In praise of food fandom

I learned the term “food culture” while listening in on a bunch of chefs. Lucky Peach, a candid new food magazine, had published a conversation, word for word, among top-chef buddies of its founder and pork bun crusader David Chang. They used the term in trying to make sense of what their profession had become, where the chef is now an icon, and gourmet groupies like myself devour their every word.

Food has no doubt taken a huge bite of the zeitgeist. We consume culinary culture like we do music, movies and the minutiae of the figures that inhabit those worlds. Chefs have become public figures through television. Besides fattening our gastronomic vocabulary, reality cooking competitions give us the drama behind the dishes and the fiery personalities behind the stoves. Of course, Anthony Bourdain, the author and travel host of No Reservations, has become the itinerant éminence grise of this insatiable movement, giving exploratory eating a certain cache and cool.

All the cult documentaries (Jiro Dreams of Sushi), magazines, and even comic books (created by Bourdain, no less) devoted to food show we’ve come a long way from cookbooks and cooking shows. Instead of just learning to make food, we’ve become so engrossed by what makes food and the people who make it.

That food culture has permeated other cultural spheres is proof of its current sexiness. While prepster fashion label Gant got the boys behind hip New York gastropub The Fat Radish to model their fall campaign, a show like True Blood is whetting viewers’ appetites between seasons with a book of “bites from Bon Temps.” Celebrities have been putting out cookbooks for a while now, but when you’ve got the bassist of “indie” band Grizzly Bear sharing recipes with fans, you know it isn’t just Gwyneth-glorifying moms who are spending time in the kitchen. The public interest in what personalities ingest is so intense that someone green-lit a cookbook from tired band Smash Mouth.  

Rad ramen: David Chang and his famous friends for GQ

Then again, even I think people want to know what I’m shoving down my gullet. I’ll admit it: I Instagram my meals. Yep, I’m one of those feast-halting, photo-filtering grub ‘grammers, albeit one conscious enough of the Asian reputation for doing this that I’ve become CIA-stealthy at it. I’m just not one of those higher beings who can eat in the moment; no, not when the moment involves my tongue’s travels in the name of palate expansion  and I’ll be damned if such a noble expedition isn’t documented. There was a time I avidly collected records and films but now, mementos of meals’ past are the ephemera I now accumulate.

You might have gotten yourself band merch on the way out of a rock show  this is the equivalent of that: I am a fan of food. One who’ll dissect a dumpling with his fork to try to determine what gave it its character, maybe guided by the info I’d Googled about its restaurant and chef. It’s not so different from getting into a song or film and analyzing it. Where the appreciation of music or movies has been cheapened by all the access the Internet gives us, the rise of food culture and the engagement it encourages  chancing upon “an amazing tapas place,” literally feeding others  gives us a richer means to relate who we are. When we’ve become so isolated in consuming media, there is at least greater social value and investment in sharing meals.

Fresh like spring chicken: Lucky Peach magazine, David Chang’s candid new food magazine

Considering we spend most of our lives on a screen these days, it’s no wonder we’ve come to praise something so primal. By mugging with our orders, we proclaim we’ve got urges and that we’re inclined to satisfying them. By reporting the new restaurants we’ve been to and ingredients we’ve discovered, we show that we like to try new things. By gushing about how good a dish is, we’re giving others proof that we’re living. If anything, I’m glad people out there are eating well.

So show me what you’ve had and tell me about what you’ve tried, folks  damned if I went through life not hungry for something.