Gourmet

Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or "haute cuisine". The term and its associated practices may have negative connotations of elitism or snobbery, but is often used positively to describe people of refined taste and passion.

Person

The term "gourmet" may refer to a person with refined or discriminating taste or to one that is knowledgeable in the art of food and food preparation. [cite news|url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/26/features/author.php|publisher=International Herald Tribune|title=In Arizona back country, a gourmet life|author=Charles McGrath|date=January 26, 2007] "Gourmand" carries additional connotations of one who simply enjoys food in great quantities. An "epicure" is similar to a gourmet, but the word may sometimes carry overtones of excessive refinement.

Food

"Gourmet" may describe a class of restaurant, cuisine, meal or ingredient of high quality, of special presentation, or high sophistication. In the United States, a 1980s gourmet food movement evolved from a long-term division between elitist (or "gourmet") tastes and a populist aversion to fancy foods. [cite book|title=The United States of Arugula:How We Became a Gourmet Nation|publisher=Doubleday Broadway|date=2006] Gourmet is an industry classification for high-quality premium foods in the United States. In the 2000s, there has been an accelerating increase in the American gourmet market, due in part to rising income, globalization of taste, and health and nutrition concerns. [cite web|url=http://www.packagedfacts.com/Gourmet-Specialty-Foods-1087756/|title=The U.S. Market for Gourmet and Specialty Foods and Beverages|publisher=Packaged Facts|date=September, 2005] Individual food and beverage categories, such as coffee, are often divided between a standard and a "gourmet" sub-market. [cite news|publisher=ABC News|url=http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=4559623&page=1|title=From McMuffins to McLattes:McDonald's Chases Gourmet Coffee Market, Plans Massive Restaurant Upgrade|authors=Vicki Mabrey and Deborah Apton|date=March 31, 2008]

Gourmet pursuits

Certain events such as wine tastings cater to people who consider themselves gourmets and foodies. Television programs (such as those on the Food Network) and publications such as "Gourmet" magazine often serve gourmets with food columns and features. Gourmet tourism is a niche industry catering to people who travel to food or wine tastings, restaurants, or food production regions for leisure. [cite book|title=Niche Tourism: Contemporary Issues, Trends and Cases|author=Marina Novelli|date= 2004|publisher=Butterworth-Heinemann] [cite web|url=http://www.chow.com/grinder/tag/travel+industry+association+of+america|title=Tour Buses on the Horizon|author=Christy Harrison|publisher=Travel Industry Association of America|date=March 7, 2007]

Origin of term

The word "gourmet" is from the French term for a wine broker or "taste-vin" employed by a wine dealer. [Cotgrave's French-English dictionary of 1611, quoted by Jean-Louis Flandrin, whose chapter "Distinction Through Taste", in "A History of Private Life: Passions of the Renaissance" ((Belknap Press, Harvard University) 1989:289-92, "Gluttons and Epicures", traces the significance of these French terms in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.] "Friand" was the reputable name for a connoisseur of delicious things that were not eaten primarily for nourishment: "A good gourmet", wrote the conservative eighteenth-century "Dictionnaire de Trévoux", employing this original sense, "must have "le goût friand", or a refined palate. In the eighteenth century, "gourmet" and "gourmand" carried disreputable connotations of gluttony, which only "gourmand" has retained. "Gourmet" was rendered respectable by Grimod de la Reynière, whose "Almanach des Gourmands", essentially the first restaurant guide, appeared in Paris from 1803 to 1812. Previously, even the liberal "Encyclopédie" offered a moralising tone in its entry "Gourmandise", defined as "refined and uncontrolled love of good food", employing reproving illustrations that contrasted the frugal ancient Spartans and Romans of the Republic with the decadent luxury of Sybaris. The Jesuits' "Dictionnaire de Trévoux" took the "Encyclopédistes" to task, reminding its readers that "gourmandise" was one of the Seven Deadly Sins.Fact|date=April 2008

Related concepts

"Foodie" is often used by the media as a conversational synonym for "gourmet", although it is a different concept (that of a food aficionado). The word "foodie" was coined synchronously by Gael Greene in the magazine "New York" and by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, co-authors of "The Official Foodie Handbook" (1984).

References