I once asked a very dear friend what made him think of himself as a ‘foodie’. He replied that for him being a foodie was about the ‘overall experience of eating a meal’. He saw my puzzlement and added: ‘It is about revelling in what makes a meal something memorable, from the process of selecting the ingredients and where they were sourced to preparation and the taste, texture and presentation’.
It proved a wake up call. Because while I have always enjoyed and taken a lead role at home in cooking simple meals for the family, I cannot honestly say I had ‘revelled’ in the process even though I did try to buy organic and showed interest in basic cuts of meat and fish, for instance.
Foodies are different: they talk what they eat. Nonstop. A foodie is on a constant journey, discussing, explaining, and passing on knowledge about herbs and vegetables, poultry, pork, cod, flavour… every bite and the why’s, what’s and where’s are an experience.
Beyond love for good food, foodies also are passionate about caring. Not just about what’s in season or where the food is coming from, but also about taking responsibility for the way food is grown, bred and treated.
Welcome to Professional Secrets, by the way. It’s the site for foodies cut from the same cloth - the side towel, of course! And in case you didn’t know, the side towel is the probably the single most important tool in a chef’s arsenal, ask any foodie.
