This article strikes me as writing about a series of disjointed stereotypes; its depiction of typical American restaurant culture is somewhat bleaker than reality, and it characterizes the food...
Exemplary
This article strikes me as writing about a series of disjointed stereotypes; its depiction of typical American restaurant culture is somewhat bleaker than reality, and it characterizes the food culture elsewhere from a best-case depiction. In essence, it's judging Americans by our work lunches and everywhere else by the best of its culinary scene. It's disingenuous to pretend that other countries lack cheap, prepared options - they exist, and they are as broadly-used as American prepared foods in the scenarios where they're appropriate.
I do think there are some points to be made, especially with regard to how Americans have a notoriously shit work-life balance relative to other countries. It leads to us eating quick food to fit into a short lunch break, and choosing fast options at home because we lack time and energy after a long day. Anecdotally, my own investment in food prep has scaled inversely with the time I've had to spend physically present in my office ever since COVID changed that equation, and I'm convinced that long working hours are a large reason for the enduring popularity of low-prep, low-quality meals.
Similarly, it's a common observation that the base tier of American ingredients or prepared foods is cheaper and more-processed than the equivalent European counterpart, in particular, due to more lenient food safety laws and the aforementioned appetite for cheap, quick solutions to address the lack of time in food preparation. The fresh foods available in low-income areas are often limited, and there is plenty of attention given to the problem of "food deserts" where options for anything but fast food or convenience store food are sharply limited.
But everything I've mentioned so far falls squarely into the category of an economic problem rather than a critique of food culture. Americans who are not constrained by problems of economy or geography have plenty of options to take a lingering meal with decent food, even in areas which I wouldn't consider to be economically advantaged. Some of the most "American" restaurants I know are tiny neighborhood restaurants in historically blue-collar areas.
Ask tourists from other areas what their experience was with American food, and for the most part I find that people have a very positive view of American dining after taking a trip here. Anecdotally, again, I know several folks that live elsewhere and have traveled to the US as tourists; the variety and quality of food available is usually mentioned in a positive way when they describe how their trip went. The problem isn't a lack of good options, but rather a lack of time, money and will to exercise those options. That remains mostly an economic problem, I'd contend, and not a failing of American food culture. If we want to see a renaissance in the American mealtime I think the most productive step would be to ensure that we have the free time and energy to enjoy it.
It think you make a good point, but I'm not sure that our nearly universal choice of mass produced sandwich bread over bread from a local bakery is simply a function of work schedules and lack of...
It think you make a good point, but I'm not sure that our nearly universal choice of mass produced sandwich bread over bread from a local bakery is simply a function of work schedules and lack of time. Industrial scale food producers have dominated small shops in this country in a way that is a lot less true elsewhere.
I first knew Arnade from his book Dignity which focuses on the life experience of people in towns and cities left behind economically by the outsourcing and exporting of industry over the last 50 years. One of the points of his article is that poor people in France have access to fresh food and that is much less true here. I am not in a position to personally verify his point. But I saw him specifically distinguish the food that is available to our upper middle class from what he was talking about.
You’re thinking the same thing as I am, and bread is such a good example of the most major problems with US food culture. The bread you can buy at every grocery store here is a poor simulation of...
Exemplary
You’re thinking the same thing as I am, and bread is such a good example of the most major problems with US food culture. The bread you can buy at every grocery store here is a poor simulation of the real thing. It has considerably less flavor than real bread. It’s been made with wheat that has been hulled and therefore is stripped of important vitamins and fiber, and then is often bleached. It typically has added sugar, making it closer to cake than bread. Additives that would not typically be considered “food” get put into it as well. It has been changed dramatically from the source of life our ancestors relied on.
Why do we eat this artificial bread product? Is it cheaper? In some ways yes, others no; it’s generally not as cheap as bread made from just flour water and yeast, but with economies of scale it gets very close. But I think the thing that makes this example emblematic of the issues the US has with food is its longevity is that this fake processed bread will last for weeks on end. Our transportation systems in most cases makes it extremely difficult to go to the stores; most people don’t have a grocery store within walking distance of their house, so they have to take a car to go to a giant store where they buy food in large quantities to store in their homes. Popping into a grocer after work to grab stuff to make dinner essentially doesn’t exist for a vast majority of people here, so they buy processed and shelf-stable food.
Processed food is not entirely an American problem, of course; it’s a problem that most rich countries face. But it’s a problem that seemingly started in the US and has since then been exported to nations we trade with. You can easily see the effects because anywhere that does this sees a proportional growth in obesity rates in their population.
