This evening I participated in a Madison area “foodie” panel. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed meeting people of like minds, and I hope to continue to connect with all of them in the future, in one way or another. My thanks to the moderators: Eating in Madison from A to Z.

One of the questions was this (paraphrasing…): “Foodie has become a politically charged term… do you still consider yourself a foodie?”

My first response was a resounding yes. I do consider myself a foodie. I added this disclaimer, “I didn’t know that it was controversial… so maybe I shouldn’t admit it that readily”.

I was the only person who admitted to being a foodie. An odd situation, for a “foodie panel”.

The argument seems to be that “Foodies” are elitists who prefer to horde the sheer foodiness to themselves. If foodies had their way, only the wealthy could afford to enjoy good food, when, in fact, food should be for the masses.

I chose not to turn the panel discussion into a debate. But it is very clear that my definition of foodie is not the same as some that exist. To me, a foodie isn’t about repression to the little people. Often, it has nothing to do with economics. Here are a few bullet points that I’ll throw out there which represent my view of “foodie-ism”.

• Foodies appreciate the dining experience.
• Foodies consider dining an adventure, not a neccessity.
• Foodies connect emotion with food, and vice versa.
• Foodies are often motivated by tradition, in terms of family as well as heritage.
• Foodies do indeed have a smug and superior attitude… not because they can afford to be a foodie, but because they get pleasure out of it, they take the time to do it, and they are committed doing it well.
• Being a foodie isn’t all about eating. It is about the process that goes into creating food. It is just as much about thinking and planning as it is about eating.

Foodies care about the social aspects of dining. It’s not about the money you spend, it’s about the time you spend enjoying your dining exprience. Good food does not need to be expensive. It needs to be creative, it needs to be enjoyed and it needs to be shared.

I contend that “wealth” is not the underlying required demographic in being a foodie. I know plenty of people who exist in my demographic world who would rather go to MacDonalds, or order a pizza from Pizza Hut, rather than put in the time, interest and dedication that is needed to qualify as a Foodie. These people can easily afford organic food (though I would note that organic food is not a foodie necessity), and could easily spend all kinds of money in an effort to qualify to the ranks of “Foodie”.

But that is not what it is about. It’s about attitude. It’s about interest. It’s about creativity. It’s about investing your time and effort and about becoming enthralled with the challenge.

With creativity, food becomes art. At one point I stated, “We’ll sit down to dinner and smugly ponder the fact that nobody else is my town is eating what we are right now”. That smugness has nothing to do with having something that others do not, and everything to do with the pleasure of having created something so artful it is unique.

I live in a city that can overpoliticize anything. I refuse to do that to the philosophy and motivation that drives my inner Foodie.

To my fellow panelists, please don’t take this as criticism about the discussion. It was truly enjoyable to share thoughts with people who live in this world. It was clearly thought provoking for me, and I sincerely enjoy exchanging differing views.

Perhaps we should hold another panel in the upcoming months… or simply share a beer…, and have a great time debating this specific point! I’d love to bounce this concept around a lot more.

Comments are open, thoughts are appreciated.

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A quick perusal of my blog stats tell me that many of you are hitting this blog right about now searching for tickets to the Great Taste of the Midwest.

Pardon me for a moment while I rant.

I will never again purchase tickets to another Great Taste of the Midwest. I won’t even use tickets if they were given to me for free. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to go to the Great Taste of the Midwest, even if you paid me.

Whew. I have that out of my system now. Perhaps I can address this issue in a purely intellectual sort of way.

The Great Taste of the Midwest used to be like Christmas to us. The first one that we attended (I believe it may have been the second one ever) was held in the Capital Brewery warehouse, with maybe 400 people and not so many breweries represented.

We stuck with this event for many years through thick and thin, laughing as tickets became harder and harder to come by, and saluting the Madison Home Brewer’s Guild on their success. We followed the event from venue to venue. We were intriqued when it settled in Olin Park. Of course, that’s when it started to go to pieces, the victim of its own success and its own arrogance.

And arrogant it did indeed become.

Last year, the ticket policy became ludicrous. In order to get tickets, you basically had to skip work, stand in line, get a “right to purchase tickets” ticket, then go back later in the day (again missing work) as the tickets went on sale.

The amazing development last year was that many of the venues trusted to sell the tickets to the public released the “right to purchase tickets” ticket to their regulars, long before these pre-ticket tickets were available to the public.

So, let’s say you were a die-hard, and you decided you were going to wait in line early, get your pre-ticket ticket, and then come back and purchase your ticket. Well, SURPRISE! Guess what! The pre-ticket tickets were gone before they were supposed to be available.

Does this sound like sour grapes? Let me hasten to assure you that this is far from the case. I had many a person approach me to see if I wanted tickets. But by that time, I had such a bad taste in my mouth over the arrogance, the abuse, and the ridiculousness over the ticket policy that I vowed that I wouldn’t set foot inside these beer tents again.

So, I urge you all to join me in this boycott. Get together with your friends and plan your own event. You can all bring your favorite unique six packs to try. Hold your own private Great Taste Festival in August, and then attend the Quivey’s Grove Beer Fest in the fall, when the temperatures are cooler and the attitudes are more palatable.

I would say that I would hope that the organizers of The Great Taste will once again get in touch with the philosophies that once went into making this the premier beer tasting in the Unites States.

But, frankly my dears, I no longer give a damn.

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I hate Spam. No, that isn’t a comment about the food product (or would that be alleged food product?). That is a statement against the reviled comment spam that almost anyone who has a blog deals with.

I have spent hours and hours deleting spam from this blog. In addition to that, my blacklist program was catching over 1,000 spam messages a day that it was NOT allowing through. It became an exercise in futility. So much so that I’ve actually dreaded dealing with this blog in general.

The solution was to upgrade to the latest version of MovableType. But that in an of itself was a dreaded thought. I put it off and put it off.

So yesterday I bit the bullet and did the upgrade. I had two pleasant surprises:

1. MovableType has changed their pricing model so that software for personal blogs is once again free. Cool! Though I admit, I would have gladly paid the reasonable fee that they asked for the software. It’s really great stuff.

2. It was an incredibly smooth upgrade! It didn’t live up to the anticipated dread levels at all!

So now I have a blog that should be much easier to manage in terms of Spam. Maybe I won’t dread it as much, and maybe I can start writing about cuisine again!

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