nosh nook #204 - friday, december 25, 2009

roadie food goes rock star (link)
12.24.09 - chicago tribune - by christopher borrelli

oh the foodie. although i despise the term & prefer to not refer to myself as one, since i love food & have a blog that largely focuses on snackable food & drink, i suppose i can't deny that i'm a foodie. that doesn't mean that you can call me that without painful repercussions though. over the past decade, we foodies have been largely responsible for changing the way many folks think about food. because of our fascinations with tacos & burgers & cupcakes & whatnot, normal everyday food has become more than a simple means of sustenance. it's become something to reflect & obsess upon, something to praise, something to spread the word about. 

thanks to foodies, over the last decade, the chicago food scene's gone through a transformation. as the chicago tribune's christopher borrelli explains, "the decade in casual dining in chicago was the story of casual dining this decade" & "food snobbery became democratic," as foodies helped turn unpretentious food into a "respectable, grown-up pursuit." in chicago, there's hot doug's, which turned the hot dog into haute cuisine & great lake, which just last month was called "the best pizza 'i have ever eaten in my entire life'" by peter meehan of the new york times. places like these & foodies' worship of them made it so that you could comfortably write about comfort food.

borrelli notes that because of the rise of foodies in chicago, "big, gushy, not-subtle deep-dish pizza began to lose its hold on chicago's imagination, replaced by thinner, artisan crusts from follia and spacca napoli and others, with seasonal toppings and chefs obsessed with flour." also, "a bar with cherry-wood ambience and an ambitious menu was now a 'gastropub.'" while gourmet magazine went out of business, lthforum.com became a major hub for chicago-area foodies. as we head on into 2010, i can only assume that changes like these will continue to come. after all, the economy's still in shambles & until that changes, glorifying five-star restaurants just won't have the same appeal as pointing out where the best tacos are. as a "foodie," that's just fine with me.