Recently, a friend asked me if I was a foodie, a question which caught me thinking quite a while for an accurate response. “Well, I used to be” was the only thing I could think of. Reflecting back on that answer, I found myself questioning what and how I eat and how that differs from what one many think of when they think of a foodie.

Typically your average culinary fan tends to place a high value on taste and other palate-based pleasures. Different tastes and cuisines are prized and much is made of importance of the finest ingredients. Star chefs, award-winning cookbooks, and the finest tools become things to live for. But, I like food. I like to eat good food. What makes me feel that I am different that this? I pondered this and came to the conclusion that perspective was key.

I first began to list some of the things that irked me about the epicurean community. First was the tremendous financial waste that comes from eating out so often. It seems to me, at least from the short time that I have been living in NYC, that at some point, some people are working long hours simply to be able to afford eating at the finest that New York has to offer. Even with the perverse notion that donating a dollar on your bill to help offset hunger is actually doing something significant, the amount of money being spent on food is obscene. The next thing on my list was the rise of terroir for things such as balsamic vinegar and salt. At some point, huge increases in cost begin to bring diminishing returns in taste. In other words, the difference between a 6$ bottle of balsamic and a 100$ is relatively small and the 6$ one is going to taste pretty good too. I also began to look at who is the braintrust behind this culture and why they are at the top. Braintrust in this case seems to be a misnomer since so much of the leadership is much more a palate posse than anything else. The people with the best, most refined and adventurous tastebuds are the literal tastemakers. Tapas, fusion, New American are all things dreamed up in kitchens by people with admittedly spectacular aptitudes for sussing out what the world wants to eat. But in a cost-is-no-object-taste-is-king world, ideas seem to be left behind. Batali is not interested in getting you to consider the origins of his meal, and Vongerichten will stay out of your business if you only care about savoring a great meal and not about eating for a better world. Sure, Alice Waters and others have done quite a bit about increasing our awareness of local produce and its importance (among many other wonderful things that she is now promoting), but the hero in this case is still Alice Waters and not the local farmer. That’s when it hit me that food without thought is Heretical.

The term for heretic in the Talmud is Apikoros, a derivant of Epicurus the philosopher and his followers. While in current usage the term epicure denotes one who enjoys sense pleasures, especially food and drink, one needs to look back at the roots of his philosophy to see the connection. Epicurus believed that Good and Bad are ultimately derivative of Pleasure and Pain because death is the end and reward and punishment are in the hands of humanity not the divine (I am simplifying here, for a fuller explanation read any history of philosophy or wikipedia). The result of this pleasure-seeking (and pain-avoiding) is a moral life. The Talmudists who saw this philosophy realized that this above any other philosophies contained true heresy not because he denied the existence of a divine (he did not), or because he placed reward and punishment into our own hands (in some way, Judaism believes that we control our ultimate destiny as well). Rather, it was the faulty assumption that because something feels good then it is moral, and if it is painful it is not. Placing things in this context was remarkably shortsighted and did not account for anything beyond the sensory. The Rabbis understood that everything happens in a context and that sometimes things which seem to be negative and hurtful are in fact not immoral. Adultery, for example may actually be very pleasing to you, but is quite damaging to the other parties in question. It is for this reason that Epicurus unwittingly lent his name to what we now use as a standard word for heretic.

It is remarkable then, that the culinary community often refers to themselves as epicures. So much of the culture is focused on food as an end in and of itself without so much as a pause to think of the people who actually made it (I assure you that if you buy a meal at any restaurant that has a famous chef, the food was entirely prepared by underpaid line cooks) or grew it, or how this meal will affect the world. Nor are there any thoughts directed at how any given food will make you a better person by giving you the strength to do good. I am not saying that there are no people like this who eat at fine restaurants and shop at Williams-Sonoma. What I am saying is that foodie culture tends towards that mentality.

I remember looking forward to trips to New York because I could get world class food that happened to be Kosher. I remember my first recipes that involved more than 2 steps and 4 ingredients. What was missing from them at the time was an appreciation for what I was doing and eating. Brachot on the food were perfunctory at best and often missed. 24 oz. steaks were better because they were well, BIGGER. God was nowhere to be found in the kitchen. I began to feel lonely. I wanted to cook and eat with others, and those others were the farmers, the animals that gave themselves for the meal, and yes, I wanted to cook with God. All of a sudden my kitchen was filled. I began to understand my wacky former neighbor who used to sing at the top of his lungs every friday while he cooked and baked for Shabbat. I began to sing too. And that is why I am no longer a foodie.