Eat, Pray, Love response

I hate the label 'foodie'. Food is a source of contention; those who embrace it and 'foodie' culture are rosy-cheeked harbingers of joy, willing to glut themselves on delicacies and peasant fare alike, wholly different animals from the size 0 food-skeptics who walk like their joints need a serious oiling before they're bones pulverize themselves for lack of cushioning and fatty lubricant, who are in turn completely different from the mildly overweight, over-processed, white, bromulated, enriched, ultra-pasteurized, just add water (or milk for a richer flavor!) middle America.

Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love has been a staple of foodie lit since it was first published, before Julia Roberts and her giant mouth (appropriate for the foodie part, I guess) came onto the scene. I have avoided it since it's arrival on the bookselves, and, disregarding my abhorrence for Julia Roberts (seriously, the giant mouth REALLY bothers the hell out of me), haven't seen the movie because, ultimately, what's the big deal about food? Seriously. The entire non-Western world must be laughing at us, we boorish and fatuous loafs oohing and aahing at such old-world and commonplace cuisine as sardine-wrapped green olives, cherry tomatoes, and pecorino cheese. What should be normal for us, the freshness, the spontaneity, the personality, charm, quaintness and kitsch, we have to invent and assign to food. What I don't appreciate about Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love is that she treats the homegrown and deeply nurtured food culture of Italy as something to be gawked at and marveled, like her own very old man with enormous wings.

Given all that, this excerpt mentioned food only once. Incidentally, that sentence was my favorite out of the whole damn thing. I reread it three times, and reread "mushroom pate that tastes like a forest" about a million more times because that is exactly how I've always wanted to describe that deep, earthy, magical appeal that mushrooms have, but never did because, well, I never thought to compare mushrooms to their typical habitat. SILLY ME. The relationship Gilbert has with her sister is quaint, yes, and very affectionate and exceptional, I'm sure, but once I read that part about the food, the sausage and arugula and white wine, it went to the wayside, and I found myself caught up in exactly what I just spent an entire paragraph bitching about. But I haven't gone to Italy, I haven't gawked at the authenticity and realness of their food right in front of them as if it were some opera-caberet hybrid, getting all up in their faces and stupidly giddy about how truly Italian it all is. I don't do that to the people that make my favorite burgers, or whole-hog barbecue, American foods just as unique and exceptional and potentially life-changing as Italian italian food.

Gilbert's a fantastic writer though. She reads easily, and her prose is clean and consice without being dry. I guess that was the point I should have been trying to make in the first place...