Foodie food for thought

Foodie food for thought

The current issue of The Atlantic has a devastating (and devastatingly well-written) article by R.R. Myers about so-called foodies – with quotes from food writers that will make you spew and (perhaps) give up meat forever. (I did that a zillion years ago.)

Here’s a quote from chef Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, Blood, Bones and Butter:

“It’s quite something to go bare-handed up an animal’s ___…. Its viscera came out with an easy tug; a small palmful of livery, bloody jewels that I tossed out into the yard.” (Please note: The word I shied away from writing appears intact in the article and book.)

Quite something. And the writer is proud of herself. She’s quite something.

You don’t have to be a vegetarian to be offended by the bloated rhetoric some foodies use about food. Myers quotes Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), in which a pork dinner is described as feeling “like a ceremony … a secular seder.”

Myers provides an example that is particularly offensive to Jews but really is offensive to anyone at all: He notes that in Best Food Writing 2010, “Dana Goodyear tells how a restaurant served head cheese (meat jelly made from an animal’s head) to an unwitting Jew.”

Goodyear writes, with what seems to be glee: “One woman, when [chef Jon] Shook finally had a chance to explain, spat it out on the table and said, ‘Oh my f_____ God, I’ve been kosher for thirty-two years.’ Shook giggled, recollecting. ‘Not any more you ain’t!'” (My avoidance of a certain word.)

Well, at least those of us who like to read about food can turn to Beth Chananie’s blog on this site.

RKB

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