Is the era of the Foodiot over?

Never has a piece of stock photography so succinctly summed up a turn of phrase.

Is the end of cupcake trend a bellwether for larger shifts in the cultural culinary landscape? There sure is one weed that could use some plucking:  the "Foodiot". Coined around 2009,

they’re foodies who tweet/blog/brag about everything they’ve eaten, whether it’s a pork croquette at Gramercy Tavern or a freaking Hot Pocket.

I'll be the first to admit, I can be a bit of a foodiot, but I'd like to think my formal training in culinary arts, my science-focused approach to health and nutrition, and scorn for stupid food trends keep me more in the more mature, established "foodie" camp. But, the invisible hand of the market seems to think there is still gold to be mined in them thar foodiots…

It's an interesting time for pasty 'round these parts, a fact somewhat bemoaned by wonderfully feisty and talented baker Allison Robicelli of Robicelli's Bakery in Bay Ridge. When Crumbs was left to die, Robicelli quickly derided the media for the "morbid" and "tasteless" glee with which we rejoiced the "end of the cupcake," in a fantastic letter to First We Feast. She also addressed the frustration around being tasked to constantly innovate, often for no other reason than innovation for innovation's sake. "We're not being asked to make good food—we're being asked to churn out gimmicks," Robicelli lamented. "Which makes the rash of cupcake hatred all the more ironic." Remember chicken wing cupcakes?
Now, inspired by—or perhaps provoked by—her frustrations, Robicelli and crew have dubbed this the Jump The Shark Summer at the bakery, a not-at-all-disguised ribbing of the intense food media hype propagated by, well, everyone. Each week the bakery will create a new, "viral" confection specifically designed to elicit the hyperventilation surrounding ironic or oddball Frankenfoods.

Foodiot mating call

I guess "foodiot" is a term of derision, as the press release addresses "foodies" to be polite, but it's kinda obvious the terms are being used interchangeably…

That’s right foodies, and the significant others who grudgingly get dragged along with them! We are dedicating every weekend this summer to getting even MORE intense. There will be no “wow, this cake is really delicious exactly how it is!” Oh HELL no! Why settle for just plain ol’cake, when we can hybridize it with a whole bunch of things. Maybe with make the cake with duck fat, stuff it inside a doughnut, deep fry the f*** out of it, then coat it in some sort of bacon Sriracha and locally-foraged mango glaze, or some equally intense stuff. Then you put it online with the caption “WANT OMFG (drool) (dead)”. 

This is what we in the industry call “whimsy”. And we want you all to whimsy so hard that your junk falls off.

Foodiots are addicted to whimsy, indeed. When people struggle for years in therapy to find out the causes of their deepest fears then find them (EGGS FTW), more often than not the fear melts away. Will the whimsy melt away once it's exposed for what it really is?  Robicelli is clearly trying to lay bare what foodiotism  is at it's core: bored dumb people trying to one-up each other by discovering & heartily embracing something even more new and extreme, ideally with sophisticated ingredients decontextualized ironically or hi/lo cultural references to score cool points in social media.

Foodiots & Manic Pixie Dream Girls: addicted to whimsy.

Bacon is the ur-Foodiot food. I like bacon. When I rode a bicycle through the Western United States on secondary roads, I took great pleasure in noting the subtle differences between each diner's bacon from town to town, where in NYC all the bacon served in greasy spoons are pretty homogeneous. A hearty breakfast without bacon is kind of a drag. However….

…serving your breakfast in a bowl made of bacon is just foodiocy. Everything can NOT be made better with bacon, more bacon or replacing it with bacon. Like it's two main flavors, salt and smoke, it is a support player that improves the whole team, but it has way too few dimensions to be the WHOLE team.

Foodiotism is an arms race that perhaps started with the twee fetishization of the cupcake in the late 90s, and in the competition to find the next cupcake, different foods entered and exited the limelight, influenced by things like the Great Recession of '08/'09. Hotdogs and pizzas didn't just explode for a while because they were delicious, they garnered a new level of fetishization because they were (mostly) cheap. And it's not a coincidence that with a newly recovering economy, a food as bougy as a cronut could grab the attention of so many.

The rising popularity of competitive eating was an extreme side-show of foodiotism. I remember a few years ago as counter-programming to the Superbowl, a channel showed a high-level eating competition that featured, among other things, bowls of mayo and bull testicles. Bringing the competition of pro-wrestling production values to the "enjoyment" of "crazy" foods reeks of foodiotism.

Ha ha look at them eat all the hotdawgz. So kewl.

