Riffling through the pages of David Kamp’s new book, The Food Snob’s Dictionary, we are reminded that food snobbery isn’t just for the well-heeled; we know a lot of scrubs who are just as snobby about their meals. Well, you can’t get anything by Kamp, so he’s sent us two Snob Dictionary addenda, exclusive to Grub Street. “The entries,” Kamp says, “fall into the Reverse Chic category of Food Snobbery, which is not heavily represented in the book (with the exceptions of entries for sliders, banh mi, and Asian street food).”
Mexican Coke South-of-the-border version of classic American soft drink. Fetishized by Food Snobs, who otherwise would not devote much attention to Coca Cola, because it is sweetened with cane sugar, unlike its American counterpart, which is made with high-fructose corn syrup, the villain of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Like the Rock Snob who prefers vinyl to MP3s because the older format allegedly offers a “warmer” sound, the Food Snob favors Mexican Coke for its more “authentic” flavor.
Pitmaster Honorific seldom heard of or understood outside of fairgrounds in the American South and Midwest until the early-21st-century incursion of wood-smoked barbecue into incongruous urban settings. Now, a new breed of Barbecue Snob pays close attention to pitmaster lineage when determining the worthiness of new, ersatz-rustic ‘cue shacks. I don’t like the idea of schlepping to some no-hope section of Midwood, but hey, the pitmaster is a protégé of Paul Kirk’s.
Kamp reminds us that the book’s Website, Snobsite, offers plenty of food-snob fun, including a link readers can use to abuse the author.
