A foodie repents

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/shut-eat

by todayiamme • 12 years ago

50 48 12 years ago

Animats• 12 years ago

It's all about me, me, me!

This is the dark side of the second tier of what's left of the literary movement - articles which begin with a long section of blithering about the author's background, family, or cats. At least on blogs, one has the option of skipping the "About" page.

The New Yorker would not have published this in its heyday.

By the same author: "How to Spend Money".

Gigablah• 12 years ago

"I was a foodie before it was cool."

RankingMember• 12 years ago

Basically. "I was a foodie before it was cool, and I'm going to keep on being one just to show all of these dorks like Guy Fieri that they can't ruin my love of pasta bolognese." ;)

This was sort of a "say nothing" article in sum to me, because he explored some different subjects and how he felt like foodies couldn't really survive in the long term with population expansion without compromising their reasons for being foodies in the first place, but then concludes by saying he's going to continue to be a foodie anyways.

4rt• 12 years ago

well, i enjoyed it. he makes valid points throughout.

robotresearcher• 12 years ago

"How to speak money". It's about language in finance.

modifier• 12 years ago

articles which begin with a long section of blithering about the author's background, family, or cats.

It's part formula, part filler to meet word count. My eye immediately skips down a few paragraphs so I can get to the point.

LanceH• 12 years ago

My eye moves on to another article. It's particularly frustrating on this site where informative titles for the links are considered editorial and get swapped back to the typical link-bait title.

manachar• 12 years ago

So, in a nutshell the author thinks that the 'foodie' movement can't feed the world.

Perhaps, but I'm not so sure. At its heart, the foodie movement is the complex jumble of things the author mentions. Politics, art, identity, history, etc. But it's also highly supported by people with excess income. So some of this critique seems to warrant further investigation. On the other hand, many of these movements actually are dipping into techniques from a previous era and different social strata. For instance pickling, home preserves, raising your own chickens, etc. Many of these things are actually able to co-exist with urban density, and many more can be if urban planning was adjusted in certain respects.

Additionally, I think many who focus on the quality of food would argue the world can't afford to feed the future 11 billion-peopled world using current agricultural practices. Economically, cheap transportation costs prop up various agricultural bread baskets, and will likely see future disruption as oil availability fluctuates. Other places, like California, require more water than is actually locally available. Some would also question the environmental cost of modern ag processes. From pesticide use to deforestation, agricultural use is often at the core of human's environmental impact in an area.

The foodie/locavore/in-season movement all have various things to offer to this debate. Throwing such a focus out seems silly, possibly at least as silly as those who think GMO products have no part of the future equation to feeding the world.

jstrate• 12 years ago

"from an environmental point of view, density is good." The author is confident enough to gloss over this which makes me skeptical of his conclusions about any large scale impact of the 'foodie' movement.

mturmon• 12 years ago

I liked this part:

Food is now politics and ethics as much as it is sustenance ... it’s a form of surrogate politics. To some, it’s not even surrogate politics; it’s the real deal, politics at its most urgent and consequential. [...]

I’m thrilled by this notion, and yet I find that I can’t submit to it. [...] If shopping and cooking really are the most consequential, most political acts in my life, perhaps what that means is that our sense of the political has shrunk too far [...] Imagine that you die and go to Heaven and stand in front of a jury made up of Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Your task would be to compose yourself, look them in the eye, and say, “I was all about fresh, local, and seasonal.”

Food choices matter, but it's important to understand that a politics limited to consumer choices (like food, or boycotts) is very limited and unlikely to make much difference. There are exceptions (like South Africa), but the record is not very strong.

judk3• 12 years ago

The author doesn't care about animal ethics or sustainable agriculture, and mocks those who do to cover his guilt. Good for him.

Thomas Jefferson bred human slaves for profit. I am OK taking his spot in heaven.

*Neither TJ nor I believe heaven exists.

coldtea2• 12 years ago

The author doesn't care about animal ethics or sustainable agriculture, and mocks those who do to cover his guilt.

What guilt? One should only care about those things without guilt if he has already cared and done something about the more important issues.

And, no, "I let global warming and racism for others to take care of, my call was to care for animal ethics" is not something I'd take seriously.

calinet63• 12 years ago

This article gets it hugely wrong. Food is one of the highest forms of art; one that's vital and human and social all at once.

You don't have to like it, but you do have to eat, and it's such a large part of life and culture that yes, it does matter.

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

-- John Adams

The seemingly trivial becomes the pinnacle of importance when it stands on a solid foundation.

venomsnake• 12 years ago

While food is important, I am highly allergic to the whole bullshit and pretentiousness that surrounds it in the higher ends (same for wine, brandy and scotch).

We have taken some things too far.

calinet63• 12 years ago

Balance, as with all things. We should see things for what they really are.

Bullshit and pretentiousness are just quality reflected by an unbalanced ego. It is not the quality that needs to change.

bane5• 12 years ago

I think, like many movements, the "foodie" movement is a reaction to the kind of mass-consumer food that became prevalent over the last few decades. The kind of ho-hum average and entirely consistent food that you could get any season, with different stores staffed by different people thousands of miles away from each other. You can get practically the exact same meal in Winter in Boston as you can in Summer in Nevada. Want sushi from your local Mr. Tuna in Colorado? No problem!

