Foodie: from quirky insta-celebrity to cringeworthy label no one sports

What happened to the word “foodie”?

What happened to the word “foodie”?

I realized it the other day when a publication of a (self-defined) middle-aged “foodie” appeared on my Instagram in between stories.

Said the foodie was enjoying a fine dining experience. Everything was marvellous, of course. There were proteins and seasonality, and the Chef was of course, innovative, the service was attentive, and the wine list featured low intervention wines and petnat.

A parade of obviousness, an absolute lack of gastronomic articulation, and some iPhone pictures.

Foodies.

They even managed to sneak into the Michelin gala.

I remember taking a long look at this image, then taking a screen capture and cropping it before saving it.

Foodie.

I always imagine foodies to be quite the opposite of gastronomers: foodies are naive, a bit clumsy “food enthusiasts” with zero to minimal gastronomic-food knowledge, but they make up for their lack of it with an overzealous enthusiasm.

They could not say what kind of subspecies of Beryx fish were in front of them to save their lives, but surely they did know what restaurant was the talk of the town, and they would sell their relatives for some insider information.

Foodies.

The guy who invites the protagonist of The Menu is a foodie. He dies, of course, of his sin. He wants to die at the hands of a Chef - something I can see very much in many foodie attitudes, always so eager to let themselves in the hands of the Chef.

In the movie, they depict him as an imbecile, and the term foodie has frequently become a synonym for it in the past years.

The foodie is such because, presently, food is fashionable.

With the death of dress fashion at the hands of fast and extra-fast fashion, nobody cares anymore about clothes and brands—a very different situation from, let’s say, 20 years ago, when people cared about having this or that pair of shoes.

Now, food is all the rage.

However, food has two issues.

The first one is that few people are genuinely interested in eating well. Most people do not spend most of their waking time thinking deeply about food (gastronomy, creation, sourcing…). Many people have no taste and would be happy with basic and bland food choices.

The second one is that food in excess is making people fat.

One supreme quality that still defines people is their size. Being thin, lean, and toned is still a supreme quality. Real gourmands, some gourmets, and even some gastronomers are generally larger because they like their food.

Most of the foodies, instead, especially girls who are using this label but also like to wear clothes and go to the gym and use food as one more tool in developing their Instagram persona, do not even LIKE food.

And here enters Ozempic.

I have a strong feeling that this drug, now in widespread use to control appetite, will be a revolution in the foodie landscape.

As far as I understood, this drug suppresses appetite, makes you want to eat less, and, in general, creates a sort of nausea for food. Brilliant, if you tend to binge - probably.

But for the niche…