fancy markets were getting more and more 'new' stuff; foreign cheeses, 'cilantro' in mainstream markets, fancy salamis, better bread, etc...

I guess the question is how representative is the bay area

i think the "foodie" explosion is probably just because of the internet and the ability to come across different types of food, i'm not sure it's necessarily a wish for exclusivity, really. i think it's more about exploration and being inspired by new options.

Advances in global commerce (i.e., the accessibility of so many different kinds of food) and the rise of celebrity chefs/the Food Network have also played a big part in the development of foodie culture, IMO.

I think I can never be a 'real' foodie because for me the enjoyment of food is too predicated and intertwined with the notion of mortality. as soon as you swallow the food all that's left is a memory, that will be forgotten, etc. etc. *makes jerk-off motion*

― bob loblaw people (dayo), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 18:47 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is probably why I am interested in things that are rituals (coffee) and which last (photography)

― bob loblaw people (dayo), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 18:48 (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

perhaps time to start taking photos of your food from a 30 degree angle? no flash!!!

like you couldn't find a thai place in a small town etc.

iatee, it may also be a function of immigration and diffusion reaching a critical mass

xp
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniel_yao/

where is that meal now? probably still in the sewage treatment plant, hyurk hyurk!!

iatee, it may also be a function of immigration and diffusion reaching a critical mass

yeah I guess there's an interesting argument to be made w/r/t the suburbanization of immigration and its effects on american food culture

Voted "absolutely", then looked at the thread and became less sure about my absolutism. I care a lot about eating good food and maximising the pleasure I get from what I eat, but I don't boast about it or judge people based on what they eat (much). I haven't had bone marrow but it's on my to-do list.

xpost YES! spot on!

sorry that was xpost to the flickr link

oh wmc, i'm not trying to accuse present company of affecting class-cultural distinctions (that would be so rude!)

― i think this is serious (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:49 PM (13 seconds ago)

No prob, I didn't think you were, unless you think there's an inherent/systemic snobbery involved all the time. (And I don't think that's where you were heading...?)

huge lols at this btw --

all this bone marrow will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. time to dine.

― bob loblaw people (dayo), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:48 PM (5 minutes ago)

jaymc, how about the dissasociation of patriotism from a certain discrete culture (the once more strictly enforced assimilation), the gradual demise of racism, the increasing number of ppl who have traveled/lived abroad?

the increasing number of ppl who have traveled/lived abroad?

this might not be true btw, think about previous generations + wars

ken c I know a foodie (now in culinary school) who bought a DSLR just to take better pictures of her food

huge lols at this btw --

Rarely have I seen a post where one single letter carries so much weight

with the class thing... idk, i just know a couple of self-proclaimed foodies who will go on about how nauseated they are by 'processed food' and 'fast food garbage,' and i can't help but hear the subtext of that as 'UGH, POOR PEOPLE, SO GROSS'

think about previous generations + wars

If present military cooking is any indication, they weren't exposed to all that much 'furrin' food, though I think Korea and Vietnam exposed a lot of ppl to food they would never, ever have tried otherwise.

yeah, that's otm, but i think of it as a slightly different strand than foodie, it's that whole locavore/health-nut thing

xp

jaymc, how about the dissasociation of patriotism from a certain discrete culture (the once more strictly enforced assimilation), the gradual demise of racism, the increasing number of ppl who have traveled/lived abroad?

Yes, I think this is prob true as well!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-grandmother-tries-indian-food,2472/

or like, a more specific subset of foodie

xxp

"I couldn't believe that she had lived through three wars and the Great Depression and never even tasted Indian food once," said Rutherford's eldest grandchild Melissa, 22. "I was like, 'Grandma, you've got to try it. It's so good.'"

I think what we need is a better definition of "foodie," b/c we have at least 3 distinct uses of the word going on ITT.

when i am out with a group of friends and we are trying to decide where to eat you can see people glancing at me uncomfortably to see if i am going to make a fuss about their choice, but i think that just makes me an asshole rather than a foodie.

and by fuss i mean call them a crass heathen , rather than say "oh i don't eat tomatoes/indian food/etc."

and i can't help but hear the subtext of that as 'UGH, POOR PEOPLE, SO GROSS'

It comes from a position of privilge, to be sure, but then just being an American is kind of being in a position of privilege compared to most of the planet's population and while I might hear that subtext I'd also be curious about the speaker's intent. Just because our history and political culture have conspired to give us shitty (and cheap)agrobusiness food doesn't mean that's our only option.

My ex-wife's family were working class and as unadventurous culinarily as any ppl I've met anywhere but they were French so they didn't skimp on quality when they could skimp on quantity. They ate very simply, frugally, even, but they didn't cut corners.

I think the issue isn't that 'it's our only option' but more that the assumption that there is some inherent superiority of 'eating like dis' outside of health factors

err poor phrasing

Also, I love food and wine. I love restaurants. I love dinner parties. I love picnics. However, if that's not your thing and we share some other passion, we can concentrate on that and I'll try not to bore you with my newest dining experience or be supercilious about the Taco Bell wrappers in your car.

I personally do it not because it's so much healthier but because it tastes better to me. Any status-based superiority of such food is in the thinker's head and in the heads of other such snobs.

with the class thing... idk, i just know a couple of self-proclaimed foodies who will go on about how nauseated they are by 'processed food' and 'fast food garbage,' and i can't help but hear the subtext of that as 'UGH, POOR PEOPLE, SO GROSS'

agreed. this is very much my experience. among self-professed foodies there's also a certain sense of ... the collector mentality? I don't know what to call it exactly, but a tendency to feel that breadth of experience enhances appreciation. it's not wrong, but... there's an inherent snobbiness. it leads to a kind of weird fetishization/enshrinement/one-up-manship of institutions and habits and choices that are diffucult/unfamiliar/inaccessible to a large number of people

I also like those cultures where ppl haven't degraded their food cultures. It's good for the community. It's good from an ecological pov. It speaks to a political culture that isn't as subject to lobbyist pressure or special interests as much as it is to a more organic popular culture. If we don't have as much of that in the US, it may be cause we haven't been here as long and our attachment to our lands and terroirs is shallower and less savvy.

