Why isn't everyone a foodie?

A high school friend of mine recently visited me up here in what I like to call "No Man's Land". We were trying to figure out where to meet up for dinner in the midst of bad cell phone reception. After I made a suggestion, he suddenly stopped cold.

"I'm sorry," He said. "I must have misunderstood. Did you just say Hardee's?!!!"

We both had a good laugh over that one. He knew he had heard wrong, well.. because, in his own words: "No offense.....But you're kinda a food snob."

No offense taken.

My friends - especially the ones I grew up with - often ask me how exactly how I, of all people, became so interested in food. My parents, for the most part, didn't cook anything that didn't come from a can or a box. To this day my mother has the eating habits of a three-year-old. ("I don't like anything green. I won't try black beans. I have to color code my M&M's before I eat them.") Years after college I didn't know the difference between dice and mince. I spent a hefty amount of time and money in those post college years eating at chains or going through drive-thrus. I remember a specific weekend where literally every meal was eaten out - the same thought that now makes me cringe and wonder how my body ever put up with that and still managed fine blood sugars and in range A1C's.

It started off slowly, being intrigued by an Alton Brown show that happened to be on at work one day. Huh. That doesn't seem so hard.....

I bought a copy of "Saveur". I'm not really sure why... maybe I liked the pictures. I remember not having a clue what half the words meant. But I was engrossed.

I got married and moved to a city where fast food wasn't readily available or affordable to us. My husband, at the time, would starve if left to his own devices. I guess necessity is the mother of invention.

Once I started cooking I discovered I actually really liked it. It was fun, and creative, and useful. Even when you messed up, it was usually salvageable - or it made for a really good story (like the time I dumped soup on my head).

What I don't understand now is - how is everyone NOT a foodie? Why do people not take any interest in what they put in their mouths?

Is it simply a consequence of being too far removed from our food's origins? Are people so used to lackluster, tasteless produce that they are ok with eating it, well, because you have to eat something?

People often giggle at me when I go crazy after tasting something really, really special. "OHMYGODTHISISSOGOODYOUHAVETOTASTEITRIGHTNOWISN'TITDELICIOUS??"
It goes something like that. They taste it. They give an obligatory nod. "Yup. It's good." Meanwhile, they are internally rolling their eyes and thinking, "For God's sake, it's only a tomato."

GOOD???? Good doesn't even begin to describe it. For some reason, I crave that the person I'm sharing this AMAZING food with appreciate it for the manna that it is. I feel like they are missing something. Something vital.

Someone suggested to me once that I may be what is known as a "super taster". I honestly don't think that's true. I can't tell the difference between cabernet and zinfandel in just one sip. I don't always know a swiss from a gouda. All I know is that they are both delicious.

The most vibrant colors and smells in this world are in real, fresh, unadulterated food. Heirloom tomatoes in August in every color of the rainbow, shiny and imperfectly shaped. The sweet smell of a real, ripe peach picked that morning and it's soft coating of fuzz. The sharp smell of basil that overpowers everything. The grey clumps of sea salt, complete with it's crunch and the way it miraculously brings out the flavor of any food it's on, so you practically don't even notice the saltiness itself.

Seriously, people, how do you not see the beauty in that? How is it possible to walk through farmer's markets without getting excited?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying everyone has to enjoy cooking. Or be a world-class chef. I'm still very much a novice in that department. You don't have to be a farmer, or even a gardener - I kill anything I attempt to plant.

I can't even find the words to say what I'm really trying to get at. In a stream of conciousness thing, it's - how, in that instant of eating a sun ripened purple cherokee tomato, do you not roll back your head, become completely absorbed into your own sensations, enjoy that moment of bliss, and become connected in some way to that land it came from, to the history of that tomato, to the eons of people that have eaten such tomatoes, and be insanely grateful to the farmer that grew it, the God that created it, the sustenance that it gives, the life that it sustains in you....

I just can't understand the apathetic, "Yeah. It's a good tomato." :)