The author is right that France and much of the world has better food culture than the US, but what they don’t identify is the social sickness that causes it. The US didn’t just used to have a better food culture, it had many, and we just hear the echoes of it now. That’s part of why we have such a wide array of cuisines here now. It’s almost amazing that they didn’t bring up Tex-Mex, the Pennsylvania Dutch, Italian-American, or Chinese-American cuisines, or any of the others. But those have become subsumed by the corporate processed food giants as well. Spaghetti has become a two-ingredient meal: boxed pasta and canned sauce. Tortillas have the same problems as Bread and are more likely than not to be made from a single factory in Texas. We have made our lives more convenient but have sacrificed flavor and our health for it.
This seems like assuming all breakfast cereals are chocolate-frosted sugar bombs just because some are. There are many kinds of breads available in the grocery stores I visit. Some are better than...
This seems like assuming all breakfast cereals are chocolate-frosted sugar bombs just because some are. There are many kinds of breads available in the grocery stores I visit. Some are better than others.
The last time I went to look for bread at a grocery store, literally all of the options had added sugar. There were zero options without it, even including the stuff baked fresh on location. The...
The last time I went to look for bread at a grocery store, literally all of the options had added sugar. There were zero options without it, even including the stuff baked fresh on location. The fresh stuff had preservatives, even! And this was a really big market with numerous choices. It's increasingly uncommon to find breakfast cereals without added sugar, too, unless you count oatmeal. Even plain corn flakes tend to have added sugar these days.
There is only one brand of bread that I've found that doesn't have added sugar or preservatives, and that's Food For Life, which isn't in all stores and is found in the freezer aisle.
I just looked at the ingredients on bread baked fresh at a local grocery store. I live where there are about 150k people in the Midwest metro area I'm in The 2nd loaf had no sugar. (This was not...
I just looked at the ingredients on bread baked fresh at a local grocery store. I live where there are about 150k people in the Midwest metro area I'm in
The 2nd loaf had no sugar. (This was not an outlier either)
Going through the "bread aisle" was harder due to quantity as filters would just bring up keto bread so I didn't make it through that.
I checked another grocery store's bakery and the first one I selected did not have sugar same with the next four on the default sorted search list. If I was looking at a sliced "sandwich bread" then yes those do
Just really providing a counterpoint that these options are out there. They are however significantly more expensive than the bag of white sandwich, and with as much as Americans pay for things like transportation and healthcare our food budget is proportionally so much smaller and for that money the food we get tends to be more processed.
I don't think processed is always bad either, but when it's all you can afford financially or due to time or access it can be a problem
To be clear, I don’t mean to say that options without sugar and preservatives literally do not exist. Merely that they are difficult to access and have become niche. You could, after all, bake...
To be clear, I don’t mean to say that options without sugar and preservatives literally do not exist. Merely that they are difficult to access and have become niche. You could, after all, bake your own bread if the market didn’t have any.
I can’t help noting you didn’t mention if any of the bread you were looking at were 100% whole wheat, which was an important part of my original response. If it was made with hulled wheat flour, it’s already been stripped of all of its fiber and vitamins, which increases calorie density and makes it more carb-heavy. Also were you checking the ingredients list or were you checking the “added sugar” on the nutrition facts? Because if you were checking the ingredients then you might have missed some of the ways they add sugar. I just found an article that collected over 50 different ingredients used to add sugar.
Minimal processing is fine, of course, but when it comes to a lot of food that Americans eat, it falls into the ultraprocessed category, where it has been engineered to increase calorie density and reach a “bliss point” so that you’ll buy more of it. This is incredibly bad for your health, and a reason why poorer people in this country are more likely to be overweight or obese, which causes health complications.
You didn't mention the whole wheat in the comment I was replying to and while I was looking at nutritional info and ingredients I was also doing it on a mobile screen on a grocery website so I'm...
You didn't mention the whole wheat in the comment I was replying to and while I was looking at nutritional info and ingredients I was also doing it on a mobile screen on a grocery website so I'm sure it's imperfect. At least one was sourdough. I don't prefer whole wheat bread most of the time.
My point was just that with minimal effort in multiple major chains did have un-sugared bread in their fresh baked sections. I'm not really wanting to scoot the goalposts any more on that. I understood you had a broader point and nodded to it.
I also don't care about processing from a morality standpoint, I care about it from a "this is all people can afford financially and manage with their limited time and resources". That's what drives the shopping behavior IMO.