MW otm, i suppose that ultimately it comes down to snobbery

appreciating food doesn't make one a snob, but 'appeciating food' is a fairly common way for people express their snobbery (among others, of course)

in related news, the food court at the native american wing of the smithsonian is freakin' awesome

but a tendency to feel that breadth of experience enhances appreciation

In my case, I think it's more like, I need breadth of experience or I get really bored and bored Michael is way worse than food snob connoisseur Michael

I voted 'nah' but I'm probably closer to 'I am markers'. I have a fine diet of chocolate and crisps and takeaways (don't blame me, that ridiculously cheap and pretty good pizza place just around the corner demands my business) and pre-packaged rubbish. I would like to and have been meaning to try to get better with this, but a lack of time, botheredness, and ability gets in the way. Especially the last one. Actually 'I am the Lex' would probably be a more accurate category for me. There's also that while I'm not exactly poor nowadays (these last three months, unlike, say, the rest of my adult life) I'm still used to food being something of an unfortunate and costly practical necessity, and I still kinda resent paying more than is necessary for food. And I know that the laziness means that I nevertheless do, but um not in the same way?

Despite that, I have tried bone marrow, and I liked it! A visiting friend insisted on going to some Anthony Bourdain-approved restaurant/gastropub (I don't even really know who he is) and I had fun chiselling and scraping the stuff out of the awkwardly cut-short bone. That said, my favourite part of that meal was the fancy salt.

that is true! keep the circles expanding, or they're gonna snap back to default and you'll end up eating easy mac made with an electric teakettle for the rest of your life (xp to mw)

tbqf i think the number of people who love food and love to talk about it is much larger than the number of horrifically annoying self-identified foodie types. i like it when people get excited about food and i like menus that go on about where food came from, idk. it's interesting, kinda like the restaurants are trying to give a sense of the community from which they're selecting their ingredients. i guess it can be looked at as an affectation or indicative of snobbery but it's also sort of fun, much of the time.

you'll end up eating easy mac made with an electric teakettle for the rest of your life

And I've other lost my taste for adventure and variety (one step closer to the grave) and I just turn into a bitter old dick who says cutting things to his friends until I no longer have any since I no longer like fun.

wait, i wasn't being sarcastic. i was just remembering college. sorry if i gave offense.

i like menus that go on about where food came from, idk. it's interesting, kinda like the restaurants are trying to give a sense of the community from which they're selecting their ingredients.

yeah, i kind of winced when i typed "locavore" above--it's not a precise designation for the classism elmo identified. it's not that there's anything inherently wrong with wanting to know where your food comes from. there's just a strand of foodie-ism that seems appreciative and a strand that seems condemning of anything that doesn't live up to its elevated standards. also people who front like all processed food is untasty are just lying.

i'm trying to bail on processed food but not because it's not tasty~

cut to me at 2 AM later with two tombstone pizzas

:)

foodie is always looking for pleasure from experiences with the culinary area
foodie is relatively modern
foodie is unfamiliar with german cuisine
foodie is complex
foodie is a damn good compromise
foodie is having difficulty
foodie is a bi
foodie is someone who is in the profession
foodie is just another way central market is upgrading the ultimate shopping experience for patrons while maintaining strong customer communication
foodie is about the ownership of the restaurant where he eats
foodie is also rather sophisticated; he knows his penne from his rigatoni and is au courant with the latest fusion eatery
foodie is a god given gift to most girls
foodie is concerned
foodie is full to the brim
foodie is ill
foodie is as full of himself as he is gastronomical delights
foodie is well placed
foodie is spreading
foodie is going to hang around for more than fifteen seconds to let your home page load
foodie is readin this i cant take you sorry
foodie is iemand die geinteresseerd is in alles wat met eten te maken heeft

I dunno. ^^ This just doesn't sound like me.

i guess i'm a foodie although i can't afford most of the restaurants that foodies attract. i like the idea of taco bell but as a business it scares me -- i prefer the gabacho-style mom 'n' pop up taco stand up the street from me. i just trust it more.

foodie is a bi

gonna sell t-shirts that say this

sorry if i gave offense.

None taken.

Because of this thread I spent the whole afternoon wishing for DUMPLINGS!, so I stopped at TJ and got some, made something resembling gyoza sauce and G. D. these DUMPLINGS! are hitting the spot. God.

bc of this thread i'm so getting DUMPLINGS! for lunch tomorrow.

test

OK, that doesn't work.

Last night I ate a lot of DUMPLINGS!

Tonight I ate more DUMPLINGS!

Now I am consuming the remains of my homemade gyoza sauce on its own and feeling a little like a disgusting savage. But a v. happy savage.

i had DUMPLINGS!! tonight. they were okay -- bog-standard steamed vegetable DUMPLINGS! from the local hole-in-the-wall -- but they scratched the dumpling itch.

I love good food, enjoying new cuisines and buy a lot of organic produce but I'll be fucked if I want to be called a foodie. But I think other people might say that I am one.

I think 'foodie' of more the trashy tryhard people I work with who take photos of every fucking piece of garbage that passes their lips...where elabaorate = good, but they don't understand a lovely steak and some simple vegetables.

Ghost of James Beard to thread! He knew the value of simplicity, especially if the ingredients merited it.

most nights I eat at home and cook from scratch sometimes it's pretty "exotic" stuff insofar as I have cookbooks covering a lot of different regions/countries but "foodie" is just a bullshit concept altogether h8 that fuckin shit to pieces

Vegemite and Aimless OTM

Beard reminds me - My boss, who could be described as a foodie, recommended this little smoked fish shack located way the hell down on the South Side on a bridge. When I went there I saw that it had a James Beard award on the wall!

The fish is great, and it's ridiculously simple. I mean, it's a shack on a bridge by some factories.

this place, homie?

http://www.calumetfisheries.com/

Calumet Fisheries was featured in Tony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel. “Tony Bourdain loves the energy and edge of big cities. So how is it that he has avoided Chicago for so long? In this episode of No Reservations, he sets off on "some unfinished business" to rectify that situation.”

foodie cred

first yelp review:

How does one of the most infamous eateries for "foodies" in Chicago only have around 100 reviews? Oh that's right, it takes forever to get there and is virtually impossible to access via public transportation. Well, unlike you rubes I have a 1995 Infiniti chariot to take me to the far reaches of Chicagoland.

second yelp review:

I ventured to this off the beaten path gem on a surprise day trip with one of my foodie friends. We do this often and he never tells me where we were going so I've learned not to beg for hints/guess. My expectations we low when we got off the highway near Gary (no offense Gary but there is a reason a highway was built over you). Needless to say, I was pumped when we arrived since I've heard Bourdain rave about this place.

