Not a bed of roses
Sure, the life of a foodie seems glamorous. Every day brings a new quest (Where do I find bone-in prosciutto from San Daniele? Is extra virgin olive oil better from Andalucía or from Liguria? Which is the best organic butter?) or a new challenge (How can I braise a brisket that is both tender AND juicy*? Is guanciale preferable to pancetta in a carbonara sauce? In an amatriciana sauce?) or a new puzzle (If I am serving a New Orleans-inflected dinner, should I serve the crab in a crab cake-with-remoulade or in a gumbo? If I serve it in a gumbo...what other inescapably Creole starter could I use?) to tickle the mind. But there are some dark sides to being a foodie.
The most commonly held of these is that nothing will ever be good enough to serve you. While it is true that foodies are the last garrison of proper judgmentalism** the above generalization is wildly exaggerated. Foodies are not obsessed with eating caviar and foie gras at every meal. A true foodie delights in a properly made hamburger as much as a 5-star extravaganza. But we like to eat food, not groceries, which is why there is all this shuddering at eating things that come out of envelopes, cans and boxes.
No, the biggest drawback to being a foodie is being a solitary pioneer in unknown culinary lands, to one degree or another. I'm having a bear of a time getting TFBIM to try Korean food. Hell, it took two years to have her eat cooked spinach, and it had to be enveloped in lasagne at that. It has taken 12 years of marriage to get her to have beef medium***.
This means that some things I have to try when I'm the only adult at home. Say, the Endless Carrot soup. Which is unbelievably delicious, but since TFBIM hasn't managed to get past carrots...
Still, TFBIM is Julia Child in comparisn to other members of my family. I shan't out any of them, but I have relatives who will not even sample a blue corn tortilla chip, or consider fennel some sort of Siberian gulag fodder. Others have pantries FILLED with food in boxes, cans and envelopes.
As a foodie, there is nothing as heart-wrenching as the "Oh, I don't eat ___." or "What? Squid?" or "Who the Hell has eggs for breakfast/dinner?"**** Not just because you won't get to eat something you want to try, but because it reminds you of how far you have to go in your culinary evangelism.
-Joke
* This is not even remotely as easy as you might think.
** I mean...c'mon, let's face it, steamed, freshly harvested organic asparagus with a beurre blanc from scratch has to be infinitely better than asparagus from a can with hollandaise from an envelope.
*** Growing up in TFBIM's parents' house, the test for a steak's doneness was to hold it with tongs parallel to the ground and if the steak remained perfecty horizontal, it was finally cooked properly. In my house, a steak was done when the cow stopped mooing.
**** My relatives in Spain and Italy are convinced that having eggs for breakfast is the true hallmark of being a bone-in-the-nose savage, to say nothing of bringing ruin and desolation to the liver.
The most commonly held of these is that nothing will ever be good enough to serve you. While it is true that foodies are the last garrison of proper judgmentalism** the above generalization is wildly exaggerated. Foodies are not obsessed with eating caviar and foie gras at every meal. A true foodie delights in a properly made hamburger as much as a 5-star extravaganza. But we like to eat food, not groceries, which is why there is all this shuddering at eating things that come out of envelopes, cans and boxes.
No, the biggest drawback to being a foodie is being a solitary pioneer in unknown culinary lands, to one degree or another. I'm having a bear of a time getting TFBIM to try Korean food. Hell, it took two years to have her eat cooked spinach, and it had to be enveloped in lasagne at that. It has taken 12 years of marriage to get her to have beef medium***.
This means that some things I have to try when I'm the only adult at home. Say, the Endless Carrot soup. Which is unbelievably delicious, but since TFBIM hasn't managed to get past carrots...
Still, TFBIM is Julia Child in comparisn to other members of my family. I shan't out any of them, but I have relatives who will not even sample a blue corn tortilla chip, or consider fennel some sort of Siberian gulag fodder. Others have pantries FILLED with food in boxes, cans and envelopes.
As a foodie, there is nothing as heart-wrenching as the "Oh, I don't eat ___." or "What? Squid?" or "Who the Hell has eggs for breakfast/dinner?"**** Not just because you won't get to eat something you want to try, but because it reminds you of how far you have to go in your culinary evangelism.
-Joke
* This is not even remotely as easy as you might think.
** I mean...c'mon, let's face it, steamed, freshly harvested organic asparagus with a beurre blanc from scratch has to be infinitely better than asparagus from a can with hollandaise from an envelope.
*** Growing up in TFBIM's parents' house, the test for a steak's doneness was to hold it with tongs parallel to the ground and if the steak remained perfecty horizontal, it was finally cooked properly. In my house, a steak was done when the cow stopped mooing.
**** My relatives in Spain and Italy are convinced that having eggs for breakfast is the true hallmark of being a bone-in-the-nose savage, to say nothing of bringing ruin and desolation to the liver.
Comments
Are you aching for two?
Fiddle,
OK. I'll dredge it up when I return home. The recipe is idiot-proof simple AND the variations are seemingly infinite (curry, chipotle peppers, ginger, etc.) which makes things interesting.
-Joke