I got an e-mail from my daughter the other day announcing she had started her own food blog (www.petredishes.blogspot.com). She was inspired, in part, by her friend Jennifer who recently started her own food blog (http://jnjtable fortwo.blogspot.com).

According to Google there are approximately 20.4 million food blogs active on the Internet. The recent hit movie Julie and Julia was the story of a young woman who became famous writing a food blog.

Writing personal thoughts about food is just one of the new manifestations of what is sometimes referred to as the “foodie” craze. Not only are people blogging about food, they are watching television programs about food. The Food Network remains wildly popular both in this country and internationally.

I have found myself in several conversations recently where people were discussing “the cake show” with all the same passion and emotional intensity usually reserved for a sporting event or political debate. Once simply a source of sustenance, today food, the people who grow it, and those who cook it are taking on the status of celebrities.

Celebrity chefs are not new. Men and woman who are especially good at cooking and arranging food have always been popular. Some wrote cookbooks, some had television shows, and far more just had reputations in their families or communities. But for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, cooking food at home was out.

Home economics classes in schools were dropped and an entire generation grew up with no real cooking knowledge. Commodity checkoff programs had to design and distribute recipes because so few people knew how to cook a pot roast or fry a chicken leg. While it is true that today there are many young people who are far more comfortable with a game controller in their hand than a spatula, there is a growing segment of young adults who are fascinated with preparing food.

While the local, slow and organic food movements are part of this trend, the overall interest in food is much broader and encompasses a number of cultural and ethnic influences. There is also a bit of culinary snobbery involved. Certain foods are popular, not because they taste good, but because they are strange, exotic and newly rediscovered by some celebrity chef. For foodies, food is as much about entertainment as it is about providing sustenance. A foodie may cook up a creative and delicious multi-course meal for friends one night and then have Spam and Diet Coke the next night while writing about the previous night’s dinner on his blog.
Not only are food preparers achieving celebrity status, but now food producers are getting some notice. According to an article in Crain’s Chicago Business, “Farmers are a hot commodity; outdoorsy and nurturing is the new sexy profession.”

The article tells the story of Jim Slama, a Wisconsin poultry farmer, who was having dinner in a stylish Chicago restaurant that served his chickens:

“There was kind of a buzz in the room. It was like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a farmer over there,” said the restaurant owner. “What I’m finding is, the quote-unquote sexy rock stars are the new farmers,” says Mike Sands, executive director of the Liberty Prairie Foundation at Prairie Crossing, a conservation community in Grayslake, Ill. with 100 acres of certified organic farmland. “Strong hands,” says Hazel Lezondra, 37, of Clarendon Hills, Ill., while visiting the Green City Market in mid-October. “And strong, veiny arms. I find that sexy.”
If all of this sounds a bit silly, it is. There is definitely a silly side to this foodies craze. At a recent food festival in Indianapolis, there was an entire program about musical instruments made from vegetables.

But for the men and woman who are producing the high-priced, specialized, food products for this niche market, it is serious business.

Yet, the food fad is not going to be the mainstay of the U.S. agricultural system. Low cost, high quality commodity food production will still feed the majority of this nation and much of the rest of the world. There is nothing wrong with having fun with food, and appreciating those who produce it is long overdue.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.