Fish shack = Calumet Fisheries

Its bridge was the one the Blues Brothers jumped. And apparently it's at the base of the bridge, not on the bridge.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4110/5045969315_6a41e4ed25_z.jpg

xp, yes!

I've been there twice and I was surprised that neither time was it overrun w/ people following in Bourdain's steps or heeding the Beard praise.

It really is a bitch to get to.

oh shit I remember that episode now. YUM

reality competition cooking shows are largely responsible for 'foodies', true or false?

this question revealed itself to me while i was watching top chef fwiw lol

there's a glut of foodie-type non-reality cooking shows as well over here atm.

http://www.theonion.com/video/celebrity-chef-ted-allen-cooks-his-favorite-preten,26571/

That 95th street fishery is just a little too far off the beaten track for me to hit, but I did manage to get one of the infamous apple fritters at Old Fashioned Donuts.

http://www.sptsb.com/OldFashioned.jpg

Thanks for the tip, foodies!

ambient croissants are the only thing providing enough context for that not to seem like some weird sugarglazed NSFW image, wtf is that

croissants seem to have been infected by sugarglaze as well, it's spreading, kill it with fire

I see no problem w/ glazed croissant-like donuts.

Those things are no donuts. They're the size of dinner plates! They're so fatty they freeze really well, so last time I went there I bought four, quartered them, then parceled them out as gifts to folks unable to make the long drive.

They were so good.

I would be up for a Calumet Fisheries field trip. (I only know about it from No Reservations.)

A friend and tried to find that place once when I had use of a car but we got lost and idk what happened but we wound up just eating at White Castle on 95th. :-/

Xp

Jaymc let's plan a jaunt.

OK.

Can I go?

Sure.

Yay!

Can we get donuts?

That should be my email signature.

I wanna go *cries*

Come on! We'll rent a van.

ROADTRIP YAY

anyone else find this word gross? Foodie. It's awful. I would never say it.

Would you type it?

human being. i have revised my opinion on foodie. i now believe anybody who is not incredibly interested in food is sort of weird, on account of food being amazing and delicious and the most pleasurable thing ever

food or sex? (esp if food is pizza)

I'm p. sure that i spend at least four hours a day thinking of/about food, and I eat happily at least five times a day. My life would suck tons tons more if I couldn't eat than if I couldn't screw.

Also be a lot shorter and angrier.

it would suck less, too

i now believe anybody who is not incredibly interested in food is sort of weird, on account of food being amazing and delicious and the most pleasurable thing ever

yes (although as dayo notes, sex is no slouch either). i think there's definitely a cerebral component to enjoying food as well as a lol gluttony one.

food is amazing

but nothing beats getting a good pounding up the arse

i once travelled 20 miles to meet this girl whom i read in a blog did the best gangbang. when i got there there was already a long queue and i couldn't get in

i like looking at photos of sex as well, it's almost like 'sex porn'!!

all that said. i much prefer, and sometimes insist that all my sexing are from local girls. possibly from an artisan farm

golf clap

the only thing that connects golf, sex and an item of food is when you find a hole in one.

more adult entertainers should have food-inspired names.

lacey swiss

kayam franks

Fanny Foie Gras

he blew national

here we go

Rich Pozole de Cabra

Hambone Smith

reverse cowgirl ribeye

Tirami Sue

Bob Creamcheese

sue vide

eddible jizzard

Robster Thermidor

veal oscar

tila tilapia

Pimp Cocktail

Queef Wellington

Coco Van

'mo de creme

Penny Alfredo

(really I should have given up after reading "tila tilapia", that is next level)

Phil Cheesesteak

Tirami Sue

lol!

Jimmy Changa

haha

Paul Poosa?

Red Beans Ann Rice

JambaLiLo

Al Pastor

chicharrooney mara

Bruce di Noce

Basil Béchamel

goose la bruce

Tony Mascarpone

Ricky Tzatziki

Kefir Schlawg

Vienna Beef

Hahaha

Like good food, don't know about being a "foodie". Sounds like this is one of those aspirational things where caring about food = superiority in some utterly bizarre twist of dehumanizing logic. Had friends like that, but they were generally a-holes in other respects, too.

Looks like this thread's a wordgame now, but I'll post this shit anyway.

i voted "I am markers"

― markers, Tuesday, January 10, 2012 11:57 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not that i'm markers, but i feel like i share his passion for eating things that are not considered good or healthy by most standards

Here in NOLA I am finding out how fucking expensive it can be to be a foodie. Cancelled Commanders Palace brunch after blowing out the budget at Brennan's yesterday.

Solution: become a DIY foodie?

Well, yes, 95%+ of the time, that's what I do.

I found that being a foodie in NOLA made me both impecunious and inspissated.

:D

i just bought leeks at the farmer's market. only foodies do that.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I didn't vote, but I'm less and less interested in eating at far-flung restaurants, and more and more interested in making my own food. Dayo, next time you're in town, we need to have a dumpling making party.

oh that sounds great! but I gotta wrest the method from my parents first

Why didn't it turn DUMPLINGS! into DUMPLINGS!!?

Great, maybe spring break?

mos def! I will let you guys know

food can be good.....or not good

difficult to summarise

It doesn't recognize the singular "dumpling" because only one is fine, but multiple DUMPLINGS! are worth shouting about.

Dumplinzz

Wm I'm v disappoint with you.

J/k

But I put out the Wm signal in the NOLA thread and you didn't come.

I hate typing on the iPad...trip report when I get home in a few days.

But suffice to say the days have been very foodie. Drago's tomorrow.

Fab.

i realized the other day that my discomfort/cynicism about foodies/foodie-ism is that foodie conversations are mostly fucking boring! because it's not like most foodies are talking about food economy or food politics or even farming, no, the conversation in my experience is much more superficial than that, no matter how educated or intelligent the people talking are, it would seem, and it boggles my mind and makes me want to run the fuck away!!
i'm just glad i figured that out. because i really do like good food! i'm just not so into talking it to death! or having it be a major topic of conversation! maybe i am mean, but boring is boring!

i'm a bit freaked out by the 30something hipsterism of food.
yet personally, i love eating good food, local fruits and vegetables and meats, and bread that's not full of preservatives and etc, but there are some things, like sushi rice and almonds and bananas and so many other things that i love yet rely on global economy and dubious methods of getting, that i get caught up in those issues. but i also live hypocritically, because i love DUMPLINGS! and pho and curry and all of these foods from restaurants where asking about 'food politics' would result in a quizzical stare or eye-rolling. the world is crazy; i wish eating wasn't so wrapped up in it.

i made spiced eggnog french toast with a baguette this morning and think i have a boyfriend now

i just ordered my first real set of knives. these are supposed to be very good for the price.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002QFRSMA/

jealous!

