New word: 'gastroporn'

[trof]

(I like 'gut-centricity', too.)

A Short History of the American Stomach

Author: Frederick Kaufman

Top TV celebrity chefs lick their fingers and glance coyly at the cameras even as they tantalize viewers with unattainable meals. The Food Network has 90 million enthusiastic viewers but if you ask Frederick Kaufman, professor of English at New York's City University, the shows are just another example of "gastroporn."

Because he locates the stomach as the center of outsized American idealism, Kaufman's probe is more ironic than it is literal, reveling in pointing out inconsistencies from the furthest extremes of eating. Where else but America would the sheer volume of ecofriendly vegetarian books destroy entire forests? What about those diet gurus who promote the live-forever diet and yet die young? And why do Three Cheese Pizza Bagels need to receive a seal of approval from kosher certifiers?

The best of Kaufman's reporting delves into the driving forces behind issues as broad as capitalism by considering, in detail, the throng of rabbis who inspect 13,000 grocery items produced in accordance with Jewish food laws.

At times, Kaufman appears to gloss over historical nuance, but this brief, chatty tour offers a fascinating interior view of the nation's gut-centricity.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0311/p14s01-bogn.html

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Interesting radio interview with the guy, too.

(the link on the page that you provided).

I'm not sure if I'm in agreement with the guy at a large level, but on a basic level, he's right that we have a dynsfunctional and odd attitude toward food in this country.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Sort of new

The first use of the word was recorded in an article in The Globe and Mail in January 17, 1985 by Joanne Kates in her article, “Fixing Food that's Picture Perfect”. For such a new word, its meaning has quickly evolved in two directions.

Wordspy detail the meaning as “the suggestive pictures and prose used to describe recipes in upscale cookbooks or menu items in fancy restaurants”. The examples provided are “succulent, mouth watering, tantalizing, tender and melt in your mouth”. I for one had never contemplated these words as provocative, merely descriptive. If I were ever to describe my wife in these terms to her face, the provocation would probably result in physical blows!

To convey the second meaning of Gastroporn, there is no better evocation than Richard Glover provides in the Sydney Morning Herald, in an article on July 13, 2002. He explains Gastroporn gets the juices flowing, suggesting that Playboy has gone and couples now sit in bed looking at the beautiful images of food in magazines such as Gourmet Traveler and Delicious, imagining the sensations of eating such delectable food. The suggestion is in the imagination of the food, not a sexualising of it.

That was in 2002. A seed had been sown, and a seed can take time to grow, given the fertile plains of a receptive ear. So in 2007, Gastroporn became mainstream. On January 16, 2007, in USA Today, Craig Wilson in his column Final Word reviewed a new book.

http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Food/In-Praise-of-Gastroporn.30841