I never once mentioned morality. There are also no goalpost here because I thought this was a conversation not an argument. If I have offended you, then I sincerely apologize. This wasn’t supposed...
I never once mentioned morality. There are also no goalpost here because I thought this was a conversation not an argument.
If I have offended you, then I sincerely apologize. This wasn’t supposed to be an attack on anyone. It was merely supposed to be a description of the way things are.
I'm not offended it just felt a bit exhausting? It felt like arguing. Perhaps it's just that I have particularly good grocery store access, I might, the Midwest does that pretty well. I wasn't...
I'm not offended it just felt a bit exhausting? It felt like arguing. Perhaps it's just that I have particularly good grocery store access, I might, the Midwest does that pretty well. I wasn't trying to prove you wrong so much as say my experiences have differed.
You didn't mention morality but the discussions often becomes sort of a "evil food companies making lazy Americans fat" thing which is both moralizing around fatness and food on top of the corporations. You weren't necessarily intending to go there and I was definitely more tired than I'd intended when I replied so I apologize.
I have strong feelings about wanting to address the larger circumstances around why people eat cheaper processed foods without blaming them - American or otherwise - because it's so much more complex than that. I'm lucky enough to afford nicer breads, and yet my partner still sometimes wants white bread and lunch meat sandwiches because they're easy and accessible for him with his disabilities. When I'm exhausted from work and home responsibilities I may eat a freezer meal (or piece together something out of a variety of snacks). But I think food insecurity in the US is somewhat hidden by our comparatively cheap food costs, because we can't afford to spend the percent of our budgets on food that people do in Europe. But it's a vicious cycle and one that has to be addressed at those levels IMO.
I don't think that food corporations are necessarily evil, with the exception being the major meat providers like Tyson and Cargill. I think that market pressure essentially forces them into it....
I don't think that food corporations are necessarily evil, with the exception being the major meat providers like Tyson and Cargill. I think that market pressure essentially forces them into it. If your bread doesn't taste as good as the competition, people buy their bread instead and you go out of business. I think that public health is constantly encroached upon by a combination of capitalism and our natural desire for calorie-dense foods. Regulation is supposed to help (and indeed, it historically has very much) but it's famously slow and doesn't keep up with the times.
I understand you having strong feelings about food because I have them too; it's another universal human trait. Food is culture, and nobody likes to be criticized, directly or indirectly, for following their culture. I've been making it a point to not judge people for the way they eat. The truth is that I have a long history of eating absolutely terrible and the cumulative effects came on so slowly that I simply didn't realize how bad they got until I was having major health concerns. Earlier this year I cut out all of the processed and sugary foods from my life and the results have been fairly dramatic. I've lost over 100 pounds this year.
If there's one thing I want you to know is that I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings about the ways they are living their lives. I have strong feelings about this topic as well. If you look through my comment history you'll probably find a whole lot more talking about nutrition.
I can commiserate. Whenever I visit the US (think 150~200K cities, east coast, several times a year), I have the same pain of shopping for bread, unable to find multi-/whole-grain options without...
I can commiserate. Whenever I visit the US (think 150~200K cities, east coast, several times a year), I have the same pain of shopping for bread, unable to find multi-/whole-grain options without added sugar. I even saw one recently that, somehow, said it had no added sugar but also listed both honey and molasses in the ingredient list.
I don't think Canada's a whole lot better in terms of food culture, but pretty much every normal-to-large sized grocery store (at least in the mid-to-east coast provinces I'm more familiar with) carries several common brands of no-added-sugar bread that are some combo of multi-grain/whole-grain/sourdough.
Also astounding in terms of price. The Canadian options retail for CA$3.5~4.5, but the best US options I've found are US$5~8. Huge difference not even considering exchange rate.
I totally realize I'm not as familiar with the US grocery landscape as I am in Canada, so am most likely overlooking some options, but still, I've given up. These days I do my best to bring bread down with me.
There's a nifty episode of How It's Made that shows the commercial sandwich bread process. The nature of factory production requires more additives (oils and dough conditioners) and faster,...
There's a nifty episode of How It's Made that shows the commercial sandwich bread process. The nature of factory production requires more additives (oils and dough conditioners) and faster, sugar-fed yeasts to speed the rise. This comes at the sacrifice of flavor and nutrition.
This is an issue experienced by those who live in the Mississippi Delta. The Delta is one of the most agriculturaly rich areas, but the people who live there are the most "food poor" population...
One of the points of his article is that poor people in France have access to fresh food and that is much less true here.