Lately, summer 2014, the bleeding edge of foodiotism seems to be turning in on itself. National chains like 7/11, Dennys and Dairy Queen and invading the gilded walls of New York City. Most foodies are mourning the pleasant lack of faceless chains of low-quality diner food and slushies that are ubiquitously and homogeneously making everywhere from New Jersey to Colorado a bit samey, but the Foodiots….well, many Foodiots think it's RAD.

Along side the invasion of chains found in the midwest, the food of the midwest has become a legitimate trend in NYC restaurants the past few years. Fried casserole on a stick for all! While I welcome the later trend in fusing some traditional dishes from the middle of the country in our fancy-shmancy NOO YAWK CITEE?! restaurants, I do not welcome the corporate crap of DQ or Dennys. If you know the difference, you're a foodie. If you equate the two, your a foodiot (or alternately, innocently long for your midwestern childhood. Keep it real in the hizzay.)

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2869

Funny how in my mind I thought I ate well this week but the weekly average is surprisingly high. Maybe it has to do with the strong cycling, good lift and stronger bike commute every day? I guess next week's weigh in will be my weathervane in how to approach it, with a carrot, stick or otherwise.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2740

SLEPT: 11pm-5am, 6 hrs

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, falafel, spit pea & ham soup, health salad, pickles, 885 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox nut mix , 330 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, broiled flounder, sautéed mushroom and onion, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 615 cal

Forgot to get asparagus, and the market on the way home had none, so picked up some simple mushrooms and an onion. Forgot how nice this is, with a bit of coconut oil, worchestchire and chili powder.

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, homemade popcorn, +/- 300 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2925

SLEPT: 9pm-4am, 12:30-1:30pm  8 hrs
Did let it loose a little too much in the evening, but this is the most limited, controlled sugar gorge I've ever experienced. Funny how f'ing up actually has given me a sense of how far I've come. Just needed a little comfort.

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, vanilla and almonds, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:45pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, mushroom curry,  pickles, 620 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox seed mix , 230 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, shiritaki noodles with shrimp and shitaki mushrooms,  roasted brussel sprouts, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 665 cal

EVENING GORGE: 8pm, peanut butter & chocolate syrup, a little cherry sorbet, 3 chocolate chocolate-chip cookies, +/- 800 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2590

SLEPT: 12:15am-4am, 3.75 hrs
Those cookies did not help me sleep.

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12 noon, adobo chicken breast, roasted brussels, quinoa,  pickles, 650 cal 

PM SNACK: 1:15, bad hamburger, chips, water, +/- 350 cal
Popped in on my daughter's day camp for a "BBQ", was fun to be with my girl but my god, the cafeteria burger is just as I remember it from when I was a kid. Looking at what the kids were eating: bad burger on white buns, bad hot dogs on white buns, water melon, potato chips, it's all just sugar sugar sugar and scary crap. Made me feel bad, gonna have to think it through. Maybe I should pack my daughter's lunches from now on.

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox popcorn , 230 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 170 cal

DINNER: 8pm, Subway 6" veggie burger, diet coke, 580 cal
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BIKE CREDIT: 750 cal
THURSDAY COUNT: 3460

SLEPT: 9pm-3am, 6 hrs
Good ride this morning, numbers slightly better than last week, and last week's numbers were the best since when I started recording the numbers on this ride in 1999. Fell off in the afternoon, just need a pressure release valve, hard day at work and the morning ride had revved up my appetite for carbs, I think. Not gonna beat myself up. Out for a nice dinner with a friend I don't see nearly enough.

AM SNACK: 3:15am, granola bar, iced green tea, 150mg caffeine, 325 cal

BIKE SNACK: 4:45am, granola bar, 325 cal

BREAKFAST: 8am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, vanilla and almonds, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, chicken sausage, roasted broccoli, black beans,  pickles, 610 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox chips , 170 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 170 cal

ICE CREAM GORGE: 5:15pm, 5 free ice cream novelties, +/- 1000 cal

DINNER: 7pm, artisanal grilled riccota & heirloom tomato pizza, chocolate cake with scorched marshmallow fluff, water, +/- 1000 cal
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FRIDAY COUNT: 2630

SLEPT: 10pm-2am, 3:45-5:45am, 6 hrs
Good eating day, help by a 7pm bedtime to get ready for a long ride on Saturday.

AM SNACK: 2:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:15am, Fruit smoothie, 500 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, almond butter and grape jelly on whole wheat, roasted brussels,  pickles, 660 cal 

PM SNACK: 4 pm, momma salad, cheezits , 310 cal

DINNER: 5:15pm, hot dog, fries, ice cream, +/- 1000 cal