jugular vein - Foodie for thought
Jug Suraiya
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Fascinated by grub? You could end up losing weight
When we were kids we always seemed to be hungry. But perhaps because of that, anyone who seemed overly fond of food was called a `greedy guts', or in my native Kutchi, a `khaodro', a glutton.Times change. Today someone who obsesses about food is not called greedy guts, or a khaodro, or a glutton. The person is called a foodie. And the word is not a pejorative; it's a compliment.
This is because the nature, and purpose, of food has changed. Food is no longer just something with which to satisfy hunger. For the middle class at least, food has become a culinary art form.
Not everyone can become a cordon bleu chef. But everyone can become a foodie.
I've become a quasi-foodie myself, thanks to Bunny who's joined the Gurgaon Foodies Group, an online association of over 10,000 people who exchange notes, recipes, reviews, photos and general gupshup all to do with food.
Foodie groups have mushroomed all over, and it's become something of a cachet to say you belong to one. Being associated with a foodie group gives you a social ranking about on a par with belonging to a cine society which watches Lithuanian films with Serbian subtitles, and a notch or two higher than membership of the local Rotary Club.
So what exactly do foodies do? Well, they talk to each other about food and describe it and explain how it is cooked, or where it can be obtained from and what it costs. They try out new recipes and each time they make a dish they lovingly take photos of it from various angles to email to all their foodie friends, who meantime are busy taking pictures of the dish they've cooked and which they're putting out on the foodie grapevine.
The result of all this hyperactivity talking about food, trying out new recipes, photographing food and putting the images on the net leaves very little time for the actual eating of food.
Foodies are like the tourist who goes to the Taj Mahal and is so preoccupied taking snapshots of it, and posing against it in a variety of ways, that he clean forgets to actually see the wretched thing. Foodies are so busy yakking about food and fiddling about with it, and making sure that the piyazoos, or pasta, or whatever they've cooked is looking yummy in the pix, that they often forget to eat the stuff.
So one of the side benefits of being a foodie and freaking out about food is that you stand a fair chance of losing weight instead of gaining it.
So: Foodies of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your double chins.
This is because the nature, and purpose, of food has changed. Food is no longer just something with which to satisfy hunger. For the middle class at least, food has become a culinary art form.
Not everyone can become a cordon bleu chef. But everyone can become a foodie.
I've become a quasi-foodie myself, thanks to Bunny who's joined the Gurgaon Foodies Group, an online association of over 10,000 people who exchange notes, recipes, reviews, photos and general gupshup all to do with food.
Foodie groups have mushroomed all over, and it's become something of a cachet to say you belong to one. Being associated with a foodie group gives you a social ranking about on a par with belonging to a cine society which watches Lithuanian films with Serbian subtitles, and a notch or two higher than membership of the local Rotary Club.
So what exactly do foodies do? Well, they talk to each other about food and describe it and explain how it is cooked, or where it can be obtained from and what it costs. They try out new recipes and each time they make a dish they lovingly take photos of it from various angles to email to all their foodie friends, who meantime are busy taking pictures of the dish they've cooked and which they're putting out on the foodie grapevine.
The result of all this hyperactivity talking about food, trying out new recipes, photographing food and putting the images on the net leaves very little time for the actual eating of food.
Foodies are like the tourist who goes to the Taj Mahal and is so preoccupied taking snapshots of it, and posing against it in a variety of ways, that he clean forgets to actually see the wretched thing. Foodies are so busy yakking about food and fiddling about with it, and making sure that the piyazoos, or pasta, or whatever they've cooked is looking yummy in the pix, that they often forget to eat the stuff.
So one of the side benefits of being a foodie and freaking out about food is that you stand a fair chance of losing weight instead of gaining it.
So: Foodies of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your double chins.
