#GuacGate: Have foodies lost the plot?

Have “foodies” lost the plot? It would seem at face value the answer is yes.

That is, if we judge based on public response to an innocuous New York Times guacamole recipe posted earlier this week.

Add green peas to your guacamole. Trust us. http://t.co/7imMY9c2ph pic.twitter.com/oeOMt2qgmh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 1, 2015

This reposted recipe (it was posted on the site in 2013), was not only utterly unshocking, it was merely one of over 17,000 such NYT recipes innocently living in their Cooking section.

Yet here’s what happened.

@nytimes Possibly the worst food advice ever.

— David Saleh Rauf (@davidSrauf) July 1, 2015

@nytimes please delete this

— Lindsey Adler (@Lahlahlindsey) July 1, 2015

People have been saying for years that the NYT is unreliable, but I never believed them until this moment http://t.co/Y6vmpwHC5x #NYTCooking

— Chris (@MixingChris) July 1, 2015

Just because adding peas to your guacamole doesn't taste bad, doesn't mean you should do it. Have some respect for yourselves.

— Carrie Raisler (@TVandDinners) July 1, 2015

And this.

It's things like this that make me incapable of trust (and therefore incapable of love). https://t.co/KuRkRTzMyY

— Isaac Fitzgerald (@IsaacFitzgerald) July 1, 2015

.@nytimes rot in hell you bastards

— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) July 1, 2015

And, hilariously (personal favourite) this.

In light of the peas/guac debate, I BELIEVE that means we are due for a pair of farm animals to escape.

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) July 1, 2015

And frighteningly, even crap like this:

If you put peas in my guac I will literally stab you and no that is not an overreaction

— Scaachi Koul (@Scaachi) July 2, 2015

And then this.

respect the nyt, but not buying peas in guac. onions, garlic, hot peppers. classic. https://t.co/MEEI8QHH1V

— President Obama (@POTUS) July 1, 2015

You don't put peas in guacamole https://t.co/kG3ewrVv6f

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) July 1, 2015

Good lord, even this.

The @nytimes declared war on Texas when they suggested adding green peas to guacamole. http://t.co/EDTqbzzsyE pic.twitter.com/FHjTvCaNj7

— Texas GOP (@TexasGOP) July 1, 2015

I’d stand to wager that there are probably more guacamole recipe variations than almost anything other on the Internet. No, I didn’t bother to check that claim, because, frankly, those would be precious moments of my life lost. And that’s kind of the point: the vicious backlash and endless media attention means that someone has clearly lost the plot.

The question (if you’ve actually read this far) is: who?

To me the biggest is question is why, with access to the finest food writers and chefs in the country (and arguably world), NYT would even bother to (re)-promote such a page. If humous is the go-to lazy person potluck snack, guacamole is easily the second most overmade, over-fusioned, generally, over-dinner-partied dish in the US & Canada.

Now, perhaps that‘s a statement about foodies (run out of ideas much?).

Though to me, the real fallout of #GuacGate is threefold. Each point is depressing enough to make me want to drown my sorrows in a gallon of habanero-laced peadip.

1. Social media is a scourge upon humanity. “Foodies” really never existed anyway.

While most news articles seemed to label this a “foodie” fight, closer analysis reveals that most commentators are the type who comment on everything. Quickly. Without looking. On Twitter.

Even closer analysis reveals that most who lept into the (nonexistant) fracas felt compelled to call themselves “foodies” in their Twitter bios. Yet closer closer analysis reveals that, wait, 99.9 % of people on Twitter are “foodies'” according to their Twitter bios. Odd exceptions include the bios of those who, you know, actually cook, serve, grow, or research food for a living.

So if social media has made us immune to the impact of profanity, foodie is officially the new f-word.

2. #GuacamoleGate is snapshot of our modern “news” landscape.

A quick perusal of the #GG headlines shows: a) it was a slow news day, b) lots of pun-obsessed editors still have (ostensibly) paying jobs, c) news outlets have become a caricature of ideologies. Witness:

3. Two decades of creative brilliance is worth less than a sloppy repost

It’s struck me that the one person least discussed in all of this #GG madness is its very auteur, the one and only Jean-Georges Vongerichten. If and when he’s mentioned, it’s in the last graph of these stories, though often not at all. Tweets? Forget it! Which, you know, wouldn’t be a big deal if he wasn’t the single most significant, if not revolutionary, chef in the world’s restaurant capital for nearly two decades.

So, I suppose, we love to scream at each other more than even look at recipe, much less try it, much less learn about its very source. Via a quick media monitoring search, I discovered that two days of guacamole shattered decades worth of Vongerichten media mentions.

Personally, I’m happy for him: he’s long escaped overseas, where it must be said, most Twitterers and newspapers seemed to resist the hashtag allure of GuacGate. I’m just sad for the generation who will now forever grow up knowing this legendary human as Guy Who Tried To Make Pea Guacomole And Failed.

—-

At this point, I’m tempted to go revert back to my turn of the century ways, and an old proclivity to over-make an equally great party dip, then new to Westerners: hummous. Unlike guac, it’s always been open to change.