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Bye Bye Wordie


Pat

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Foodie needs to be eliminated from the lexicon. It's as if someone held a contest and said "let's dream up the most embarrassingly stupid word we can think of." Gastronaut is clever, but it implies travel so isn't the perfect descriptor. It's also cumbersome to pronounce.

Someone please start a new thread to implement laniloa's idea. If we reach consensus, I'll never use the term foodie again. Who knows - you may become famous!

Cheers,

Rocks.

I think epicure works just fine, but I may be alone in that.

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Someone please start a new thread to implement laniloa's idea. If we reach consensus, I'll never use the term foodie again. Who knows - you may become famous!

What's wrong with gourmand?

gour.mand (goor-mahnd, goor-muhnd)

-noun

1. a person who is fond of good eating, often indiscriminatingly and to excess.

2. a gourmet; epicure.

If I were to create a word, what about bromaphile or edomaiphile (from the Greek for food and eat, respectively)?

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We have many creative types on this board. We could have a contest to come up with an alternative to foodie. Then we all commit to using the new word on this board, blogs, Sietsema's chats, wine columns in the Washingtonian, etc.

How about "pho-die" for lovers of Vietnamese noodle soup?

Or "faux-die" for collectors of the fake food displayed outside many traditional Japanese cafes?

But seriously- or not - I wish "epicure" didn't have such a snobbish aura about it.

I rather like "gastronome," although that is also rather highfalutin' and is fine for dining at Citronelle, but doesn't quite fit when you're at a roadside shack, tuckin' into a mess o' unctuous Q... how on earth to resolve this bewildering contradiction?

Fine Fresser?

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I'm not sure I'm down with "epicure." From Wikipedia:

For Epicurus, the highest pleasure (tranquility and freedom from fear) was obtained by knowledge, friendship, and living a virtuous and temperate life. He lauded the enjoyment of simple pleasures, by which he meant abstaining from bodily desires, such as sex and appetites, verging on asceticism. He argued that when eating, one should not eat too richly, for it could lead to dissatisfaction later, such as the grim realization that one could not afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner.
Does "gourmet" cover those of us that like chicken wings, or fritos with onion dip? I'm going with "gastronaut."
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Executive Summary:

Sadly, and in all seriousness, there is no good answer to this conundrum, because there is no one word that covers all the bases of our food interests. That said, epicure is the best choice IMO; foodie is a terrible "word" and ought to be banned.

Discussion:

This ground has been plowed before. Chowhound, for example, has addressed the issue. IIRC, CH defines foodie (accurately IMO) as one who follows the latest food trend(s) and does what s/he is told by the annointed experts. Chowhound, a good word actually, refers to those who seek out the best, whatever and wherever it might be, but in practice it has become synonymous with holes in the wall type places, which seems to disqualify it as the general descriptor. Anyway, its association with the eponymous board limits its acceptibility. Gourmet, in Chowhound's lexicon, is one who is only interested in the finest and most refined, and brings decor into the equation, which limits its usefulness for our purposes.

Gourmand is misused maybe 99% of the time it appears, being confused with gourmet (similar to bemuse being used in place of amused, something with which I am not bemused :D ). So it won't work, nor will gourmet which, even more than epicure, has that high falutin connotation.

The names of food boards seem to reflect this problem. We have Chowhound of course, but eGullet???, and Mouthsful???? Yuck. LTH? Roadfood. On it goes. Then there is Rockwell--where did that come from :P ?

Basically, this is one area in which the English language, normally a rich mine of descriptive possibilities, has let us down. In the end, I vote for epicure which, while not ideal, is the best compromise I know of.

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Basically, this is one area in which the English language, normally a rich mine of descriptive possibilities, has let us down.

All the more reason to invent something from scratch - I submit embee.

Minimal syllables and letters

Easy to speak, even when drunk

A phonic representation of MB, an abbreviation for Mustered Burgher

BM spelled backwards

Sounds close to foodie without the stigma

Awards can be called the embees

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"Foodie" is fine with me. I don't associate it with "groupie" or "hippie" or anything like that. Besides, what do kids nowadays know about hippies and groupies? That was all PG (pre-Google), like 1996 or some forgotten age. :P

Recently Unearthed E-Mail Reveals What Life Was Like in 1995:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48970

It's the diminutive "ie" that makes the word unpalatable. Dookie; rookie; stoolie...every nickname for little kids Chuckie, Bobbie, Jamie...it can't be abided.

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That was all PG (pre-Google), like 1996 or some forgotten age. :P

At one of my restaurant jobs in the distant past, I made some reference to remembering where I was when JFK got shot. The upshot was that only one of the employees at that restaurant was alive when that happened. I then asked about the moon landing and only one person remembed seeing that on TV. When I mentioned the Beatles, the response from one of the employees was "Ohh! You mean Paul McCartney's first band?"

I like "Foodie" btw! In any case, its in the vernacular. IMO, while it is possible to launch a word deliberately (Savage Love and Santorum) it is much harder to kill of one in common usage deliberately.

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I agree that it doesn't make much sense to try to overthrow a word that has already been widely accepted. Yet, if P. Diddy could do it, why not try?

The meaning of "foodie" is easy to grasp since it does not depend on knowledge of Latin or Greek roots or foreign languages. Take a lesson from The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Nothing obscure or esoteric. The cute factor is annoying, though.

