Generation Foodie: Our changing epicurean nation
(CBS News) Millions of Americans appear to be caught up in a feeding frenzy. They're not just cooking food and eating food - they're TALKING food, almost non-stop . . . barely pausing to take a bite. Our Cover Story is reported now by Lee Cowan:
When celebrated chef Wolfgang Puck renovated his famous Spago restaurant in Beverly Hills. there was a buzz I didn't quite get.
Don't get me wrong. I love a good restaurant - but I'm by no means a Foodie. In fact, I clam up when I'm expected to talk about food in any intelligent manner beyond "Mmmmmm."
Chef Puck endured my lack of food sophistication with a smile, as he tried to explain why everyone ELSE, it seems, is talking about, blogging about, even Instagramming their food.
"Today, people really know about food," he said. "They read about food, they see it on television, they know what good quality is. All of a sudden now, food and wine has become one of the premiere conversation pieces."
And the reason has little to do with what's in your refrigerator. He says it's your cable box where it all changed. "Television made such a big impact of the way we eat in America today. I mean, it has changed the whole climate of eating totally, and for the better."
When Julia Child took to the airwaves, it seemed cooking shows appealed more to the golf and opera crowd.
Now, food is cool - even edgy.
It's as much about pop culture as popovers - a frenzy driven by social media.
Everybody, Puck says, is now a restaurant critic. "So if you mess up a meal today, you can see maybe 200, 300 people know it already before I go to sleep, because this guy or this woman Tweeted to all their friends."
"Do you think we're becoming a bit food obsessed?" Cowan asked.
"Oh, absolutely!" he laughed.
Krista Simmons is a freelance writer and food blogger - part of the Food Mafia, as she calls it - who sought out a hipster coffee hangout in the industrial section of Los Angeles to chat.
"I feel like foodie-ism has hit a critical mass in the past five, ten years," she told Cowan. "It's been said many times, but I'll say it again, food really is the new rock." And the new groupies are Foodies like her.
The food landscape of today, she explains, is as much about social experience as it is sustenance.
"When you come into a place and you know the story behind whatever it is you're eating and you know the story behind the chef and you're in this really kind of cool space and you get to chit-chat with people around you, it really is about an experience and a feeling, more than an actual thing itself," Simmons said.
That seems especially true of young Generaiton Y-ers, whose social lives increasingly revolve around eating out over anything else.
"I will probably spend $150 on a tasting menu before I'd go and spend $150 on the Rolling Stones reunion tour," said Simmons. "And I'm not alone in that sentiment. Actually, I really love the Stones, I shouldn't say that!"
OK, eating out comes before ALMOST anything else.
Either way, what makes the perfect dish can still be a bit mysterious - much like the people who spend their lives in search of that secret for a living.
"I think the more people think about what they're eating, the better," said Jonathan Gold, food critic for the L.A. Times. He says he needs to keep his anonymity so he doesn't get preferential treatment by chefs.
His bylines are Bible for some. He's the first and only food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. And what he's noticed more than anything in the last few years is, good food is where you find it.
"I think that there is a recognition that the best food isn't necessarily what you're going to get at the white tablecloth restaurant," Gold said.
Case in point: Food trucks that have driven into the hearts of foodies everywhere (if you've got a Twitter account to find them).
Farmer's markets are as crowded as they've ever been, driven in part by the First Lady, who's made her Vegetable Garden as recognizable as the Rose Garden.
Even the WAY we eat has changed. The days of one big entrée, says Puck, have gone the way of the Appletini.
"I think people are so much more adventurous, especially the younger people," Puck said. "You know, they are more adventurous. They want different flavors, a lot of excitement and different bites to eat, instead of having one big plate."
Whatever your food passion, I've learned this: Like chatting about the newest iPhone or the latest YouTube sensation, if you're not at least conversant about food these days, you'll find yourself eating dessert alone.
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