I used my friend's ceramic knife for the first time this past weekend. they don't 'feel' sharp but they are very good at cutting!

those ceramic knives can be great.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

just went to a pretty bad indian food place and resisted making comments about it to my dining companions

which means ILX has to bear the brunt

indian food place

not even a restaurant

i enjoyed a solo lunch at a well-regarded restaurant in the city today and the three girls sitting next to me at the bar took iphone pictures of all their food

japanese food tourists?

lol that's what my gf asked

no, not japanese food tourists.

i use evernote to clip recipes i find on the internet and they recently came out with "evernote food," which is NOT for clipping recipes as i first suspected but for yelpers who want to record pictures and memories associated with different foods they eat. barf!

ugh that'a awful

barf! is a valid food memory tbh

xp

well, I guess we both appreciate a good, robust racial stereotype when we get the opportunity to drag one into the mix

i generally dislike london foodie blogger type sites idk abt other places

watch the video it's so cool http://www.evernote.com/food/

well, I guess we both appreciate a good, robust racial stereotype when we get the opportunity to drag one into the mix

― Aimless, Monday, January 16, 2012 8:30 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha i wasn't sure if it was a stereotype or, like, an actual thing!

i mean if you are visiting a foreign country and want to take pictures of their exotic cuisine then fine, have a blast, but if you're taking pictures of pretty common-looking french bistro food then idk i don't understand you.

on some boring office workday I'll make a new thread "should food be visually pleasing? does it contribute to the experience?" or "the visual aesthetics of food" or something

and get like 1000 answers

& u will own the souls of all boring officers

"should food be visually pleasing? does it contribute to the experience?"

i'm a design geek so i do appreciate when food is styled attractively. it's not mandatory, but it def contributes to the experience. even a plate of noodles at some cheapo grungy joint can be arranged and garnished nicely.

im thinking of a thread abt ppl who like wine.....those ppl. not winos tho.

is it ok to care a lil bit abt wine? or wd that make u one of those ppl?

those ppl with their wine.

oenophiles

haha dan you should make that now

I vote 'I don't give a shit what if looks like if it tastes good'

the repub debate is going to suck all the air out of it

and I def figured you for being that type of person haha

i also wanted to start a thread on i love cooking called wine _______ (something that begins with W) but make it like a cheap wine dictionary but it woudl be so boring, like "yeah this one was 5.99 but it tastes like an $11 wine."

wine wows

wine Wow!

"wine, omg"

oenophiles

― horseshoe, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 1:48 AM (1 minute ago)

lol yes its not the best name

it is hilarious

so many sub rosa oenos on ilx

i love wine but i don't want to take the time to learn anything about it, i will never be a true oenophile

OE NOES

i love wine, too, but mostly i just want it to taste like a lot and be red. i don't know things, either.

xp looooooool

I have three bottles of white wine in my fridge but I can never summon up the willpower to open one

I always feel "well if I open one, I'll have to drink it all within a day or two otherwise it'll go bad." so I just have a beer instead.

i just buy wine based on what looks cool

i like to read descriptions of it at my wine store but they bear little relationship to the experience of drinking it.

haha the whole 'wine economy' is one of the most ridiculous things in the world

i would love to learn about wine but it seems daunting. i went into a shop today with italian wines in mind because we had a good one recently and was confronted with about a millions options.

'I like good wine and I have so much faith in the world that I will buy this wine because it is...$30 and not $10...and the label looks nice...france? that's a good country...'

my oenophile friend told me to never buy cheap wine from france

i love wine and would love to know more about it b/c performing taste as a way of indicating how much better i am than other people is really important to me

i like to read descriptions of it at my wine store but they bear little relationship to the experience of drinking it.

this. usually i just find a couple of producers that put out consistent stuff and stick with them. on the cheap end, red bicyclette is a reliable brand.

oenophile is the most ridiculous word guys

i love it

i always get cheap wine from france, the fanciness of the name "vin de pays" makes it taste better if you don't know it means "second worst." also spain.

it should be the name for a submarine operator maybe

music for winebars, by brian oeno

m white, horrified, to thread

haha sorry m white

I wonder if you should spell it with the fancy œ

my oenophile friend told me to never buy cheap wine from france

― dayo, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 1:56 AM

useful heuristic

i had to change my screen name

there have been lots of studies that show that œœœnophiles are mostly full of shit, like obv there are differences between the top and the bottom of the market but a lot of the subtle gradients are just imaginary

well his reasoning (he has some kind of junior master certificate in wine!) was that people associate wine with france and so a lot of vinyards take advantage of that by selling bad wine to exporters!

loooooooooool jody

it took me a second

my rule is no "funny" labels

when I lived in france I drank lots of cheap french wine and that was definitely the worst wine I have had in my life...it was cheap tho...

moderately cheap wine from spain is always a good bet ime

wine is a nice idea that never really works out in practice ime, kinda like beer or tofu

tofu works out well most of the time for me! beer usually works out when it's not bottom-end stuff.

if you don't drink wine or beer what even do you drink

darraghmac can safely answer not a foodie

I once drank a bottle of my dad's which I later found out was > $200 and he was saving it for a special occasion. TBH it didn't taste any different to me than a $9 of Woodbridge (good inexpensive brand btw). Maybe I would have if I'd known at the time and thought about it? idk.

I would totally believe this: there have been lots of studies that show that œœœnophiles are mostly full of shit, like obv there are differences between the top and the bottom of the market but a lot of the subtle gradients are just imaginary

― iatee, Monday, January 16, 2012 9:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban

water or whiskey, but nothing in between

Is there an oenophile equivalent for whiskey drinkers, and is it open to the same level of doubt as a tasting discipline?

(btw i'm just gonna be a neanderthal here and say that i don't like most applications of silken or non-firm tofu. gimme the extra-firm stuff; crisp it up and/or throw it in some thai curry. i'm white btw.)

