This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 1:07 am and is filed under Gourmet Foods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I decided to write an article about “gourmet gift baskets” to promote by gift basket store. Imagine my surprise while researching the word “gourmet”, to find that it is not an adjective at all - but a noun!
The word “gourmet” was stolen from the French and is currently being incorrectly overused in the United States.
Gourmet (goor ma´, goor´ ma), n. a connoisseur of fine food and drink.
A close relative of “gourmet”, is “gourmand” takes the meaning a step further and is defined as “one who is fond of good eating, often to excess”
So, although we rampantly use the term “gourmet” to describe everything from gourmet chocolate to gourmet potato chips, its intended use is to describe the person, not the food or drink.
What causes us to characterize something as being “fine food and drink”? What is delicious to one person may not be to another. Perhaps it’s the use of the finest quality ingredients that allow us to make this claim. Or it could be attributed to the rarity or uniqueness of the food or drink.
Whatever the reason behind the claim of “gourmet”, it is apparent that it is a much sought after category for food and wine vendors today.
In my personal use of the term “gourmet”, I attribute it to something you wouldn’t necessarily have every day. A luxury if you may. Something akin to the sumptuous Grand Gourmet Gift Basket, loaded with delectable treats including olive spread, cheese spread, parmesan herb pita chips, Ghirardelli mint chocolates, Ghirardelli double chocolate-filled squares, Joseph Schmidt truffles, lemon breezes, Asiago cheese crackers, honey cinnamon cashews, smoked salmon, chocolate-covered Virginia peanut brittle, caramel popcorn, mint chocolate cookie joys, English toffee cookies, sparkling cider, chocolate almond orange biscotti, triple chocolate chip cookies, caramel walnut shortbread cookies and chocolate-covered pretzels.
Ultimately though, the thing that makes something “gourmet” is not the item itself, but the person who tastes it and decides it is truly a “fine food or drink”.