Pretention is the Foodie's Bread and Butter

So wait, you're a “Foodie?” As in a person who likes to eat things? Well, shockingly enough, I'm an “Airie”—someone who likes to breathe oxygen. We should really get together and allow the survival of the human race.

I do strongly support his
culinary contributions.

My condescension probably masks it a little, but I thoroughly dislike the term “foodie.” I realize they consider themselves elevated, a step up from the populace that made Fried Lard Food Products LLC one of the largest food product chain in the world (yes, even larger than Wendy's). But that doesn't make foodies better than anyone else, it's just a new and fun way to act stuck up.

Shouldn't we call them pretenties if foodies like pretentiousness so much?

I'll allow people to like cooking, I'll allow people to go to super chef's restaurants. I'll even allow people to think “Hell's Kitchen” is somehow a cooking “competition. But I just can't accept it as a hobby. Sure, eating causes pleasure and can be fun, but to even consider a “foodie lifestyle” makes me gag on my candied hedgehog Popsicle with a poison ivy foam.

Wait, what's the you say? Oh wow, you've eaten Sasquatch? Well first off, we should really dissect your liver and sell it to whichever cryptozoologist will pay the most money for it. I realize no food actually passes through the liver, but I also know you didn't eat the accursed “Big Foot Big Steak,” so we're really on a pretty even playing field.

Even if Sasquatch did exist, it wouldn't be enough for a foodie to merely eat a sasquatch steak. It would need to be something like “The Eyeballs of a Sasquatch Beast Poached in Loch Ness Monster Blood that's Been Marinated in Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Career with a Side of Good Tasting Mushrooms.” The sheer implausibility of any of these occurring suddenly make it into a very attractive notch on a foodie's fork. Who cares if it tastes bad, it tastes rare! And cruel!

Just stop drooling. It makes him self-conscious.

I realize much of what I cook comes from a vegetarian or toast background. This puts much of the foodie fair outside of my wheelhouse. But I'm not vegetarian, and I'm open to various non-toasted items. Yet I don't seek them out, I'm find having fast food, I'm fine having gourmet food. I realize what each accomplishes, but I don't seek them out for those purposes, I seek them out because I'm hungry.

Many of the TV shows I watch are competitive cooking shows. From Top Chef to Food Network Star to MasterChef, they all populate my DVR. Yes, some of the food showcased on these shows sound really good, but I can hop back to eating hunks of cheese off a baby loaf. My interest is passing, I might support it, but I don't pursue it. Basically, I don't “foodie it.”

Sure, I might never dine on a fried iceberg or enjoy a flambeed tonsil muffin, but I'm okay with that. I can eat what I want to, and most importantly, I do not look down upon those who exercise their free will. Sure, I've spent several hundred words ranting my dislike of foodies, but that's mainly a rally against the attitude they exude. They look down on me for my love of Frosty. So I look down on them for their love of stuck upped-ness. An even trade off.

With that said, Foodie, it looks like you and I will repopulate the Earth with our devotions to common things that keep humans living. Hopefully one of us knows a “Waterie.”