Tag Archives: media

B.R. Myers, a windbag at The Atlantic, just published a fairly scathing critique of foodies and food culture in the United States. He’s not wrong that food has become a way for Americans to clearly differentiate themselves or that food writers  seem to go to absurd lengths to create a staggering tale of food-centered adventure.

What he fails to point out is that sports writers, political writers, and entertainment writers are all in the same business as mainstream food writers — selling sensationalistic tales. And what he fails to realize is that people who enjoy food and would arguably be called foodies aren’t the monolithic entity he writes about.

Despite his argument that American foodies are single-minded hoards of gluttons — in particular, he writes, “Needless to say, no one shows much interest in literature or the arts…” – a lot of “foodies” I know are as interested in sustainability, economics, history, and art as they are what they’re chewing or sipping at that moment.  In other words, there can be — and ought to be — an intellectual component to a hobby, and that’s as true of food as it is anything else.

People I’ve had the pleasure of meeting through this whole Gourmet Underground Detroit endeavor are all interested in food — but some are interested in turning it into a business, others are interested in historical and cultural aspects, others are interested in how food is turned into art, others use it as an entry point into learning more about a language, and so on.  And all of them have other hobbies and interests, be it poetry or film, photography or computer geekery.

Dave Kwiatkowski from The Sugar House is a food-loving cocktail obsessive who owns a motorcycle shop. GUD co-founder Todd Abrams loves American poetry, sculpting with clay, and Hemingway.  And they can’t get together without talking about Stanley Kubrick. James Cadariu of Great Lakes Coffee just wrote a great feature piece for GUD about the intersection of drinks and community in other cultures, standing in stark contrast to Myers’ portrayal.

So with nary an endangered animal on their plates and with interests outside of food, where do they fit into Myers’ sinister picture?

I hate the word, but I suppose you’d have to call me a foodie. B.R. Myers thinks that makes me an evil glutton.  Maybe that’s true; maybe it isn’t.  But what’s certainly true is that Myers is reacting exclusively to a typically over-the-top American mainstream media portrayal of food and foodies, and as an essayist or journalist or editor, he ought to know better than to look to that group for what’s really happening in this country.

At the very least, he should come to Detroit and have an earnest discussion with some other evil gluttons — perhaps over a cup of Great Lakes Coffee’s latest micro-roast and a cherry-almond agar-agar dessert from Neighborhood Noodle.