A gastronome is someone with a refined palate, someone who appreciates good food and seeks out the best. The word has previously been applied primarily to men, but in and of itself it is not really a gender-specific term. Due to this lack of specificity, it was really only a matter of time before the word was adapted to describe some of the very specific groups of people that it encompasses.
A new one, which may just have been invented by the writers of the NYT's Style magazine, is "gastronomista." It is so new that a Google search turns up nothing and it is so specific that only a handful of people fall under its umbrella. It means, apparently, means "a savvy woman who turns blogging about what she ate last night into a mini-industry" and sounds vaguely insulting in the way it is phrased, since it doesn't even include any references to the quality of the food. And what, precisely, constitutes a mini industry? The term probably will not be catching on soon, if ever, but it is still interesting to note that food blogging is inspiring new terminology beyond the very unfortunate blend "flogger" that a few people still continue to use.
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