Is there an oenophile equivalent for whiskey drinkers, and is it open to the same level of doubt as a tasting discipline?

haha dan's gonna disagree but yes and yes

Is there an oenophile equivalent for whiskey drinkers, and is it open to the same level of doubt as a tasting discipline?

― modric conservative (darraghmac), Monday, January 16, 2012 9:05 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think so + i think it is supposed to be more grounded in reality than the whole oenophile thing but who knows?

xp

Whiskey seems to be in right now, dude. There's probably a term but I don't know what it is.

JBR - I much prefer firm tofu too.

lol did you ever read any of the articles about professional olive oil tasters iatee? they can tell the difference between fake and real olive oils like, 100% of the time!

ilxors who post to the whiskey thread probably have some opinions4u

I believe the term is whiœœœskyœphilia

lol ive tasted a lot of whiskey guys and it's just as bullshitty as wine tasting

I'm just gonna posit that

1.) there exists objective differences in how different wines/whiskies/whatever taste but
2.) you will rarely ever get everybody to agree on the relative evaluations of those differences

"grounded in reality"

i don't know if i'm a foodie, am certainly no wiser for reading this thread, cook quite a bit, can be quite fussy about ingredients etc, but will forever be haunted by an aunt of mine telling a group of us during a particularly inelegant meal to 'stop moaning, it all comes out the same hole'

i mean the purpose of the exercise is to form your own personal tasting dictionary and figure out what you like and dislike.

the idea that those thoughts/opinions can be written down and made useful to other people is the lol part.

lol did you ever read any of the articles about professional olive oil tasters iatee? they can tell the difference between fake and real olive oils like, 100% of the time!

there's a difference between telling the difference between two different types of food and two brands of something made w/ the same ingredients, in the same manner

I have three bottles of white wine in my fridge but I can never summon up the willpower to open one

― dayo, Monday, January 16, 2012 8:54 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i just put a stopper in it and put it in the fridge (red or white) and finish the next day. obviously not a oenophile.

lol what an irish thing to say xxxp

i buy that a lot of wine/whiskey/coffee/olive oil fandom is just bullshit but its kind of missing the point to do a like scientific study of all of it--i mean obviously the guys writing wine advocate or whatever are just hucksters but i think its fair to say that oenophilia is about the ~~experience~~ of drinking the wine, not the chemical component or if it tastes the same when youre blindfolded or whatever

Ohhh I went to Citizen with K&T a couple weeks ago, CAD. That's where they do the ice ball thing, right? It was nice if a little expensive and poncey. Food was pretty good, too and they have a fireplace which is always a plus.

actually hs i've read lots of stuff from wine experts that encourages people to stretch a bottle out over 2-3 days

i don't mean that there's no such thing as people who know about wine, and i definitely like the way some taste better than others, but i think there's a lot of mystification cast over the assessment of it, and i think iatee must be right that the economics of it is not rational.

yeah but that changes when you're dropping mad $ on this, ya know? xp2max

the most expensive bottle in my fridge cost $4

yeah that is where they have the ice ball thing! that thing is really goofy and i have plenty of boring opinions about it but i did have a cocktail there once and it was a good cocktail.

how do you guys get such cheap wine? it's trader joe's, isn't it?

according to my friend who took a wine course and got his certificate there was a lot of blind taste testing and for the final exam I think he had to taste a wine and write about it

xp yup, it's TJ wine

fuckin buffalo

single most frustrating thing about moving to the east coast is paying $3 for tj wine instead of $2

well, also winter

xxxxp oh sure. i mean also wine advocate/robert parker do this to themselves by assigning numerical scores to their wines, & the minute you make yr thing pseudo-scientific in that way you open it up to like irl science. i like the bullshitty mystical french guys just b/c even though i know theyre full of shit at least theyre full of shit in an appealing way that doesnt involve fake scores or whatever

Trader Joe's $3-4 wine is totally drinkable.

x-posts They people at the table next to us were ordering whiskey flights. It looked sort of interesting if you're really into whiskey.

i like the stuff people write about wine tbh it's like any critical writing where i don't know much about the thing being evaluated, i.e. most criticism.

I really dislike wine. Does that make me a non-foodie?

my feeling is that getting a wine certificate is probably similar to training a dog to detect one kind of explosive chemical residue

there's a difference between telling the difference between two different types of food and two brands of something made w/ the same ingredients, in the same manner

― iatee, Monday, January 16, 2012 9:10 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

wait idgi, how are olive oils two different types of food?

you said fake vs. real olive oils

yeah but they're supposed to be the same thing

I mean there are clearly foods where people can tell the difference between high quality and low quality but the amazing thing is that the insane $$$ is often w/ foods where you can't. and that's most likely not a coincidence.

btw this is the most educational thing i've read recently about wine. i'm a lot more interested in getting transparency into production techniques than i am a price point or a name on a label:

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2011/11/11/the-false-promise-of-cheap-wine/

At $12, it is possible — if difficult — to find a wine with a true sense of origin and craft.

this is what that guy's argument is based on, but it ignores the fact that almost everyone who drinks wine can't tell you what origin or craft tastes like

that's because language is a cracked kettle on which we beat tunes for bears to dance to

while we wish to conjure pity from the stars

I don't think most people need wine w/ 'a true sense of origin and craft' anymore than they need a laptop w/ 'a true sense of origin and craft'. give someone cheap wine and make up a story and say it's from argentina and they'll probably believe it.

haha I'm like the evil anti-m white

yeah iatee i don't think that's wrong but i do think people tend to assume all wine is produced the same and there are actually some pretty big differences in production that deserve a closer look.

my mom lives in sonoma, ca and I've been to my share of vineyards and I think there's some value in having a diversified market and it's not like *all wines taste the same* (that's true for just about everything, including laptops)

otoh it's just amazing how much artifice there is and how the economy depends on people playing pretend and easily influenced rich people who are interested in finding tasteful ways to signal wealth

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/11/the_subjectivity_of_wine.php

I've always espoused a 'plateau theory' i.e. above a certain level of quality it's all just lateral moves

the emperor's new cleaus

I've always espoused a 'plateau theory' i.e. above a certain level of quality it's all just lateral moves

― dayo, Monday, January 16, 2012 9:39 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah this summarizes pretty well my own feelings.

