November 18, 2009

Do you have koodies?

What sounds like an old childhood insult — cooties — has become a — sort of — compliment aimed at kids.
koodie - noun Slang. A kid keenly interested in food, especially eating, cooking or watching reruns of Julia Child. A kid who has an ardent or refined interest in food; a mini-gourmet; usually trained by one or both parents to have an unusual, and sometimes fanatic, desire to eat unusual foods. Evolution from the now defunct word “foodie”.
Or should that be a kid who's been spending too much time around (possibly very annoying) adults and, if he should happen to enter the company of young persons, will experience ordinary social life as something more complicated than "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"?

No takes.

Actually, the books discussed at the link seem to be more about getting kids to be more adventurous in eating new foods and not to prefer packaged/junk food. That's all very nice, but it's not so much refinement. Kids shouldn't be picky eaters. And these koodies sound like a new kind of picky.

25 comments:

vbspurs said...

Are these the kids who bring Sushi Maki bento boxes during school lunch hour? Pretentious gits.

TosaGuy said...

Sounds like the next entry for Stuff White People Like.

ricpic said...

Food obsessed kids. A sure sign of decadence. Next stop, France.

Steven said...

"Foodie" is a defunct word? Boy, am I out of touch.

Triangle Man said...

Pretentious gits.


Can you translate git, and possibly give some idea of its origins? I searched and could only find "rotter" or "someone worthy of contempt", but that hardly explains anything.

"Triangle Man is a git", while possibly true, might not shed any additional light on the subject.

Also, good to see you back in the comments.

Scott said...

"Evolution from the now defunct word “foodie”."

Oh really. Is there some national institution that arbitrarily decides when cliches become defunct?

Koodie huh. When I was in grade school, they were just called picky eaters. My friend Paul's diet didn't range far from peanut butter sandwiches made with Wonder Bread. He grew up to be a born-again Christian, which just goes to show you.

AllenS said...

When I was a kid, I'd get woodies when I thought about onion rings. True story.

vbspurs said...

Git. Ooh, difficult to put into words. It's like the American "dumbass". I don't know the etymology, Triangle Man (nice to see you too!), but I think it's a corruption of the word "get". They often don't, if you see my meaning.

wv: reascal! Dirty Reascals.

Cheers,
Victoria

MadisonMan said...

Do I have koodies? No. I have kids who eat what I put in front of them, sometimes grumblingly, sometimes enthusiastically.

And I don't think I'll be buying the cookbook My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus: Raising Children Who Love to Eat Everything because I don't cook Octopus, or Everything, and I suspect the author of the cookbook feels some sense of failure when she makes her kid a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese, and who needs that?

Scott said...

When I was a kid, Baby Ruth bars were ten cents.

Fred4Pres said...

That is like Andrew Sullivan trying to sell "Christianist"

Foodies work at any age. Koodies, not so much.

Fred4Pres said...

Kids who take sushi bento boxes to school are pretentious gits.

Kids who can catch a fresh blue fin tuna and then slice off prime toro sushi or sashimi with their own personal high end chef knives? Now that is cool.

Scott said...

@Fred4Pres: I wonder what Andrew Sullivan has been ingesting lately. His expression of hatred for Palin these days borders on the psychotic. It's as if he was a jilted lover or something. (But "What Andrew Eats" is sort of OT so I apologize for even mentioning it.)

Triangle Man said...

@Victoria

Thanks.

I dragged myself all the way over to oed.com to learn that the first appearance of "git" in writing was H. Pinter's Caretaker "Who was this git to come up and give me orders?"

OED defines it as "a worthless person".

Scott said...

Git along, little doggies.

Scott said...

Sushi is bad. Who wants to give their kids nasty intestinal parasites?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Sushi is bad. Who wants to give their kids nasty intestinal parasites

Sushi is not always raw fish. People always get this confused. Sashimi is raw tuna. Many types of sushi are with made with cooked items or even are vegetarian.

As to kids. I'm with MM. They eat what they are served and junk food is something that they either never get or it is a rare occaisional item.

There is nothing wrong, however, with teaching kids about food, cooking and introducing them to different cuisines. Just don't create little obnoxious snobs.

Anne Freedman said...

I would take the existence of that word with a grain of salt (kosher salt, of course, not the dread iodized kind)

Scott said...

@DBQ: I stand corrected. I guess one could fee kids California Rolls with surimi and avocado every day with no ill effects.

@non-Althouse Anne: I don't think the iodine in iodized salt makes it non-Kosher. Rather, Kosher salt is formed in little flakes rather than granules, which makes it cling to meat better, and thus more efficient for drawing out the blood. Taste-wise, I can't tell the difference between the two.

Unknown said...

My wife and I went on a cruise a couple of years ago with her two favorite nephews (14 and 13). We got them to try strawberry bisque and escargot and felt the achievement was as if we'd climbed Everest.

They wouldn't do either of them again, but they're a little more willing to try something besides McDougall's.

That's probably as good as it should be. Kids should be allowed to be kids.

Synova said...

I thought that "git" referred to offspring. Such as "get" refers to offspring.

So sort of like bastard, only different.

"Koodie" sounds stupid.

And while I recall Julia Child (and was utterly impressed that we sort of shared a name) and "The Fruge" and later on Yan Can Cook... kids now watch Alton Brown!

Mine watch recorded reruns of "Good Eats" and "Myth Busters" more than anything else on television.

(Yes, of course they are *odd*... they are my children!)

Jennifer said...

Some kids take sushi for lunch because it's utterly normal, run of the mill food for their families. We weren't all raised on mashed potatos and pot roasts. Actually, my kids see mashed potatos as some big special treat they have to get on the outside but they've been eating octopus since they were little.

This conversation so far: be white or be pretentious. Lame.

Also lame? Trying to make your kids into foodies. As long as my kids will try anything once, I don't really care if their favorites are chicken nuggets or fancy pants whatever.

Simon Kenton said...

"Kids who can catch a fresh blue fin tuna and then slice off prime toro sushi or sashimi with their own personal high end chef knives? Now that is cool."

Fred4pres, it may be cool, but it would get the child reprobatified and expelled for a year. It's sometimes amazing beyond words to me that these cretins claim to specialize in education, and we believe them and let them take money.

>>>>>>

When she was about 9 my daughter was helping cut up a moose on the dining room table when my giant son brought in one of his giant buddies. Giant buddy turned green looking at the butchery mass of hindquarter. He gulped, "I've never really done this kind of thing, before." She handed him a big big knife (politely, handle first) and said, "Then it's time you learned." I thought that was cool.

Shanna said...

Actually, the books discussed at the link seem to be more about getting kids to be more adventurous in eating new foods and not to prefer packaged/junk food.

Kid will eat what you give them and learn to like it, or at least learn to eat it. They will probably still like a little debbie or a candy bar if somebody gives it to them.

rhhardin said...

You fold a coodie catcher starting with the same folds as a water bomb.