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Another word loses its once robust flavor

The Associated Press

A loaf of bread may be handmade or well-crafted, but that doesn't mean it should have Artisan on the label.

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By JEFF HOUCK

jhouck@tampatrib.com

Published: October 30, 2009

Updated: 10/30/2009 09:12 pm

Ihad a piece of artisanal cheese the other day. Earlier that morning, I ate some delicious artisanal bacon. Later in the week, I considered buying a loaf of whole-grain bread at a bakery.

Did I mention it was artisanal bread?

Well, I should have. Because I want you to be impressed.

Once an adjective that had meaning, artisanal these days is an amorphous buzzword that represents a rejection of processed grub. Food lovers who throw the word around want you to think they mean "handmade" or "well-crafted" or "food that isn't squeezed through an extruder into a whizlike form."

My guess is that what they really want you to know is that they can afford food with "artisanal" in the name. Think of it as verbal bling.

Foodies lately have fallen in love with the concept of artisanal. They went steady a few years back with the word "epicurean" but decided to just be friends. Foodie is just cuter. And a better dancer, I hear.

Foodie is another word that grates. There's something exclusionary and clubby about it. "Foodie is the girl that was mean to me in high school," author Kathleen Flinn told me. "It makes me cringe all over, in places I didn't know I could cringe."

Don't even ask about "culinarian," which sounds like a bouncer at an expensive cookbook library who never lets anyone check out a book.

Unhappy with that phrase - maybe it sounded too much like a board game - food zealots invented the word "locavore" to describe someone who patronizes local farmers as a way of reducing the transportation impact on the environment. I, of course, break the loca off the vore. What can I say? The Spanish female-familiar form of crazy is hard to resist.

As for artisan, I visualize an old woman named Giuseppina weaving rugs on a loom in the Italian countryside. I don't think of a Sargento cheese stick I can buy at the grocery. Artisanal has become so overused that anything associated with it is immediately diluted.

A few people I know use it correctly. Carrie Oliver, owner of The Oliver Ranch Co. online beef supplier (oliverranch .com), does a tour of tastings across the country under the umbrella of the Artisan Beef Institute. Her goal: to sell beef that supports cattle ranchers who use best practices to produce more flavorful and more humanely harvested product.

"Like all labels, (artisan) is now being co-opted and watered down," Oliver told me.

Two and a half years ago, artisan wasn't on the tip of everyone's tongue. It was one of the reasons I was attracted to the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. In my mind, bread making should have an artisan's authenticity.

"There's a whole different awareness of food now," Francois told me last week. "When the book came out, people were going back and understanding food in a whole new way." Now, food giants such as General Foods bring in chefs to help them make products that fit that mold.

Then there's the quality issue. As Ed Levine wrote earlier this year on the Serious Eats blog, "It's high time we realize good intentions and responsible stewardship, and even passion, are not by themselves enough when it comes to making great artisanal food."

I copied and pasted that with my own two hands. I guess that's artisanal.

Reporter Jeff Houck can be reached at (813) 259-7324.

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