The rules of the wine tasting were simple. Twenty five of the best wines under twelve dollars were nominated by independent wine stores in the Boston area. The Globe then assembled a panel of wine professionals to select their top picks in the red and white category. All of the wines were tasted blind.

The result is a beguiling list of delicious plonk. But I was most interested in just how little overlap there was between the different critics. In fact, only one wine - the 2006 Willm Alsace Pinot Blanc from France - managed to make the list of every critic. Most of the wines were personal favorites, and appeared on only one of the lists.

Would have been more interesting if they didn't pick wines that were all already considered *top* wines, but just like 25 random wines.

yeah i don't understand what they were trying to accomplish there

Tell you what is handy for UK ILXors: supermarketwine.com. They amalgamate all the wine recommendations from newspapers and make them easily searchable and stuff. Last year I quaffed on a bottle of £1.49 a bottle french wine from Tesco that this place recommended, and it was awesome so I bought 6 bottles of it.

i like the bullshitty mystical french guys just b/c even though i know theyre full of shit at least theyre full of shit in an appealing way that doesnt involve fake scores or whatever

a couple of years ago my wife's dad bought a case of burgundy at a wine fair. for him it was a kind of adventurous move, since he grew up and still lives in bordeaux. anyway he opens up a bottle and everybody says it's bad. like, as in, something's actually wrong with it. not horribly wrong like it's corked but something just off enough that nobody wants to drink it. he opens up a different bottle. same thing. thing is, all these people ever drink is bordeaux so they're on uncertain ground. i look the bottle up on the internet and there's virtually nothing about it - it's some kind of collective product, a wine created by a consortium of wine producers in bourgogne. but my wife is determined to get to the bottom of this. what the hell is up with this bottle?

first we take it to a small wine shop run by a very young guy, a kind of wine nerd, who takes down a wine atlas and shows us the region it's from. he says he won't have a taste, for some reason. he says he's never heard of the producing consortium before. so we go to the big kahuna of bordeaux wine shops, chez badie. it's right in the middle of town, has existed in the same spot for like 200 years or something. the proprietor, a small, balding, bespectacled man wearing a green scarf indoors and a light brown corduroy jacket patiently listens to us, pops the cork out of the bottle and pours himself a little bit into a clean glass. he swirls it around his mouth with a severe expression on his face, looking far into the distance. then he does an amazing thing. he starts sucking it through his teeth. like when you suck your teeth, creating a little tooth-lip whine, except with wine sluicing around it. it's slightly horrifying. he then vigorously mulches it around some more in there, like he's using mouthwash. then he swallows it. he studies the glass. he looks out the window, still absently swirling the remaining wine around the bottom of the glass. "everyone has his own tastes," he says, looking round at us finally. "but this," he says, looking at the glass again, "this is not good."

heh

do u remember what village(s) it was from or was it regional

it wasn't from a specific village, it was some little cluster of vineyards that pooled a certain proportion of their grapes together to make this stuff. i think one reason my father-in-law was so proud of it - maybe the main reason - was that he'd gotten a really good deal on it

burgundy is probably the most difficult wine to buy cuz it is comprised of thousands of tiny lil plots of land (no primogeniture) and the quality of the growers and winemakers can be hard to determine

yeah if stuff is pooled then presumably it isnt good enough to bottle as a village wine and its more lucrative to co-op than sell to négociants

some of that stuff can be great though. in bordeaux for instance you can get grand listrac, which is made by a cooperative, and it's 6 euros a bottle for fantastic stuff. i think my f-i-l was hoping for a similar jackpot. but i guess you really gotta know. i suspect his forays into burgundy are over.

the difference is bordeaux is four times larger than burgundy and there are some good cheapish wines from small estates and co-ops etc

creating a little tooth-lip whine

Oenomatopoeia

In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.

isn't praising a wine's "jamminess" a sign that someone's not a wine expert?

pretty much agree with this comment from the piece elmo c and p'd -

This is amusing. However, these studies are tremendously biased. I don't mean to excessively defend "wine experts", but let's think about this.

It is obvious that white wine does not taste like red wine. A blindfolded tasting, if the experts knew that the wine might be white or red, would almost certainly show that experts could distinguish white from red to a high degree of accuracy. Coloring white wine surreptitiously introduced a very serious visual bias. Note that if it was a good white wine, we should not fault the experts for rating it well, even if they were tricked by food coloring. Not also that "jammy" and "fruity" are qualities that a white wine could have. No-one said it was "tannic", apparently, or used any other words that are completely incompatible with the chemistry of white wine

Likewise, it's usually very easy to tell the difference between cheap table wine and expensive wine (regardless of which you like better, they are different). There are objective reasons for this. Expensive wine is made from different varietals than "box" type wine, the grapes are MUCH more extensively pruned, and it is grown in different places. One can taste the difference. Here the experts did better. Sixty percent of them identified the wine as not "worth drinking" even when the intense visual bias of an expensive bottle was introduced. Whether or not one agrees that cheap wine is not worth drinking, they actually resisted the biasing variable to some degree.

Twelve dollar wines are a different category again. They tend to be made from the most highly-regarded varietals (the ones whose names you've heard), but they aren't pruned as extensively, nor grown on historic wine fields in every case. However, if price is correlated with quality we would expect them to all be similar in quality. The "random" choices of experts actually suggest that the market may be able to distinguish quite well. If similar priced wines are similar in quality, at least in this category, then near-random results of such a survey is what we would expect. All that has been shown is that among wines in the same price category, most are not reproducibly distinct from the others in terms of perceived quality.

My interpretation is that although tasting wine is a very subjective experience, there are reproducible differences between some wines, and the market seems to be able to sort them out.

The conclusion that all perception of wine quality is arbitrary and non-generalizable is NOT warranted here.

Sounds right.

I'm not much of a wine person, but I feel pretty confident in my ability to discern quality in two other beverages: coffee and beer. I remember, for example, getting immediately excited about stumptown coffee when I first tried it, before I knew anything about what it was or where it was from, and now it's apparently considered 1/3 of some kind of holy trinity of coffee (along with Counter Culture and Intelligentsia).

I can't go as far as naming all the different tasting notes of a coffee, but there are just certain qualities and balances that make coffee taste *right* to me. I sometimes find them in coffee that I don't expect to be good at all, and I'm often let down by coffee that I fully DO expect to be good (even, occasionally, from stumptown). I mean really the idea that all wine tasting is totally arbitrary goes against most human experience of eating and drinking things.

