"foodies"

"gourmet" may be the word you are looking for. It refers to people who enjoys good food and have considerable knowledge of food. It's a French word, but many English speaking communities also use it. As for eater, it refers to people who eat in special ways, say, a fussy eater is a person who is fussy about food.

In the United States as of 2014, the usual word is "foodies." It is informal but not disrespectful. "Gourmet" is the formal word. If I were telling a friend about a couple I know, I would say "they are foodies." If I were introducing them before an audience, I would say "they are gourmets." "Gourmet" is a loan word--it began as a French word but today it IS an English word, just as English as "aileron" or "droll" or "lingerie" or "arbitrage..." or "lariat" (Spanish, la riata) or "tea" (Chinese) or "ketchup" (Indonesian). Unlike other languages, English has no formal authority, and nobody tries to defend its purity--we happily adopt words from other languages without hesitation.