Who Was the Foodie?
November 25, 2025 at 12:48AMFor The Yale Review, Alicia Kennedy wonders where all the foodies have gone, those, that in addition to sharing recipes and photos, advocate for ethical and sustainable food. She points to two recent books that aim to round up “the foodie troops and bringing rigor and research back to the fore.” When it comes to taking pleasure in food and engaging in the politics around sourcing and preparation, Kennedy has plenty of room on her plate for both.
Perhaps the foodie has become imperiled by the transformation of so many of our meals, snacks, and grocery hauls into mere fodder for social media. Preparing, serving, and eating food is now too often only a prelude to posting: the dimly lit dinner party featuring a mountain of whipped butter beside sourdough bread, the Saturday breakfast with an espresso cup placed just so upon the salmon newsprint of the Financial Times, a sun-drenched spread of shellfish on a trip to Lisbon—all in service to the almighty god of content. Being a foodie is no longer about experience and knowledge. Documentation is in; expertise is out, even if we can all cite Bourdain explaining that Sichuan food with Coke is the best way to cure a hangover.
The problem isn’t just about the domination of food culture by internet aesthetics. Instead, it’s about the way food enthusiasts use those aesthetics to curate away complexity and discomfort, leaving food systems unchallenged and food culture shallow. If all you want is a nice meal on the table, you don’t have to think about the overworked and underpaid farmworkers who made it possible. If you want pop history or recipes, you can gorge on them. This may all be perfectly pleasant. But what’s been lost in the process is the foodie’s potential power as both tastemaker and advocate.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/11/24/who-was-the-foodie/
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