This is an issue experienced by those who live in the Mississippi Delta. The Delta is one of the most agriculturaly rich areas, but the people who live there are the most "food poor" population despite literally being surrounded by food. Locals are mostly forced to live off the processed offerings from Dollar Generals or hope to get a ride to a larger grocery store 40+ minutes away. This article does a great job of explaining the very situation. The food produced by the farms they are surrounded by typically is shipped out to serve others and not their own.
It's the same thing I see online a lot as a Brit. We get painted as a land of people who eat nothing but meat in gravy and beans on toast. While those meals definitely exist, they're quick and...
It's the same thing I see online a lot as a Brit. We get painted as a land of people who eat nothing but meat in gravy and beans on toast. While those meals definitely exist, they're quick and easy options for eating based on a similar work/life split where we get short lunches and we're tired after long days at work.
It's a shame as well because Britain's food culture while not as high class as France or as exciting as Italy's is still wonderful. Things like Cullen Skink, Haggis Neeps and Tatties, Scottish Tablet or Macaroon, Black Pudding, Arbroath Smokies, Aberdeen Butteries, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Welsh Rarebit, Irish Coddle, Boxty, Irish Soda Bread, Afternoon Tea, Regional Cooked Full Breakfasts, Fish and Chips and the world famous Beef Wellington are just a few of some of the amazing foods that can be eaten here.
I just get tired of hearing we left Britain because of the shite food or that we took over the world for their spices then didn't use them. It's pretty dire Reddit-esque patter that just gets beaten into the ground and stifles learning and discussion.
I think your time/energy/economics analysis is salient, but reporting on tourists’ experiences is not. Most tourists are going to tourist destinations, which have tourist food options. This may...
I think your time/energy/economics analysis is salient, but reporting on tourists’ experiences is not. Most tourists are going to tourist destinations, which have tourist food options. This may also be a hidden bias in the article.
Obviously there is a tendency for tourists to visit tourism-heavy areas, but a tourist visiting a major city will have access to the same slate of restaurants as that city's residents. Just...
Obviously there is a tendency for tourists to visit tourism-heavy areas, but a tourist visiting a major city will have access to the same slate of restaurants as that city's residents. Just because NYC is a "tourist destination" does not mean that it lacks a food scene; I'd argue that it's one of the better food destinations in the US despite (and, more likely, because of) also being one of its most popular areas for tourism. If those tourists end up eating at the Olive Garden in Times Square, then that's entirely self-inflicted.
My wife makes good BBQ. As a result, I've learned its nigh-impossible to buy good BBQ north of the Mason-Dixon line. If you're lucky there will be a place or two within 50 miles worth spending any...
My wife makes good BBQ. As a result, I've learned its nigh-impossible to buy good BBQ north of the Mason-Dixon line. If you're lucky there will be a place or two within 50 miles worth spending any money at. Smart BBQ afficianados don't share online lest their favorite place gets overrun and quality plummets as they struggle to meet capacity or prices skyrocket.
Even then its a crapshoot. I've been dragged to places by friends whom grew up in the Northeast and moved to Kentucky, who wanted to show us their favorite BBQ...and it was terrible. Texas is probably the best bet for tourists looking for a probably-good option.
Rules of thumb:
If there is not at least one pig on the signage, beware. A giant pig statue is an acceptable alternative.
Places that advertise hours as "11 until sold out" are more likely to be good.
Pulled pork should be vinegar based, not a sauce.
Ribs should be tender, but not fall-off-the-bone. You shouldn't need to gnaw, but you should be able to pick it up by the bone and not be left with just the bone.
To sample a new place, get pulled pork first. If they can't do a decent pulled pork they're unlikely to do better with other options. Cheaper options like chicken are too easy and lull you into a false sense of security.
Chains are much less likely to be good than a random drunk guy who refuses to own a smartphone.
How dare you call California part of the southwest. We're clearly Northerners. ;-) As someone who was born in CA, In-N-Out is perhaps the single most overrated American restaurant of all time....
How dare you call California part of the southwest. We're clearly Northerners. ;-)
As someone who was born in CA, In-N-Out is perhaps the single most overrated American restaurant of all time. Some parts of it are exceptional, true, but the food is extremely limited, the fries are terrible, and the burgers are the greasiest, fattiest ones you'll find anywhere.
There's a rule of thumb that most Californians seem to know (at least in the southern parts of the state), and that's to avoid the nice shiny mexican places and go to the hole-in-the-wall ones. They're the ones run by passionate people who know what they're doing.
