Achewood and Foodies

Skimming through the online lit and culture mag Salon, I happened upon a story about Achewood, an online comic strip by Chris Onstad: it’s pretty cool and once had 10 million monthly hits. Sadly, I guess, the strip is on “indefinite hiatus” for now (Onstad is taking a break to regenerate), so the characters like Roast Beef and Ray and the others living sort of as stuffed animals in a subterranean world are taking a break too.

“Achewater,” an old beverage that had hallucinogenic qualities similar to wormwood-steeped absinthe, was made by slaves in the southern United States using an ingredient called achewood, and it had some pretty nasty side effects which induced in the imbiber sadness and melancholy. Therein lies the ache.

Many of Onstad’s Achewood comics carry within them (often surreal and absurd) culinary references and allusions, if not outright primary themes: how about “SaniTaco!–the Safe, Fun Taco”? Or “The Mise en Place of Love”? Onstad, it is said, is a food and cooking aficionado and Achewood was irreverent, frequently crude and always funny. There’s even an Achewood Cookbook.

Salon ran a Q and A interview between correspondent James Norton and Onstad. The part of the interview that really caught my attention was the section in which the term “foodie” is discussed. Norton ostensibly used the term in an earlier piece of writing in the same article he used Onstad’s name–and that pissed him off. Later, in the Q and A interview, Norton asks him about it. I cite Onstad’s response to Norton’s question about why he doesn’t like the word, below:

The first time I ever heard a friend say it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, my gut twisted, and I felt angry for some reason. Why do we need this fake new word? There are so many words that already describe the concept of people who like food, or enjoy cooking, or enjoy knowing about cooking. “Foodie”: It’s like the infantile diminutive — you put a “y” on the end of everything to make it childlike. We don’t need it. It’s embarrassing. “I’m a foodie.” Oh my God.

Onstad has captured the rank amateurism and trivialization that represents all that’s wrong with this silly word, in my opinion. I hate it. It is middle-brow, simple-minded and reductive. People blurt it out and bandy it about without really thinking of what they are saying, or what they are meaning. It’s made up for nothing and signifies nothing. One online “urban” dictionary even defines the term as “a douchebag who likes food.” That, to me, is entirely justified.

The irony of it–and without being too serious–is that amidst what we are looking for as “real food” in an increasingly processed and fake society we’ve also got this dullard-of-a-word that has gained way too much of a foothold. So let’s stop it, as Onstand says.

I hope Achewood returns … and I hope the ridiculous “foodies”–the word and the people–disappear for good. That’s not elitist; it’s just sensible.