“Arugulance” was popularized by Maureen Dowd’s New York (NY) Times column, titled “The Aura of Arugulance,” published online April 18, 2009. Dowd had been talking about the subject of “food snobbery” with Alice Waters (chef and co-owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and a leader in the organic and locally grown food movement). Waters said: “I’m just put into that arugulance place. I own a fancy restaurant. I own an expensive restaurant. I never thought of it as fancy.”
   
David Kamp’s book, The United States of Arugula (2006), identified the newly popular green of arugula for food snobbery (or food elitism). In July 2007, Illinois senator Barack Obama campaigned for president in Iowa and tried to relate to the farmers and working-class people: ““Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” It was pointed out that the state of Iowa doesn’t have a single Whole Foods store. The BatesLine blog titled its August 13, 2007 entry “Typical liberal arugulance.”
   
“Arugulance” is generally interpreted to be formed from the words “arugula” and “arrogance,” although the word ending doesn’t clearly include the word “arrogance.”
 
   
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Main Entry: aru·gu·la
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈrü-gə-lə, -gyə-\
Function: noun
Etymology: probably from Italian dialect; akin to Italian dialect (Lombardy) arigola arugula, Italian ruca — more at rocket
Date: 1967
: a yellowish-flowered Mediterranean herb (Eruca vesicaria sativa) of the mustard family cultivated for its foliage which is used especially in salads —called also garden rocket rocket roquette rugola
   
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Main Entry: ar·ro·gance
Pronunciation: \ˈer-ə-gən(t)s, ˈa-rə-\
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions
   
Boston (MA) Globe
Arrogance is bliss
February 21, 2006
It’s a snobby culture out there, and David Kamp’s doing his best to blow the whistle on it. Kamp, 39, is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Last year he and Steven Daly published ‘‘The Rock Snob*s Dictionary.” This year, just in time for the Oscars, he and Lawrence Levi have published ‘‘The Film Snob*s Dictionary.” In September, Kamp tackles a different form of snobbery, foodie-ism, in another book, ‘‘The United States of Arugula.”
   
New York (NY) Times Book Review
The Hunger Artists
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: October 1, 2006
(...)
THE UNITED STATES OF ARUGULA
How We Became a Gourmet Nation.
By David Kamp.
Illustrated. 392 pp. Broadway Books. $26.
(...)
By “not so long ago,” I mean in 1975, roughly the midpoint in the postwar transformation of American gastronomy, a revolution that is the subject of David Kamp’s lively, smart, horrendously titled new book. (The cover depicts Lady Liberty clutching a bunch of greens in place of her torch, proving that Kamp’s publishers have turned a deaf ear to the wisdom of a leading American gourmand, Homer Simpson, who once observed that you don’t win friends with salad. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, the Lisa Simpson of American cooking and a central figure in the book, would obviously disagree, but that’s between her and Homer.) Revolution is not, in Kamp’s account, too strong a word, though it does suggest a suddenness, a punctuality, that his narrative does much to contradict.
     
BatesLine
Typical liberal arugulance
By Michael Bates on August 13, 2007 12:50 AM
I thought the Democrats already had a wealthy, out-of-touch pseudo-populist in the race. Here’s Barack Obama at an Iowa campaign stop:
 
One line that landed a little flat, though, was when Mr. Obama sympathetically noted that farmers have not seen an increase in prices for their crops, despite a rise in prices at the supermarket.
“Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?” the senator said. “I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”
 
The state of Iowa, for all of its vast food production, does not have a Whole Foods, a leading natural and organic foods market. The closest? Omaha, Minneapolis or Kansas City.

Mr. Obama, perhaps sensing a lack of reaction from the crowd, moved along to the next topic. After all, he never claimed to be a farming expert.
   
The Observatorium
20 June, 2008
Obamamessiah’s Arugulance
Noticed this new logo over at Ace. Apparently, the Obamamessiah has designed himself a new pre-presidential seal.
 
Target Rich Environment
Smerconish Finally Says It
For those who live in the Philadelphia region, Michael Smerconish, who inhabits the “drive time” radio slot on Philly’s 1210 am “Big Talker,” finally came out this morning in support of the Obamessiah.
 
The G.I.N. has long since abandoned his show, and we’ve been predicting this for over a year- Smerconish himself seems to be the only one surprised by this.  This is a guy who’s way too wrapped up in himself and wanting to be liked by the “in-crowd” to be a true believer.  He’s embraced the Huffington Post and other left-of-center sources for some time, and seemingly ignores all voices on the right (for example, when a caller a few months ago brought up Obama’s “arrugulance,” Smercommie had no idea what he was talking about).
(...)
This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 10:09 pm.
   
New York (NY) Times
Op-Ed Columnist
The Aura of Arugulance
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 18, 2009
BERKELEY, Calif.
(...)
Sated, I went over to talk to the other celestial celebrity in San Francisco who inspires cultlike devotion for what she does with green cooking rather than blue screens: Alice Waters, who has created her own mythical empire of healthy food with her cookbooks, edible gardens in public schools and renowned Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse.
 
Waters has been much in the news lately as the fairy godmother of the White House organic vegetable garden, an idea she has been pushing since 1993. Instead, Bill Clinton installed a seven-seat hot tub on the South Lawn. Though he loved to eat, Bill was more a consumer of fast food than slow food, as Waters calls her movement to persuade Americans to sup on simple, locally grown foods free of pesticides and herbicides.
(...)
She’s well aware of the criticism leveled at her in blogs for condescension and food snobbery. In a post on Friday called “Alice in Wonderland,” National Review stirred the pot against her: “The truth is, organic food is an expensive luxury item, something bought by those who have the resources.”

She says wryly: “I’m just put into that arugulance place. I own a fancy restaurant. I own an expensive restaurant. I never thought of it as fancy. People don’t know we’re supporting 85 farms and ranches and all of that.
 
The Food Section
a·ru·gu·lance
a·ru·gu·lance (noun): a (perceived) attitude of superiority and snobbery manifested in an appetite for pricey—yet delicious—peppery greens.
(...)
Posted by Josh Friedland on Apr 19, 2009
   
Grant Writing Confidential
Reading “Arugulance” and then Writing It
April 20th, 2009 · by Isaac Seliger
After reading the first draft of “One of the Open Secrets of Grant Writing and Grant Writers: Reading,” I suggested that Jake lay down for a while, as he seemed to have worked himself into a frenzy over the subject of no reading versus some reading versus close reading versus . . . well, you’ve gotten the idea from reading his post. So, it was with some surprise that I found myself (here it comes) “reading” the Sunday New York Times yesterday, when I came across Maureen Dowd’s column.
 
Ordinarily, I don’t read her column, as she is usually even too cynical for a inherently cynical and grizzled grant writer like me. This time, however, the headline caught my eye because it used the term “arugulance,” which I learned is shorthand for the arrogance of the grow local/buy local/shop at Whole Paycheck movement.
   
urbanmennonite.com
5 words with which I am newly in love
April 21st, 2009
(...)
Arugulance: The arrogance of arugula.  I’m not making this one up.  If Maureen Dowd uses it, it must be a real word.