Do make a point out of going to New Orleans if you can, if you're interested in food tourism. There's so many places there making food that you can technically get anywhere in the country, but it's just not the same somehow. You might also want to give American barbecue another chance; it's very regional so there can be some pretty pronounced differences. Texas style BBQ is the most popular generally, but I'd agree with you that it's often disgustingly sweet. You might want to try Memphis style barbecue which is based on dry rubs and vinegar based sauces, or South Carolina style that uses mustard as a base. They'll give you a very different experience.
I am convinced that the only reason In n Out is popular is because the fast food restaurant options in California are sooooo bad, that an average burger with a melty kraft single seems...
I am convinced that the only reason In n Out is popular is because the fast food restaurant options in California are sooooo bad, that an average burger with a melty kraft single seems exceptional... The In n Out fries taste like paper. How is it possible to make a french fry taste that bad? Have they never had a good french fry? Do they know about seasoning? The "special sauce" is just ketchup mayo and relish mixed together. I appreciate the fast speed and the food being really consistent across locations, but as far as flavor it is pretty average and such a disappointment for all the hype. It seems like they got stuck in 1955.
California is worth spending a year in to explore food. It really has more produce and cuisine variety than anywhere else in the world, thanks to California's rare Mediterranean climate +...
California is worth spending a year in to explore food. It really has more produce and cuisine variety than anywhere else in the world, thanks to California's rare Mediterranean climate + ridiculous ethnic diversity. Step into Berkeley Bowl grocery store and you'll find 12 varieties of pear, 17 varieties of grape, galanga, taro, cassava, gingko nuts, Indian bitter melon, bac ha, shiso, 5 varieties of eggplant from Chinese to Indian to Thai, burdock root, banana flowers, and so on. The produce section alone is bigger than most grocery stores elsewhere in the world.
There's an incredible amount of ethnic food. You can find all kinds of ethnic and sub-ethnic food. Curious about Muslim Chinese cuisine? There's a restaurant (Darda Seafood). Burmese? Yep. Georgian? That too.
I totally agree with all of your points, generally we have worse versions of international food and you need to have insider knowledge to find a great meal. That isn't the norm across the globe...
I totally agree with all of your points, generally we have worse versions of international food and you need to have insider knowledge to find a great meal. That isn't the norm across the globe and to some degree I just don't think quality/time/taste matter to the majority of American's. Obviously not everyone, but I'd say your average Joe doesn't care and honestly probably hasn't had a truly amazing meal.
Three anecdotal points I have from my own life back this up. I used to work internationally quite a bit on US Federal projects. We often worked in France and our American points of contact would often ridicule how much time their French colleagues spent on the prep and enjoyment of their lunch every day. Like actually making fun of how much time they took for their lunch! They were proud that they would go out and grab a sandwich and work while they ate. If there was ever a tangible example of the weird combination of protestant work ethic and puritan avoidance of pleasure in the American ethos, I think that was it.
Another example is one of my best friend's parents. He got married in Thailand as his wife was a flight attendant. We met up with his parents while we were there getting ready and they made us go to KFC, because they "didn't want to eat any of this spicy trash". I don't think they actually tried any real Thai food the entire week they were there. And these folks are the "average American".
Lastly, I worked in Spain for a few years. The thing I miss most were the daily menu del dias. They were incredible and lasted for 1-2 hours. Each day, regardless of your job or income level, you can get one amazing meal with a quality of food that quite frankly astonished me. It was obvious that enjoying food and having opinions about food was not a "high class" thing in Spain. I loved it.
Now all of that said, I'd like to echo you that it is possible to find good food, just difficult. And that EgoEimi is right, Berkeley is an absolute haven. If you're looking for some truly regional food, the California farm to table movement - honestly the farm to table movement across the US - is the place to start. You may already know all this but I really enjoy talking about it so I'm going to crack on. California is the salad bowl of the US and as such really does have access to amazing produce. The pity is so few places actually take advantage of it. I live further south on the California coastline and while we have an extremely active fishery (one that is accessible if you live locally) very few of our local restaurants actually sell their catch. There are probably 6 restaurant of the hundreds in the area that actually sell locally caught product. It's ridiculous. And of those restaurants, there are maybe 2 that have knocked my socks off and of them only 1 that even near approachable on cost (a $150 night our for 2 instead of $400). That's compounded by the fact that even a "Californian Menu" is some amalgamation or reimagining of diaspora cooking. Buuuut all that said, some of the farm to table restaurants are truly incredible and I think it's the most overlooked "American" style of cuisine.
