Food is capable of generating both casual ambivalence and deep wonder. This twinned effect is central to understanding how the act of eating well has been incorporated into regimes of luxury experience, premised upon certain recuperative claims against the world. We can trace a kind of “high-foodie culture” at work on the South African eating scene.
This concept limns a certain kind of pleasure-focused, eating-centred romanticism that is distinct from traditional fine dining, with its roots in a nouvelle cuisine-esque Euro-Continentalist value structure. High-foodie culture values eating as a technique for living well. It sees food as a means of securing an exclusive well-being premised on authenticity.
The idea is that, in seeking out authentic food experiences, we might find a panacea for the anxieties of “modern living”. In this regard, high-foodie culture is on the same mood board as artisanal bread, reified alcohol trends (gin, recently), beard grooming, gym regimens, skin regimens, magazines without articles in them, Nazi-nostalgia hairstyles on men, the glorifying of stay-at-home womanhood, retro-look Smeg appliances, specialist-knowledge podcasts and influencers who embrace faux pastoral living. This article is particularised to the Cape Winelands because the area has been leading the charge to be declared the foodie capital of the country.
In the recent Eat Out restaurant guide that celebrated 51 of South Africa’s top eateries, 39 were in the Western Cape. .