My interpretation is that although tasting wine is a very subjective experience, there are reproducible differences between some wines, and the market seems to be able to sort them out.

eh this can be true for the extremes but it's considerably less true once you enter the higher end of the market

I'm horrible at blindly differentiating beer if it is a similar style. But maybe a stout vs pale ale would be easier. But even them I wouldn't be totally sure. Visual/color has a big impact on taste.

Our perceptions are easily fooled by what we think we are experiencing.

now it's apparently considered 1/3 of some kind of holy trinity of coffee (along with Counter Culture and Intelligentsia).

Funny, a friend of mine from Seattle -- who worked as a barista for years -- thinks that Intelligentsia is horribly overrated. He's fond of dissing Chicago's coffee scene in general, but he claims that there are at least two or three roasters here that are better.

(I just started drinking coffee again recently after about eight years, so I don't know much. But Stumptown might be the best I've had.)

can't imagine why your friend would think that

Visual/color has a big impact on taste.

My boss went to a winery in Germany where she tasted white wine in a special room. They tasted a few different pours and with each one they changed the color of the light in the room and the guide asked them to make notes on the flavors. She said that the guide revealed that each pour had been the exact same wine. Even so, each had tasted unarguably different and further more that everyone's notes had surprising commonalities, e.g., under yellow light people tasted tropical fruits, under green light they tasted apple, grass, and minerality.

Funny, a friend of mine from Seattle -- who worked as a barista for years -- thinks that Intelligentsia is horribly overrated

Yup. Sumptown's okay, but, I mean, it isn't any kind of grand kahuna.

I guess OTOH there are times when I think I sort of force myself to like tastes I don't really like because of context. Like I went to Spuyten Duyvil the other day and tried this $9 beligian draft I had never heard of, and it was honestly too dry and too hoppy for me but I sat there sort of convincing myself I really liked it because I was in this beer connoisseur mecca drinking beer out of a wine glass.

And the dryness and hoppiness I didn't like momentarily made it "sophisticated" in my mind.

I think that even tho I'm of the opinion that a lot of food connoisseurship is theater, lots of things we do are theater

like the experience je55e's boss had w/ wine can be replicated w/ lots of foods/experiences/etc.

I listened to radiohead in a green room and liked it

And that can be fun or it really easily be used to bullshit the consumer. xp

right, like if you have money to burn and feel like you're getting something out of the 'expensive wine experience', go for it, it's not like you'd otherwise be spending the money as some robot-rationalist.

intelligentsia is fine but probably more a success of marketing than it is the greatest coffee in the country. my chicago preference is metropolis coffee. stumptown is pretty great. blue bottle from SF is excellent. what i think may be actually overrated is la mill in l.a., which has great, friendly service but ime kind of bitter coffee.

anyway food connoisseurship i think can make one appreciate food more. i mean i'm sure there's bullshit out there but i tend to trust most of it.

w/wine i believe there's this vast middleground which i'm clueless on, but i can spot amazing wine and terrible wine pretty easily.

I listened to radiohead in a green room and liked it

the taste of Thom's cherry Chapstick

hints of Thom's cherry juice

Je55e's boss's story is fascinating to me and makes me wonder exactly how much of our taste centers is influenced by what we see

intelligentsia is fine but probably more a success of marketing than it is the greatest coffee in the country.

Yeah, I think this is it.

with coffee, if you're talking single plantation coffee beans, it's pretty simple - what's the source of the coffee and how was it roasted. different coffee roasters will differ as to the roast level of a coffee bean, will have different goals that they want to meet (do you want more astringent coffee? a smoother coffee? earthy vs. 'spicy' whatever that means etc.). I'm guessing where roasters make their name is in 1. determining what single origin beans are worth championing and 2. in crafting blends.

WRT Stumptown, intelligentsia, etc. -- so much wrt coffee depends on freshness and on brewing technique. Part of why Stumptown is so good is that they're very insistent on having a hand at all stages of quality control, e.g. they only supply cafes (as far as I know) where they also help to set up the equipment, train the baristas, etc. Intelligentsia beans are generally good in my experience but it's possible that maybe they have less of a controlling approach and thus it's more possible to wind up getting a bad cup? (just guessing, no idea if this is true). I mean a 3-month-old stale bag of intelligentsia will still taste stale and old.

intelligentsia has been huge in l.a., they did kind of break open the coffee culture here to an extent, but i think they're more committed to opening expansive and impressive spaces rather than being committed to the craft. it's faintly ridiculous to go into intelligentsia in silver lake and see literally 12 baristas behind the counter (all wearing stupid hats and looking vv stern about the process.)

coffee culture doesn't really matter since people only drink lattes

I like Intelligentsia and that's usually what we buy (tho we've been cheap/lazy and grabbing coffee from TJ's lately) but they pissed me off a couple of years ago when they got all snotty about the availability of 20 ounce cups of coffee, talking about how coffee wasn't meant to be consumed in large quantities, and stopped offering that size in their shops.

And I mean, whatever, do what you want in your stores but it's that "There is only one right way to enjoy X thing" that gets me. It's also interesting given omar's observations about Intelligentsia privileging their image over their product.

I don't know. Coffee snobs annoy me, but I love the terrible flavored coffee from the low rent bagel place in my building so.

Also I might have been in law school at the time (so more than a couple of years ago then) and access to 20 ounces of coffee at once was a very important to me.

the best coffee purveyors ime are pretty simple operations, like the dude in l.a. who studied fair trade coffee from mexico and central america for his thesis (iirc his family may have had some history in that particular region w/r/t coffee) and decided to start selling his own coffee.

Part of why Stumptown is so good is that they're very insistent on having a hand at all stages of quality control, e.g. they only supply cafes (as far as I know) where they also help to set up the equipment, train the baristas, etc.

Perhaps this is only because this is happening in Oregon, but I have started seeing Stumptown in grocery stores which is kind of disconcerting since the packaging is just the paper take-home bags. I would be a bit concerned about turnover and staleness. Also, while it may have once been the case for them to train the baristas of cafes they supply, I'm not so sure that's the case any longer. I saw a drive through coffee kiosk on the Oregon coast trumpeting the fact that they were using Stumptown. I could be wrong but the distribution may have gotten so big that they can't maintain the QC they once had with cafes.

