I would like to know what ".foo {}" means
It is placed at the beginning of the CSS stylesheet that I have modified.
It's just a CSS block modifying a class foo .
foo
So, each tag in the HTML file class="foo" will depend on that CSS block, which in your case does nothing with what you posted.
class="foo"
all class elements foo are styled between curly braces after this (none)
Applies the style to any HTML element with class "foo".
NTN.