We already noted the “truffle fry” incident from the now-infamous profile of M.I.A. by Lynn Hirschberg, but now apparently M.I.A. has upped the ante and posted audio that apparently proves that Hirschberg, not she, is the real foodie:

As the print magazine arrived this weekend, so did a new track blasting journalists, along with an audio clip from her interview with Lynn Hirschberg under the headline “War Crimes and French Fries.” Next to the audio clip, M.I.A. promised “the TRUFF” about whose idea it was to order truffle fries during a March interview.

While who selected the bourgeois-sounding snack doesn’t seem like such a big deal, it was one of the bits of color used by Hirschberg to paint M.I.A.-now married to Ben Bronfman, a Seagram’s heir-as more a figure of radical chic than a committed radical.

In the piece, Hirschberg wrote how M.I.A. “studied the menu, deciding on a glass of wine and French fries.” The Times writer later noted that the artist talked of wanting “to be an outsider,” while “eating a truffle-flavored French fry.”  However, the audio that M.IA. posted suggests that Hirschberg actually brought up the variety of French fries and placed the order, while also telling the singer to get whatever she wanted “because the New York Times is paying.”

Far be it from me to suggest that we’re catching on or anything. Food as status symbol is far from a new thing, although it does seem that lately it’s gotten beyond all reason. Still, I sort of love that in the war over M.I.A.’s credibility, the battlefield is french fries.

Do I lose my cred with you, Shut Up Foodies readers, if I tell you that I had dinner at a posh Williamsburg eatery that shall remain nameless recently? Or that I had bacon on my salad at lunch?