The Death of the Curated, Artisanal Consumable

Is your food curated? Artisanal? Sourced? Composed, even? While these terms are all well and good, we’ve seen them overused more and more this year. Now, Grub Street and Gilt Taste have officially put them on notice.

Grub Street writes:

Sounds like the backlash is starting: Words like “composed,” “curated,” and “artisanal” have seemingly slipped into the Big No-No end of the zeitgeist pool. When Steve’s Craft Ice Cream founder David Stein said last week that the shop would have a team of chefs making “curated and composed” sundaes, a bit of skepticism settled into the comments section here. “No thanks,” wrote kfocus. “Curate your way away from my coffee with oreos and over to where you belong making complex stocks and expensive layered pastries.” And on Twitter, Gilt Taste features editor Francis Lam also wrote “Sorry, but I think they’ve finally killed the word “curated.” When your ice cream toppings are “curated,” that word is dead dead dead.”

Remember when artisans were small business owners? Or farmers? Or craftspeople?