I think, like many movements, the "foodie" movement is a reaction to the kind of mass-consumer food that became prevalent over the last few decades. The kind of ho-hum average and entirely consistent food that you could get any season, with different stores staffed by different people thousands of miles away from each other. You can get practically the exact same meal in Winter in Boston as you can in Summer in Nevada. Want sushi from your local Mr. Tuna in Colorado? No problem!<p>It's interesting to revisit the chains that were popular when I was growing up, the ones that haven't really changed their decor or menus. The food tastes exactly like I remember it, and it's honestly terrible. But growing up I didn't know it was bad, all food everywhere basically tasted like this. It was either this or local mom & pop homestyle stuff...nothing special.<p>Looking back, I think I grew up at an intersection of two events: people were becoming affluent enough to eat something other than food cooked at home, and we had become so enamored with our ability to provide any season, hyper-consistent food that we never stopped to ask if it was a good idea.<p>Think about how many Chotchkie's-style casual dining restaurants there are, all virtually interchangeable from each other. Once you start to hit a number of locations in the hundreds, it's just inevitable.<p>I think foodie-ism is looking at this ossifying industry and finding it relatively easy to disrupt. It can get pretentious at times, with lists of all the locally sourced ingredients in the homemade ketchup, but it also means you can get good food for a change. It means that if you have 20 restaurants, you have 20 actual choices of places to eat and not groups of interchangeable taste-alikes.<p>Even in traditionally <i>very</i> manufactured food places, the burger joint, newer franchises like In-n-Out or Shake Shack, which actually artificially limit their expansion to ensure the kinds of ultra-high quality ingredients they use are available.<p>Honestly, if you like food at all, it's an awesome time to be alive, I have no idea how we made it through the 70's, 80's and 90's.