And definitely give Berkeley a go. While you can absolutely get a variety of cuisines in any major city, I think for its size Berkeley punches way above its weight. And if you have the opportunity, take an afternoon in Berkeley Bowl. It's literally my favorite indoor location on the planet. Also Marin is very good about using local produce. I could Also all day, but I'll stop. This thread makes me think we need a megathread where folks can post their top X number of local suggestions. Like a local cheatsheet for travel.
If you went to DC and didn't see the East African food, you missed out - DC is widely recognized as having some of the best African cuisine in the US, with a particular emphasis on its excellent...
If you went to DC and didn't see the East African food, you missed out - DC is widely recognized as having some of the best African cuisine in the US, with a particular emphasis on its excellent Ethiopian food. There's a clustering of those restaurants in the north part of the city, towards Silver Spring.
I think that general idea is something that applies to most cities in the US; there are extreme variations depending on which part of the city you're talking about. NYC has some decent Chinese cuisine in its Chinatown, but I find that it's better in Flushing. Jackson Heights is the place to go for Indian. Forest Hills, among many other things, is one of the only places in the world that you can eat Bukharan food outside of Israel.
I do agree that it's difficult to find quality produce in the states. Most of the stuff in grocery stores is unimpressive, particularly when it comes to fruit. There have been promising strides against that trend lately, with stores taking efforts to make local farmer connections and showcasing stuff that is optimized for flavor rather than shelf-stability, but we have a bizarre obsession with ensuring that any food is available in any season - and it manifests in relatively-tasteless, extremely-hardy produce that is well-optimized to avoid inventory loss but pretty sad once you get around to actually eating it.
In restaurants, there has been something of a movement towards making direct farm connections to source produce locally. This limits what they can cook, of course, which kind of points to the problem with having such an array of various culinary traditions in one spot - you can't possibly have local, fresh produce available for all of them, because they're all products of various different climates. If you find a restaurant that does a seasonal menu using local ingredients, magically the quality goes upward as the selection decreases.
I'm glad you tried the pizza, but there's a reason why I mentioned Italian-American cuisine specifically, since there are a bunch of Italian-inspired dishes that you won't find in Italy. You found...
I'm glad you tried the pizza, but there's a reason why I mentioned Italian-American cuisine specifically, since there are a bunch of Italian-inspired dishes that you won't find in Italy. You found pizza, but there's also dishes like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmigiana, and chicken marsala that were made popular here in the US. Olive Garden is well derided in the US for being a pale imitation of Italian food, but in a way it's a really good representation of Italian-American food.
That being said, I could easily see how it could be too simelar to a better Italian dish, or simply be something you didn't like. America's love of chain restaurants that produce extremely uniform food mean that a lot of it has collapsed to glorified fast food in a way. Chinese-American food is a pretty good example; it has inspiration from a really broad area and is incredibly divorced from all of it, so the food is very different, but at the same time it's all basically "instant" food that can be prepped in no time flat and is almost always fast food.
There is real food culture to be found here, it's just kind of hard to find. You have to move in foodie circles, and it tends to be expensive.
I was responding to this. My point is that asking tourists their opinion does not provide an accurate view of food circumstances in a region generally. In other words, US as a whole can suck (and...
Ask tourists from other areas what their experience was with American food, and for the most part I find that people have a very positive view of American dining after taking a trip here.
I was responding to this. My point is that asking tourists their opinion does not provide an accurate view of food circumstances in a region generally. In other words, US as a whole can suck (and it does, imo), while tourists still report generally positive food experiences. This is because the tourists are selecting only the best (and rare, exceptional) areas to rate.
"This article strikes me as writing about a series of disjointed stereotypes; its depiction of typical American restaurant culture is somewhat bleaker than reality" This article was written by an...
"This article strikes me as writing about a series of disjointed stereotypes; its depiction of typical American restaurant culture is somewhat bleaker than reality"
This article was written by an extremely well travelled American. From the article:
I’ve only spent about two months in France, and that was in Paris over a decade ago. I’ve yet to walk France, although I will soon.
Chris Arnade spent three years crisscrossing the United States to visit “the places you were told not to go to.” His travels took him from the Bronx to the Ozarks to East Los Angeles.
"That remains mostly an economic problem, I'd contend, and not a failing of American food culture."
In fact, in the article I just linked too, the author has clearly thought very deeply about the economic problem in America that you touch on, to the point where he spent three years of his life documenting it through photographs.
I suggest you re-read the bottom of the article, where the author celebrates southern barbecue as true American food culture. The author isn't trying to judge Americans by their work lunches. The author is definitely not limiting themselves to the perspective of what is available to tourists.
