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Food

What It Means to Be a Real Foodie

Foodie poseurs are coming out of the woodwork these days talking a big game about the nuances of food. It's more than just a word on your Facebook profile or the way you pronounce prosciutto.
Foto von Phil Roeder via Flickr

I am such a Foodie. Ever since I can remember, I've always loved putting edible things into my mouth and chewing them, then swallowing and digesting them. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Check out my blog if you don't believe me. That's where I document my extraordinary journey as a Foodie, and where you'll see photos of all different kinds of food inside my mouth.

People sometimes tell me they can't make out what they're looking at. Well, I'll tell you what you're looking at—the early stages of my body metabolizing sustenance into nutrients, that's what.

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A big part of being a Foodie is knowing how to get food into your mouth. A non-Foodie would probably just scream out "Fork!" right now and be done with it. Don't get me wrong, I use forks. I love forks. But I also might decide to go with a spoon depending on how liquidy the food is, or chopsticks depending on how Asian-y it is, or hands depending on how banana-y it is.

I try to not be one of those Foodies who judges other people for not knowing the things I know, but when I see someone trying to eat a sandwich with a ladle, it's hard.

People have accused me of jumping on the Foodie bandwagon. They're like, "I never heard you talk about napkins before they became a thing." Yeah, I'll admit to being a little influenced by all the hype. I'm human. But truthfully, napkins have been a major part of my Foodie regimen for years now, I just haven't felt the need to brag about it.

Foodie poseurs are coming out of the woodwork these days talking a big game about the nuances of food and how they can totally pinpoint when something they're eating is sweet or salty or even hot or cold. But you can totally hear in their voices that it's all guesswork. Crunchy? Really? Because that looks a hell of a lot like a yogurt, so let's cut the Foodie act, shall we?

I'm well aware that being a foodie comes with a responsibility to share my knowledge with others. That's why I feel compelled to write restaurant reviews on the Internet. Here's a quote from a recent review I wrote for a local place near my house. "Mmmmm."

When I'm not writing about food, one of my favorite Foodie things to do is head over to the farmer's market on a Saturday and jam my tote with as much beautiful local farm crap as it can hold, then walk home and throw it all right into the garbage. All of it. I call that Support and Release. Just my little way of illustrating that a Foodie's responsibility is far greater than simply eating.

In the end, being a Foodie is more than just a word on your Facebook profile or the way you pronounce prosciutto. It's also a word on your Twitter profile and the way you pronounce Doritos.

This post previously appeared on MUNCHIES in May, 2014.