by Janet Pieterse

Created on: February 14, 2008   Last Updated: October 09, 2010

The one single important reason foodies use the Internet, is to find - and mingle with - other foodies. The Internet is about communities, after all.

Before the Internet, being a foodie could be quite lonely. While friends and family would happily queue up for meals at your home, who was there to "talk food" to? Especially when your nearest and dearest were more likely to gasp in horror at what you paid for that free-range chicken than discuss the merits of brining it. If you were lucky, you might count one fellow foodie amongst your acquaintances. But a group of them?

Nowadays, that's all changed. Listservs, forums, groups within community web sites - look anywhere and you'll find the foodies meeting up to chat, talk food, and sometimes even swap recipes. Susan in Singapore regales you with tales of her Chinese New Year Feast. Steve in Wollongong reports on his cassoulet experiments. Kelly and Hal in the US discuss the relative merits of different smokers. And you're likely to chip in with questions, answers, anecdotes, tales and photos of your culinary adventures while on holiday in Spain, or Japan, or wherever the quest for new flavours takes you.

Foodies don't limit themselves to online. The Yahoo Ozfood list organised a FoodFest in 2003, and several members travelled across the US and even from the UK to meet in Massachusetts for a weekend of cooking and eating, eating and cooking. They held a similar meetup in Australia in 2007.

Of course, meeting other foodies is not the only thing foodies use the Internet for. Sure, cyberspace is an easy place to search for recipes - but even non-foodies use it for that. Foodies become more involved.

Foodies blog. Sometimes, as in the cases of the Adam D. Roberts and Clotilde Dusoulier, they blog exceptionally well. Other foodies start talking about them, and leaving comments. The Amateur Gourmet, Chocolate & Zucchini ... they become foodie buzzwords. Other foodies write articles about them for their foodie columns. Their blogs get noticed, and next thing, the publishers step in. Foodies can become famous through the Internet!

Foodies start food websites, sometimes to share their experience and expertise with those who hate to cook! All of those recipe sites out there have a foodie behind them. There are foodies who eat out rather than in, and they too record their restaurant reviews and tasting menus online, probably hoping madly that the income will support their tastes for Haute Cuisine.

Foodies track down and

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