Foodies

You were waiting for it, and here it is. My first angry post.

When I meet people, I try and not throw out there right away that I cook and teach cooking for a living. Because bad things can happen. It brings out this monster in them... it brings out the foody in them.
In the last 10+ years Food Network and celebrity chefs have made cooking "cool". Thus creating the know-it-all, pretentious, irritating as fuck, "foody wannabe". You know who I'm talking about. The douche in the office that went to Canalis just because he could afford it, or the lady that had a cooking/wine pairing party.
Social networking sites, blogs, youtube, etc. have made it even worse. Now these idiots can take pictures of the stupid food they're so proud of, or blog their restaurant reviews. Anyone can do it... and this is my point.

Stop trying to sound cool because you "experienced a wonderful onion flan" over the weekend. Onion flan huh? Do you know what onion flan is? It's onion pudding. It's something that we come up with that costs us 15cents to make and that we can charge you 15 dollars to eat.

Don't try and describe a dish's flavor "savory" (unless you're actually talking about the herb)  or has "Asian flavors" (Asia is the biggest fucking continent on the planet with a shit-ton of different countries which all have different flavors and cooking methods! Do you think Indian food and Korean food taste the same? Dumbass.) . Do you know how dumb you sound? It's like if I were to describe a car. "Yeah, it's black, and it has four wheels. The engine is BIG. It has some horse power. It's an import."

Know what you're talking about. Don't pretend to know what you're talking about. More importantly I don't think most people care what you cooked for dinner and damn well really don't care to see a picture of it. "You made salmon last night?! AND you put it on a plate?! You took a picture?! Wow, there it is... a piece of salmon on a plate. Way to go." If I ever take a picture of a plate it's only so I have the memory of how to do it (or how awful it was, which I've done a few times for my entertainment). I won't post it to show everyone. Food has been around forever. Cooking has been around just about as long as food has. It's nothing new. It's like if I took a picture of the shit I took over the weekend like it was something special.

Look, don't get me wrong. I love that some people are proud what they've accomplished. That's great! Keep cooking! It's the people pretend they know something when they don't. More so I hate the people that think they're super cool because they cooked something and put it on a plate. Learn about food. Learn what you're talking about. Do it because you actually like it and not just try to impress people by it. Anyone can do it. It's not that hard. Why do you think I can do it?

I think it irritates me not because I do this for a living and people are wrong. A lot. I think it's more because people seem to be bragging about what they cooked, showing they can afford to go to the most expensive restaurants, or just pretending to have more knowledge than they do. People do it with other things too (film, music, beer, video games)... and it pisses me off.

It's just food, people. Sure there's an art to it. Sure you can be creative. Sure it can feed your soul and build wonderful memories. But remember it's just there to nourish your body and... it's just going to be shit tomorrow.