(wine related: i bought a dodgy bottle of shiraz/viognier from tj's. on the first glass, it's not very good, but on the third glass, i won't be able to tell the difference.)

wine bottles only have three glasses in them anyway

http://www.homewetbar.com/images/prod/wine-glass-giant63523.jpg

xpost -- the stumptown bags I've seen always have a roast date stamped on them, so you should check for that (I think the preferred usage time is within two or three weeks of roast?)

Je55e's boss's story is fascinating to me and makes me wonder exactly how much of our taste centers is influenced by what we see

Or know! That is why when I eat my mom's objectively terrible chocolate chip cookies they taste genuinely delicious.

Or how I learned to like oysters - when an Irish tourist (eating oysters in Chicago) told me that oysters taste of the sea where they're from, his perspective delivered in his lilting trilling accent changed my perception tremendously. The next time I tried a raw ouster, instead of just a blob of horked up loogy, I felt I was connecting with the cold brine of Prince Edward Island or the waters off beautiful Nauset.

Like I said about wine, the malleability of perception can be interesting - providing a sense of connection with a place and thereby a new dimension to eating - and it can be used to jack up prices.

The Bad Foodie portrayed ITT will buy any story behind the product, but I think more discriminating folks are more likely to see the story or atmosphere or whatever as an enhancement.

And sometimes the story is all there is and the thing you're consuming is not very good, but it's *interesting* b/c of the story. Example: Eazy and I went to a Champagne tasting where they opened up a bottle of Champagne from 1928. It was way, waaay past tasting good, but it was not only interesting to connect to the past, but even more so to see what happens on the far end of the aging spectrum.

We went to another tasting where they had a 1975 pinot noir that also was not drinkable, but it was very, very interesting to see how aging affects wine.

Both tastings definitely informed my tasting of more recent vintages and of other aged wines. Specifically, the exaggerated, thick, unmistakable taste of raisins and dates and coffee were guideposts for those same tastes in aged wines that were in their peak.

Hey look! Blocks of text!

Also:

wine bottles only have three glasses in them anyway

There are four.

depends on if you're using a metric cup or an american cup

Sorry, that was sounded curt. I was going by the standard units of alcohol (per AA, probably) being 1 serving of wine = 6 oz.

And there are 750 ml in a bottle.

How do those two numbers relate?? I don't know, honestly.

750 ml is basically 24 oz.

25.3 tbh

even a Pinot Noir from 2005 would be getting a bit long in the tooth at this point

Jesus, subject says "foodie", not "winey"

Oh it's the same family of bullshit

http://irie212.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/thurber-domestic-burgundy.png

We have had detours into wine country ITT, so I felt justified.

I thought pinot noir lent itself well to long aging? IDK

The other thing I enjoyed about the 1975 pinot gone bad was the idea that some Frenchmen were harvesting and macerating the grapes whose juice I was drinking during the time I was being born and nursed half the world away in Arizona.

Re that comic, as I said in the quiddities + agonies thread

Snobs ruin good things. It's like how the language we use about wine ("nose of cherry, coffee on the finish") were developed to make wine accessible to the masses b/c the things they described were quantifiable and tangible. Previously, wine was described in abstract, personality-like terms that made appreciation of wine seem mysterious.

But then jackassery entered the terminology and you have people describing wine as having "hints of unripe hackberry" or "Welsh book leather" some obscure, absurd shit. At a wine class at the restaurant I worked at, a vendor was describing flavors using Latin words for ordinary fruits. It's that kind of malarky, you know?

rethinking my highlighting, but the point is: snobs turned good descriptors into BS and ruin it for everyone.

I dunno if the switch to quantifiable/tangible terms really made wine accessible to the masses as much as it made wine snobbery accessible to the masses

It's akin to that "book as divine object" preciousness on the e-reader thread. I'm a reader and I'm an eater and I'm a drinker.

pinot noirs are best when young, cf. the other big burgundy grape, gamay (a French friend of mine calls gamay "vin de piss", not because it tastes bad but because its thin wateriness makes you have to pee (supposedly))

xpost agreed, it's like the slender but crucial difference between gourmet and gourmand

Barnyard essence.

i have the feeling i've made all these posts before :(

Sauvignon blanc does tend to taste of hay and grapefruit, though.

I dunno dude, a web search shows a number of Burgundies (heavy on pinot noir) with 1980s vintages supposedly drinking well.

xp

and barnyard funk is a real think and it really does smell like manure!

I have had some sauv blancs that taste like pure grapefruit juice. It was kind of gross.

It's akin to that "book as divine object" preciousness on the e-reader thread. I'm a reader and I'm an eater and I'm a drinker.

High five.

I'm a reader and I'm an eater and I'm a drinker

first thing that popped into my head was "I'm a midnight toker"

http://t.co/fnGkzkh5

Sorry, that looks shady. Here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/text/s.php?sId=11118706&m=1

chinese businessmen are the best example of being a 'foodie' as a way of signalling wealth

have heard of chinese businessmen buying cases of bourdeaux that cost $500 a bottle, and then drinking them mixed with orange juice because they don't like the taste of red wine

first thing that popped into my head was "I'm a midnight toker"

For the rhyme to work, however, it would have to be something like 'midnight beater' or something.

Dayo, I 've also heard lots of stories of fake French wine being sold in China.

I wouldn't be surprised! china has the world's biggest wine industry btw (iirc)

have heard of chinese businessmen buying cases of bourdeaux that cost $500 a bottle, and then drinking them mixed with orange juice because they don't like the taste of red wine

― I am that young sis, the beacon, a yardstick (dayo), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 2:25 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha this is awesome.

two different members of my mom's family own a very good vineyard, and they all drink white wine with ice cubes in it. so i mean...

own two separate, very good, vineyards

An ex-bf's mom's after work drink of choice was red wine mixed w/ diet Pepsi.

wine and coke is kinda good sometimes

It sounds awful and I've been known to put ice in my wine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/28/lets-start-foodie-backlash

proper polemic

yeah let's do it!

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/26/6849169/the-problem-with-home-cooked-meals

^Shocking article. It exposes the callousness of experts who say that cooking relatively simple meals at home promotes better eating habits and general health than eating a haphazard diet of processed and fast foods. Sure it's true, but... hold onto your hats... it's easier said than done!!

I didn't fund it, just reporting back for your facebook delectation.

a nice farewell essay by Jaya Saxena for Eater: https://www.eater.com/food-culture/911138/foodie-history-american-food-culture