It's interesting to revisit the chains that were popular when I was growing up, the ones that haven't really changed their decor or menus. The food tastes exactly like I remember it, and it's honestly terrible. But growing up I didn't know it was bad, all food everywhere basically tasted like this. It was either this or local mom & pop homestyle stuff...nothing special.

Looking back, I think I grew up at an intersection of two events: people were becoming affluent enough to eat something other than food cooked at home, and we had become so enamored with our ability to provide any season, hyper-consistent food that we never stopped to ask if it was a good idea.

Think about how many Chotchkie's-style casual dining restaurants there are, all virtually interchangeable from each other. Once you start to hit a number of locations in the hundreds, it's just inevitable.

I think foodie-ism is looking at this ossifying industry and finding it relatively easy to disrupt. It can get pretentious at times, with lists of all the locally sourced ingredients in the homemade ketchup, but it also means you can get good food for a change. It means that if you have 20 restaurants, you have 20 actual choices of places to eat and not groups of interchangeable taste-alikes.

Even in traditionally very manufactured food places, the burger joint, newer franchises like In-n-Out or Shake Shack, which actually artificially limit their expansion to ensure the kinds of ultra-high quality ingredients they use are available.

Honestly, if you like food at all, it's an awesome time to be alive, I have no idea how we made it through the 70's, 80's and 90's.

cdr3• 12 years ago

Want sushi from your local Mr. Tuna in Colorado? No problem!

I can't remember the last time I saw a grocery store without a sushi "counter". And they're all the same, west or east or middle, tiny store or huge. One or two bored asian people boxed into a middle-of-aisle four-sided counter, one side of which is a sad-looking case filled with the same boxed bland mushy hours old rolls. It's hard to imagine that it's that profitable, but clearly it is.

bane5• 12 years ago

I've noticed two interesting anomalies in yelp ratings that might account for this: Sushi places usually get high ratings, Vegetarian/Vegan restaurants also.

I think this is for different reasons, but most Americans don't fundamentally seem to know what good fresh fish tastes like, Sushi is no exception.

TarpitCarnivore2• 12 years ago

As someone who doesn't eat sushi and avoids ordering tuna I would prefer to see the American sushi craze die out.

judk3• 12 years ago

In and out limits expansion because hey want to operate out of a single factory. They have no quality ingredients. Those aren't locally grown heirloom potato French fries.

cdr3• 12 years ago

Five Guys would fit much better.

bane5• 12 years ago

And why do they want to operate out of a single factory?

MaysonL• 12 years ago

In-n-Out is neither new nor franchised. It started in 1948, and all 290 locations are company-owned. All of their locations are within one day's drive of one of their regional distribution centers.

enjo2• 12 years ago

I find Chipotle really interesting as a company, because they are sort of the most mass market expression of these foodie ideas. Watching them struggle with ingredient quality as they've gone to massive scale is really interesting. They still retain their most important characteristics and their ability to train thousands of people to properly cook food the way they do is amazing. As an entrepreneur I'm just consistently impressed.

As a "foodie" (god I hate that word tho), I very often make it my lunch.

mathattack3• 12 years ago

Very ironic given that McDonalds was an early investor. I find them similar to Starbucks - not the best out there, but they've driven a lot of mediocrity out of the market. And I used to eat there more than weekly when it was walking distance.

Turing_Machine2• 12 years ago

I honestly don't get Chipotle. The food there is bland and tasteless to me -- not even Taco Bell quality, much less what you'd get in a good Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant.

Maybe it's a local artifact. Quite a few other chains in this area seem to be afraid of using any actual spices in their food.

bane5• 12 years ago

Yeah, Chipotle is interesting from a scale perspective. The ingredients are really good, the price is reasonable...

However, I've noticed some Chipotle's are better than others. There is a degree of variability depending on the local staff, more so than you'd find with a McDonald's. I have a handful around where I live and there's one that just isn't right.

rudimental• 12 years ago

Interesting take! I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying.

In N Out started in 1948 (not too long after McDonalds, and not too far from it, either, in Southern California). Shake Shack started in 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out_Burger

It is a great time to be into food. Probably better than ever.

davidw• 12 years ago

Food in the US is getting better. There's tons of stuff you can find in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon that you could not find at whatever price 20 years ago.

This book looks at a lot of the reasons behind the decline and rise of food in the US: http://www.amazon.com/An-Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday/dp/B0...

Buge• 12 years ago

after her ordination

Nuns aren't ordained. They take vows but ordination is only for priests (or deacons).

sinemetu11• 12 years ago

There is also "Brunch Is for Jerks" [1], and "I am not a coffee drinker" [2] from the Times. What's up with the petty food articles these days from award-winning print media? Aren't there real issues to talk about? These seem less like interesting cultural takes and more like whining.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/opinion/sunday/brunch-is-f...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/opinion/sunday/i-am-not-a-...

A foodie repents

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