In fairness - if the guy's stated US experiences are the Bronx, east LA, and the Ozarks (I recognize that he has been other places), and his France experience is only Paris, it's sort of...
In fairness - if the guy's stated US experiences are the Bronx, east LA, and the Ozarks (I recognize that he has been other places), and his France experience is only Paris, it's sort of equivalent to a french guy who traveled around the coal mining region of France and then spent 2 months in NYC.
Chris Arnade is a former finance professional from New York who is now a social critic, writer and photographer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Arnade Here is the book he wrote where I...
You can have crunch time affect a culture, force them into fast food as the obvious go-to option, and still have a better quality food in response with less corn syrup and whatnot. I was pretty...
You can have crunch time affect a culture, force them into fast food as the obvious go-to option, and still have a better quality food in response with less corn syrup and whatnot. I was pretty impressed by 7-11 in Japan, and I'm sure on a strict time measure they're a much worse country for crunch. But you're right.
The fresh foods available in low-income areas are often limited, and there is plenty of attention given to the problem of "food deserts" where options for anything but fast food or convenience store food are sharply limited.
Oakland in Pittsburgh, where CMU and Pitt are located, is awful with groceries. The campus options are always hideously overpriced with little selection, and the few grocery stores within two miles requires taking the crowded bus with your hands full and difficult mobility in the middle of the city in a dodgy area. As a freshman or sophomore (who are disallowed cars) on campus it's pretty nerve-wracking and exhausting - plus your dorm cooking facilities are non-existent. When someone asked about whether their daughter with Celiac should go to school in the area, I had to honestly suggest she shouldn't. Having crash-coursed my way into the constantly-aware lifestyle from my wife being diagnosed late in her life, I cannot imagine being a student and trying to get by on such a restrictive and cautious diet without easy access to groceries.
Any mix of these kinds of situations - poor accessibility, few options, lack of consideration of diets - aren't just a matter of culture or opinion, but straight-up dangerous to a lot of people IMO.
Hah, I used to live in Pittsburgh; when I was talking about food deserts I was thinking precisely about the massive store-less areas in Oakland, Uptown and Wilkinsburg. The lack of mixed-use...
Hah, I used to live in Pittsburgh; when I was talking about food deserts I was thinking precisely about the massive store-less areas in Oakland, Uptown and Wilkinsburg. The lack of mixed-use development is a huge contributor, but also the proliferation of hyper-cheap big box stores that have margins local places can't beat. There were shuttered business districts all around Edgewood that likely used to have a local market or two, and I was living in Squirrel Hill when the last dedicated greengrocer there shut their doors. At the end of the day, the larger stores can benefit from much greater economies of scale than the smaller ones; the only viable way to remain a smaller food seller is to market yourself as boutique and hope you draw an audience from that.
I'm so glad the author brought up BBQ culture in the south! As frustrating as the politics of Southern states can be, it's a region in the US that I would argue falls into what the author is...
Exemplary
I'm so glad the author brought up BBQ culture in the south! As frustrating as the politics of Southern states can be, it's a region in the US that I would argue falls into what the author is seeking. I've lived in some fairly rural areas and went to an ag-school for my degree. And living in such an area I think has given me a unique lens to my food.
I have memories of summers putting up corn with my mother-in-law that was freshly pulled from the field by my husband and his brother due to a friend of a family calling to say he grew too much. Going to local produce markets and seeing bags of local purple-hulled peas shelled by locals and put-up to freeze. Having pounds of fresh peanuts provided to me despite droughts affecting crop outputs and enjoying the opportunity that I was able to have them. My university made their own ice cream from the dairy program on campus and special days on campus were brought in by the cart serving it up. I even had the opportunity to buy sausages and pork chops on campus that were cut by the very machines that echoed in the halls of some of the buildings I had classes in (Taking a history class in a meat science building was a unique experience).
Cuisine in the south is shaped by what the crops provide or local innovation. Squash casserole or squash slightly sautéed with sweet onions if it's the height of the season. Fried green tomatoes as the first crops give fruit. Seeing old, grissled men with trunk fulls of watermelons for sale posted up at gas stations. Sometimes you'll see a large metal bbq going by them with "Big Bertha" scribbled on the side as it shoots out intoxicating smoke. If you're close to the coast or near New Orleans, fresh crayfish from large pots of heavy spices start appearing in early spring or a local with a cooler selling fresh red fish may set-up shop by the local watering hole. Mardigras season brings its own offerings with colorful King Cakes become a currency like gold and everyone is out to get "the one" from their preferred bakery; plastic babies safely tucked between the sheets of dough and cream is required.
