Attitude-Free, Equal-Opportunity Gourmet

When I ran across a recent ABC story, “A Love of Wine … and Football,” on New Jersey wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk and his desire to bring more vino to the masses—while simultaneously neutralizing the industry sector’s renowned snobbishness—I was drawn to it for a number of reasons. First of all, the second and third words of the article were “Wayne’s World” (I live just down the road from Aurora, IL and was a big fan of the “excellent” SNL segments and films…). And then Vaynerchuk goes on to state that, in deference to the standard wine sensory lexicon, if a wine “tastes like Big League Chew to me, then that’s what it’s going to be.”

Such everyman-style dissemination of high culinary concepts could ably see more play across the food board as more high-end components find their way into chain-level restaurants and retail outlets. Just because a food has intrinsically higher quality and “better” flavor than what the general public has grown accustomed to doesn’t mean that it also has to come at them with a highfalutin, possibly pedantic attitude (although that approach works for some people…). In a number of markets, beurre blanc can just as easily be butter sauce and aïoli might have more-widespread appeal as garlic mayo.

Now, I’m certainly not recommending that we toss traditional nomenclature aside and unilaterally get with the times, so to speak, but when appealing to some demographics—including a good number of younger potential customers—a lack of culinary sophistication doesn’t necessarily preclude them from enjoying the finer things in life. Of course, that quality certainly calls for a slightly higher price, but toss in an “environmentally friendly” this and a “sustainable” that, and you’re already more than halfway there…