We've recently started posting Foodie related articles on the main Project Foodie webpage .  The most recent such article (Gourmet: A Defining Moment by Charles Nicholson) talks about when Charles had his first "gourmet" delicacy.  This got me thinking, what is the difference between being a gourmet and being a foodie?  I also got wondering if a person can be a Gourmet or is it that food is Gourmet and people are Foodies?  The most recent issue of Bon Appetite magazine celebrates the magazines 50th anniversary and refers to Foodies throughout not gourmets but this could be to keep the spotlight on their magazine and not on the actual Gourmet magazine. 

I think Charles aptly describes gourmet food.  I've certainly enjoyed many gourmet meals in the class he describes and I am looking forward to many more.  Yet after I finished reading the article I was left thinking something was lacking.   That is - the everyday enjoyment of food that I strive for.  Perhaps this is the difference between Gourmet and Foodie.  Gourmet is the exceptional (and expensive) whereas when one is a Foodie it is the desire to have enjoyable and delicious food everyday. Now if you can afford it and have the ability to remain thin and healthy no matter what you eat then go ahead and eat Gourmet everyday!  But for most of us eating Gourmet, at least as Charles describes it, is not an everyday experience.   So in my mind while I greatly enjoy eating Gourmet food I'm a Foodie and I don't always have to eat gourmet food in order to enjoy the food I eat... 

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