Refuse Thy Name

It was about a year ago that all this started. Messing about on blogger one evening I decided to start a photo blog. I quickly established that the only things I had to photograph were the contents of my fridge and cupboards and so Jam Faced was born, with tiny photos and big ideas. Since then the photo's have got bigger, the ideas, frankly, a great deal stupider. Over a year has flown by and I'm still here chugging away and a few weary souls read on, probably thinking, "When's this guy gonna post a damn recipe?".

One of the problems that I have faced over the year is what the hell do I call myself. I don't mean Monkey Gland, or Phillip (not my name) or Adolf (again, not my name), but how on earth do I describe what I do on this blog and more importantly, and even less tangible, what word actually describes our passion for food.

I have a problem with most of the nomclementure surrounding food. Let's take gourmet, for instance. How is something gourmet? I see gourmet sandwiches for sale and gourmet burgers and gourmet pizza. Does it simply mean more expensive? Or "we've stuck some lollo rosso in your cheese and pickle sandwich". Gourmet chef. I'd have thought that being a chef implies status enough, I mean if you work in a greasy spoon you're a cook, right? A gourmet chef is a chef who has to tell you he is cooking gourmet food, so rubbish, in my estimation. Even worse is the word gourmand, it just makes you sound like Mr Creosote. Gastronaut can fuck off back to the marketing mans wet dream that it came from.

Foodie. "Oh you're a bit of a foodie are you, ho, ho, ho". I'd love it if that last "ho" was cut off by the sound of one of my Global knives being stuck into speaker's solar plexus. It's like, having made a conscious decision to like my food, instead of pouring pig swill down my gullet like some deranged goose destined for a Frenchman's lunch box, I am somewhere between a vegetarian and someone who is into crystals or, in the minds of most of fellow male Englishman, probably just gay.

I'm not a food writer, no one's offered me any money for this crap. I'm certainly not a chef. Professional Eater? Nah, sounds like I work in a brothel. Food blogger, ok pretty accurate, but sounds terrible when you say it out loud, "Oh yeah, hi, yeah...I'm a food blogger". Stony silence. Most people at that point have an image of me trawling the web looking to groom underage butchers or bakers.

So, I don't really know how to come to any sort of conclusion on this issue. I suppose, I'll just nod and say, "Yes, I like cooking and eating" and leave it at that. Maybe by next year I'll have thought of a better name.