Muse #15: Faux Foodies
Are you a foodie? Chopsticks will tell.
Joe Regular is proud of the fact that he can eat his cold noodles in sesame sauce with chopsticks. Makes him feel connected to Asian culture, suggests that he is a man of the world, and perhaps most importantly, gives him “permission” to think of himself as a foodie.
The only problem is, he’s far from it. He knows little about Asian culture. Has few worldly credentials. And most definitely is not a foodie. That much became crystal clear when he referred to himself as such, but stumbled badly when asked, “So what’s your favorite tasting menu?” To which he responded: “I didn’t know you could eat a menu.”
Traumatized, Joe decides to attend an open house meeting of his local FFA chapter (Faux Foodies Anonymous) when he sees that they are advertising a free Taylor ham and egg sandwich for everyone who attends.
“Hi! I’m Leth — nice to meet y’all,” says the meeting’s effeminate leader. “I’ve been coming to FFA meetings for two whole years now, and it’s been aaa-maaay-zing! I now know where Belarus is on a map. I no longer assume that everyone with an accent I don’t recognize is a threat to society or should be a greeter at Walmart! And — get this — I’m eating to live, not living to eat. So I’ve come a loooooong way. So long story short, I’m now leading the group!”
“What am I doing here?” Joe thinks to himself with dread.
“So let’s get to know one another, shall we?” says Leth as he holds up a pair of chopsticks. “I have here a pair of chopsticks. Did you know that these have been around since at least 1200 B.C.? In fact, the first known chopsticks were used by Chinese cooks to reach deep into boiling pots of oil … so we’re gonna use them to reach deep into your anxieties about being a foodie imposter. We’ll pass them around; when they come to you, let it out! Tell us something about yourself that will help us understand why you’re here. Liddy, let’s start with you …”
Liddy takes hold of the chopsticks, lifts them into the air as if to harness their magic power, then swallows hard and begins: “My name is Liddy and I’m a faux foodie. I’ve tried so so hard fit … so hard. Just hasn’t worked. When a waiter told me there’s a croque monsieur on the menu when dining with friends, I shouted out, ‘Does that mean some guy’s going to die?’ When everyone started laughing, I wanted to hide under the table. My then-boyfriend mocked me further: ‘What’s next? Asking where’s my amuse-douche?’ It was so humiliating.”
Then her demeanor turns even more melancholy as she chokes back tears. “I tried educating myself, I really did. I can’t tell you how many episodes of the Great British Bake Off I’ve seen. But instead of it bringing me joy and enlightenment, it thrusts me into a tailspin of depression. What the ‘f is ganache? So much ganache. I’m such a loser!”
Leth interrupts: “No, Liddy, you’re not a loser. Those are foo-foo recipes for foo foos.
Tears start rolling down her face. “I wish I could just buy Kraft Singles and be left alone. But I can’t, I just can’t. It feels so, well, wrong side of the tracks.
“Maybe we should pass the sticks to Wilbur,” says Leth, “and see what he has to say.”
“It’s so hard to be a foodie when your name is Wilbur,” he says, grasping the chopsticks. “I know it’s not reasonable, but that’s how it is. Yes, I like food. I have strong opinions about restaurants. I’ve been to a lot of them. I can rank them. I know how to game Resy and Open Table to get the reservations I want. But goddammit, I find myself wanting to try this, and wanting to eat that, and when I finally get what I want I consume it so fast it’s as if I were a Dyson vacuum cleaner sucked into a habit of longing and not living.” Wilbur is growing more agitated by the minute, his veins bulging from his neck. “What the hell! What’s it all about! I don’t want to be a gastro-intellectual. I want to be me!”
With that, Wilbur grabs his Taylor Ham and Cheese and violently thrusts it into his mouth, sending shards of egg flying across his face, much to the shock of the group. Benevolently, a woman reaches over and takes the chopsticks from his hand to release him from their grip. She raises the chopsticks high in the air.
“You think ‘Wilbur’ is bad… my name is Truffles! Everyone just assumes I’m a foodie! Take a five-dollar plate of fries and put truffles on it, and it’s fifteen dollars. Put truffles on your ziti, and now it’s a fifty-dollar zeetee. Don’t get me wrong: I like truffles. But to be intimately associated with an overpriced fungus is fucked up!”
“Why don’t you just change your name?” Leth asks.
“I was named after my grandma Tuber,” she says. “It would be bad karma to disrespect her.”
“I see,” says Leth. “So how ‘bout you, Joe? What’s your journey been like?”
Joe swallows hard. Raises the chopsticks. Pauses to get his thoughts in order. Then says this:
“Hi, my name is Joe, and yes, I’m a faux foodie. Ever see a Labrador drooling in the presence of a steak … or just about anything, for that matter? Does that make it a foodie? Ever see a cat refuse to eat a salmon-coated macaroni because it wasn’t cooked al dente? Does that make it a foodie? Ever see a pig sniff out truffles?”
Truffles interjects: “I resent that question.”
“Sorry,” Joe offers.
“What’s your point?” asks Leth.
“My point is, all animals — every one of them — like to eat. So I guess you could say, we’re all foodies. I applaud those who aspire to be a citizen of the world … to experiencing other cultures through their cuisines … to getting fat on fun. But at the end of the day, what makes you a foodie is if you’re preoccupied with food, and that’s just not me.”
“That’s very healthy,” says Leth. “You’re making great progress. What’s one thing that you are passionate about?”
“Well, double-ply toilet paper would be right up there.”
As the rest of the room sat in silence contemplating what he had just said, Joe was reminded how he sucked at making impassioned speeches on topics he couldn’t articulate very well, if at all.
“Well, this has been a great FFA meeting so far,” says Leth. “And now it’s going to get even better because I have a very special guest: the Michelin Man!”
“Hi, I’m Michelin Man and I’m a faux foodie,” says the guy who enters the room with a tire around his waist. “I like to give out Michelin stars, but who am I to say what is or isn’t a great restaurant? I make tires.”
After a lengthy discussion on the relation between proper pounds per square inch (PSI) for your tires and proper pounds per square inch for your body weight (BMI), the meeting is adjourned.