What's a foodie?

A lot of one word descriptors make way into our bios on twitter to give it a crisp and interesting look. A lot of times these words are generally copy pasted without any second thoughts given to them. They get popular and then as happens with any popular thing, get scrutinized and then mocked. Similar thing happened with the word foodie(Which should never be used to describe oneself in front of a Punjabi). Since I also wrote it in my twitter bio, I thought I’ll give my understanding of the word foodie. I don’t know how it is defined in the dictionary or what the more popular understanding of it is. The following is just what I think it means.

Let me first clear out what the term foodie definitely doesn't mean

1.       Foodie doesn't mean people who eat because everyone does.

2.       Foodie doesn't mean people who like eating because again everyone does.

3.       Foodie doesn't mean people who like eating a lot. They can be mostly called fat (Except the ones with extraordinary metabolism).

4.       Foodie doesn't mean people who blog, review or post articles about restaurants and food items. They would be called food bloggers, reviewers or journalists.

Obviously a lot of people who fall into above groups could also be foodies but none of the above points would be the reason for it. Foodie for me simply is a person who is excited at the prospect of having different kinds of food. Who goes out of his way to experience the variety in food and enjoys it too. A foodie is someone who doesn't go on holidays to crib about how he is not getting his regular dose of food. He is a person who doesn't go to Chennai to look for makhan wale aloo paranthes for breakfast cause that's what he always eats. He is a person who doesn't go to Kolkata and looks for vada pao because that is his comfort food. There is no comfort food for a foodie. Experimenting with his meals is what he loves. You’ll often hear him asking ‘What is the famous food here?’ or ‘What is the indigenous/local food here?’ And he will savour that taste because it will be different than what he has had at other places. Travelling is such an important part of being a foodie. And the food is as important part of travelling than anything else. If you go to a place and do not experience the local food and culture, did you really go to that place? You should be bringing back some of the memories and not just pictures for Facebook from a trip. And often it is not just about enjoying the new food but also being curious about them. It is about the origin and history of each dish. It is about the subtle varieties of those dishes. Why the sambhar of Bengaluru would be different from Chennai? Why the galouti kebabs in Lucknow are called Tundey Kebabs? Why Bengali people are crazy about their fish? Obviously there are a lot of posers who join a certain activity bandwagon cause it is hipster initially and then ironically contribute towards making it mainstream and thus ridiculed in the end. Foodie, in my opinion, is not a hobby or an activity that can be taken up. It is pretty much in nature of the person. Either he's like that or not.