Given that the word foodologist and the term foodology are being bandied around somewhat (by me especially), I decided that I would explain my meaning of the word, how it relates to me and my site.
I feel that this is important because as catchy as the term is, defining the term will help to define the site and give something of a personality to way things are done at least here at ‘The Foodologist’.
A couple of definitions from the New Oxford Dictionary of English:
Food is defined as ‘any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life or growth’. Its origin is from the late Old English fÅda and is of Germanic origin related to fodder.
-ology is defined as ‘a subject of study; a branch of knowledge’ and its derivative -ologist, a noun which describes ‘one who studies a subject or branch of knowledge’. Its origin is from the French -logie or Medieval Latin - logia which originates from the Greek Logos meaning ‘word; reason’.
So what then is a Foodologist?
A Foodologist by definition, is ‘one who studies a subject or a branch of knowledge pertaining to any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life or growth’.
One must also take into consideration its Greek origin Logos which is defined as ‘word or reason’ and in modern terms is most commonly associated with theology with the ‘word of God’. So one must also consider the importance of discourse as well when defining the word Foodology or Foodologist. Another point to consider is again with regards to its Greek origin is that the term Logos also refers to ‘reason’. With this in mind one would think that the Foodologist is one who looks at the subject of food in a reasoned way, with logical thought processes and rational thought. One could compare this with the definition of Gastronomy. The word gastronomy is derived from the greek ‘nomos’ meaning rule and ‘gaster’ referring to the digestive tract and was elegantly defined by Brillat-Savarin in 1825 as the ‘intelligent knowledge of whatever concerns mans nourishment’.
In a paper discussing the distinction between cuisine and gastronomy, Pascal Ory states that whilst the ‘interests of the cook and the gastronome are identical, the former is promoted to the status of artist, the latter is raised to the level of a critic of art’. Therefore the gastronome can be seen as a critic of food or as one who participates in a discourse or discussion about food in an intelligent and thoughtful way. To borrow and adapt from Brillat-Savarin, ‘Animals feed themselves; men eat; only gastronomes know the art of eating’. Gastronomy can therefore be seen as an all encompassing subject involving the intelligent knowledge and discourse of food and beverage which touches on all aspects of our society including art, business, religion, social status, science, philosophy and of course cuisine. Cuisine, on the other hand merely concerns the practical aspects of cooking.
The most important distinction between the two is that gastronomy is intimately implicated with intelligent discourse on food. Ory goes on further to say that ‘the gastronome, in his most evolved form is not a professional cook, he is a man of letters’ and that the gastronome is ultimately ‘not the one who knows the most but the one who speaks the best’. Ory also demonstrated the differentiation between gastronomy and cuisine with Talleyrands dictum that ‘after one sampled a fine wine with the eye, ear and nose, the next step was not to drink it but to “speak of itâ€â€™.
The distinction between the gastronome and the foodologist then is that the foodologist is concerned primarily with the food itself and gastronomy as we have seen is an all encompassing subject. Therefore foodology would be considered a subset of the subject of gastronomy in much the same way the cardiology is a subset of the subject of medicine. In the same way, a gastronome would certainly be able to call theselves a foodologist too but a foodologist would not necessarily be a gastronome.
These are my initial thoughts on the subject and I hope that they are reflected in the way that I present my work on this site.
I look forward to bringing more subject matter from ‘The Foodologist’ to you all and I hope that you find here something that is interesting, throught provoking and informative.
Yours in food,
Doc-G
