Foodies, mind your own damn business

“You shouldn’t be eating meat here, this is Essaouira!” proclaimed the dismissive voice outside the restaurant where we were taking to the owner about his food. We had been discussing the local beef, having tasted a fantastic, perfectly-cooked, saignant (rare) piece at his restaurant in the heart of Essaouira, Morocco. The indifferent voice was a French visitor, who along with another late-fifties English man were checking out the restaurant’s menu. They both we’re clearly ‘foodies’, but clearly clueless as to why we had ordered a steak at the restaurant – not that this was any of their business.

The visitor’s point was, of course, that with all this lovely seafood chugging into the port of Essaouira via the local fishing fleet, you shouldn’t order meat, with the implication that there is something ‘wrong’ with what I did, even though the beef is raised in the area. It’s a ridiculous argument, especially if you’ve visited the markets in the town and seen the local beef and lamb at the huge number of butchers. It’s fresh, it’s local and it’s organic – purely because it roams free with a little guidance in the fields along the coast. “They even go into the sea near my house!”, said the restaurant owner.

As we had been in the restaurant earlier in the evening having some drinks, we had seen how popular the beef was, especially with French guests. As we were writing about restaurants in the town, we thought we’d try what was popular on the menu. Besides, not everyone can and do eat seafood and we were reviewing the place. So apart from a quest to finish an exploration of lamb tagine, this was the only meat dish we ate the whole time we were in Essaouira. If you’ve been in Morocco for more than a couple of weeks, the endless mezze, cous-cous and tagine becomes a little repetitive as well and French food is a welcome respite. Even French bistro and brasserie staples, which generally bore me to death unless I’m famished and in Paris!

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago in Barcelona. We had gone back to one of our favourite restaurants from our last trip there a few months ago. A friend had told us that the front-of-house staff had completely changed since our last visit and that they weren’t sure that the place was still as good. It wasn’t and the talented chef was also struggling with a full house of foodies in town for a conference. A dish of venison (cooked rare) arrived the table. It had been sitting, inexplicably, on a bench for at least five minutes and as the plates were stone cold, so was the food. We asked for it to be just heated a little (something we’re loathed to do) and the predictable happened, they we’re both dry when they came back to the table. The chef came to speak to us and he apologized and offered to re-fire the dish or any other dish that we wanted from the menu. We told him that it wasn’t his fault and that the staff had left our plates sitting because they were swamped. No problem – and the staff lifted their game after that. The re-fired dishes were perfect and the chef came out to check if it was okay, even though he knew it would be. For us, we don’t think any less of the chef’s cooking.

As the meal wound down a table of food industry types who had been eaves-dropping on our conversations with the chef were leaving the restaurant. One of them, a quite tipsy Australian, appeared to be a little astounded that we had asked for a dish to be re-fired – after all these chefs are god-like! He leaned in to me and asked if I was Australian. I lied and said I was English, in my best BBC announcer accent. As he drunkenly left he shook his head and said, “it’s really a shame you didn’t enjoy the food”.

I was gob-smacked. There was no time to tell him that this was one of our favourite chefs in Barcelona. That it was our second meal here in several months. He was gone before I could tell him that it’s okay to send back cold food. There was barely a second in which I could tell him that just because you’re a foodie, this doesn’t translate to me being automatically interested in your opinion, especially when it’s not asked for.

On the flipside, at another restaurant in Barcelona, a couple of diners asked us who we were writing for and what we thought of the food. We then chatted about the food scene in Barcelona and as they were residents of the city gave us a thorough run down on what was happening and gave us some great tips that we later followed up. We love it when that happens. Sometimes it’s the key that opens a dozen doors.

While it’s great to see more people interested in food, food culture and criticism, there is a real snobbery or elitism about the growing number of people with extensive food knowledge. But seriously, if I really want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Thanks.