For those of us old enough to remember the heyday of the word "preppy", words coined to designate a newly recognized and overly scrutinized social phenomenon are all easy to dismiss as self-conscious and trendy. As one historian puts it, "If I read one more paper that addresses Charlemagne's lifestyle..." It would be ideal if the word didn't sound brand-new. Yet:

-Thanks to the origins of the word "epicure", it sounds elitist, archaic and priggish. Arch.

-"Gourmet" and "gourmand" both put on airs for similar reasons. I love French food, but object to the hegemony of France in culinary matters. I even resent references to Italian cuisine.

I like the idea of turning to non-European languagues for fodder, but see Paragraph 2 above. Were there a nice short word that is easy to say...

Finally, to avoid sounding precious the word should end in a familiar unstuffy fashion such as:

-er, -or (Cf. "eater" above)

-an, or for the sake of bipartisanship, -at

-ist (ETA: see below)

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-Thanks to the origins of the word "epicure", it sounds elitist, archaic and priggish. Arch.
I dunno. Hedonist and Stoic seems to have survived the centuries without being tagged as "derisively old-fashioned." :P

Fooditarian? (the philosophical opposite of Breatharian)

(MC Horoscope, I am reminded of the "hilarious" bumper sticker occasionally seen around here: "Visualize Whirled Peas.")

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One thing I like about epicure is that it applies to appreciating both food and drink. It also lends itself to the pun epicurious, which is a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective :P

There doesn't seem to be much middle ground between elite terms and the vernacular here. Gourmet is all right (and would be my second choice), but gourmand seems to imply gluttony to me, rather than appreciation of the experience.

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Gourmet is all right (and would be my second choice), but gourmand seems to imply gluttony to me, rather than appreciation of the experience.

It more than implies. It is the actual meaning, or at least the original meaning. Now it is so commonly mis-used, in place of "gourmet," it's hard to tell.

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and grubbie doesn't have very nice food related conotations, now does it. This begs the question...couldn't any word devolve into having an ie suffix or be manipulated to have that particular ending? Food-ie, Grubb- ie, ???? never mind.....I guess some words would just sound stupid that way, huh? Sorry, just woke up... Let this be a lesson to you all, never wake and post :P

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Foodniks was the affectionate term used in my family for foodies in our circle of friends and family. Food Nuts was the equally affectionate term for all the other foodies in Berkeley (essentially the entire population, except for the "real" gourmets: serious types who existed on a different plane and made complicated recipes using a lot of French ingredients).

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Maybe this deserves its own "Campaign to Eliminate" thread, but here's an excerpt from a trend story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

'Gastroporn' invades the lexicon

Now that EVOO — Food Network icon Rachael Ray's catchword for extra-virgin olive oil — has made it into the Oxford American College Dictionary, could this term that's begun popping up everywhere be far behind? "It's one of the ironies of modern life that cooking shows and books are so hugely popular when much of the time we eat on the move or settle down in front of the TV with a microwaved frozen dinner," says trend-spotter Salzman. "The preparing, cooking, tasting and eating of food have become voyeuristic pleasures separated from physical reality."

Does that make people who work with/write about food gastropornographers?

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I vote for Foodhist. everything else just sounds so damn pretentious.

although when you say foodhist out loud, it sounds a little Ivory Tower. Like "Proustian" or something. :P

What about eatnik? or Foodster ?(though that sounds like a car or minivan) I like foodist, too.

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My apologies if it has been suggested here or elsewhere, but I think that "gastrophile" is the appropriate word. It combines "gastro" as in gastronomy (n. The art or science of good eating) and "phile" as in Francophile (n. A person who admires France, its people, or its culture). So the definition of gastrophile would be "A person who admires good eating, the purveyors of good eating, and the culture of good eating." Sounds about right to me.

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My apologies if it has been suggested here or elsewhere, but I think that "gastrophile" is the appropriate word.
To me, "gastrophile" sounds like someone in love with his belly. Now perhaps that's what many of us are, but I'd rather not brag about it. Why not use the well-established "gastronome"?
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To me, "gastrophile" sounds like someone in love with his belly. Now perhaps that's what many of us are, but I'd rather not brag about it. Why not use the well-established "gastronome"?

"gastronome" sounds like a fat midget.

Or a dining mecca in Alaska, I'm not sure which. :lol:

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New York Times refers to Jim Leff as "a professional eater." Have they cut foodie from their lexicon?

Leff was always histrionically insisting that he was not a "foodie"--which he defines as being effete, fickle, concerned primarily with trendiness, etc. He claims that being a chowhound involves the quest for deliciousness wherever it may be found--which to him was rarely in the temples of haute cuisine.

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Leff was always histrionically insisting that he was not a "foodie"--which he defines as being effete, fickle, concerned primarily with trendiness, etc. He claims that being a chowhound involves the quest for deliciousness wherever it may be found--which to him was rarely in the temples of haute cuisine.

Aieeee! Those arepas!

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I propose afishionado. It's subtle, descriptive, and most importantly, doesn't sound stupid - "foodie" is about the most ridiculous word in the English language. And even if people don't discern the slight pronunciation difference with aficionado in conversation, it should still be understood. If people argue that the pun is too punny, I'd argue that it's better than gastronaut (I've always found "gastro," European though it may be, to conjure up notions of gastric juices). And please don't propose afishionacho - that's going too far. :)

Until someone proposes something better, I'm switching to this.

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