In the parlance of some the word "gourmet" or "gastronomy" connotes class; so, if you aspire for gourmet food, you are in essence asking for food with a touch of class. Likewise, a gastronomer is most likely to evoke the image of one who takes pleasure in food--again it's somebody who enjoys the luxury of taking a pleasure in food, i.e. food is a recreational pastime rather than substance to keep body and soul together.
Carlo Petrini, founder and President of Slow Food, an organization that was launched in protest against the opening of a MacDonald's branch in Rome's Piazza di Spagna, rescues both words from the contagion of class.
When one is a Gastronome, Petrini says, she falls into a holistic frame of mind, not simply into a narrow pursuit of food for pleasure:
A gastronomer who is not an environmentalist is just stupid. Whereas an environmentalist who is not a gastronomer is sad. It’s possible to change the world even while preserving the concept of the right of pleasure.
Similarly, gourmet food is food that's not exclusive, but inclusive--widely so--of an entire ecology of agriculture, physics, biology, genetics, chemistry, history, economy, and politics.