The communal eating aspect of sitting for long hours while enjoying food is something lacking though. You may get the experience at a home BBQ or Sunday dinner with family, but not in a public restaurant scene. I blame US tipping culture for this because servers are actively encouraged to "flip tables." The quicker you get another set of guests at a table you're working, the more money tip wise you can make. They're a rarity, but there are some "old-timey" style restaurants peppered across the south where you eat at a large table with strangers and forced to pass large serving plates of food. I mostly went to them as a kid, but it's a more slowed down dining experience. You converse with people you may never see again while asking for them to pass the cornbread. It's an experience that last a few hours as dishes come out one by one.
Maybe the author sorta got to this point near the end of his analysis, but I think overall food culture in the US is very regional. My experience is not the norm and it is largely shaped by the Agricultural industries in my area. I highly recommend checking out PBS's Food channel on YouTube because they are doing some wonderful explorations of regional food culture. They have done an excellent job showcasing how immigrants have brought their food cultures and mashed them with local ones; their series with Chef Marcus Samuelsson is.my favorite.
From the article: The essay goes on to expound on the way most of the rest of the world experiences eating as a social activity, to be engaged in at a leisurely pace with family and friends - not...
From the article:
The pro-US arguments boiled down almost entirely to pointing out that we have a huge diversity of restaurant choices. Which is a good argument, because that, at a descriptive and practical level, is the strength of US food culture1
— that you can, if you really want to, get a reasonably priced good meal of almost any cuisine in the world.
That argument reveals a lot about how Americans, or at least well-to-do Americans on twitter, think about “good food.” They equate it with a diverse restaurant scene, which assumes having a bunch of different options trumps ubiquitous fresh food.
It is also a rather narrow definition, because having access to a lot of different restaurants serving a lot of different cuisines is currently only available in a handful of large and mid-sized cities.
Or, to put it another way, “eating well,” as defined in the US, is primarily a niche experiential thing (“let’s get Burmese, I’ve never had that before!”), mostly confined to the well to do and intellectuals, and isn’t central to broader US culture. Not yet at least.
The reality of food in America, outside of a few high-status neighborhoods scattered around the US, is that most people don’t prioritize the varied experiences of eating at bespoke restaurants, and so the median food eaten in the US is not from some well reviewed Indonesian place on the Upper East Side, or from that really cool Bolivian place in Alexandria.
It’s far more mundane than that, far more processed, and far less social. The far more common reality of food experience in America is someone eating drive-through alone in their car, or eating wings at the Applebee’s bar while watching the game with friends, or heating up leftovers in a microwave before work.
It’s not all a hellscape of lonely meals of processed food, but relative to the rest of the world, it is.
The essay goes on to expound on the way most of the rest of the world experiences eating as a social activity, to be engaged in at a leisurely pace with family and friends - not mere feeding to be dispensed with as efficiently as possible. There's also the mention that American food pales in comparison to treat made with the relatively fresh, local ingredients even the poorest citizens of most countries have available.
Speaking as one of the extra-privileged American eaters, I generally have to agree. We've gone out of our way to get something like a French lifestyle, but I still find myself eating kind of crap when it's expedient.
What are your theories/complaints/agreements beside the thesis that American food culture needs improvement? How much does relative economic privilege make a difference?
It's always great to see something from Chris Arnade. His book Dignity was moving and insightful and had great photos of US blight and poverty. He works in the tradition of the great photographers...
It's always great to see something from Chris Arnade. His book Dignity was moving and insightful and had great photos of US blight and poverty. He works in the tradition of the great photographers from the Great Depression.
And he made me think twice about US food culture. I think he is mostly correct, although there are other indigenous food obsessions here besides barbeque.
I grew up in America but have traveled extensively since I was young, but also I'm culturally from an eastern country. I think it's interesting seeing the differences of food culture in America vs...
I grew up in America but have traveled extensively since I was young, but also I'm culturally from an eastern country. I think it's interesting seeing the differences of food culture in America vs the rest of the world. I tend to agree with the author though, other countries seem to do the "live to eat" vs the "eat to live" mentality. I mean, even looking culturally across the pond, in London I remember seeing the pubs being filled up by everyone right after the workday ends, every single night I was there. Obviously anecdotal.
I don't think the author touched upon it, but one of the reasons I also think this might happen is because the prevalence of the idea of "American Individualism", which in turn feels like it erodes family and connections with peers. Zooming out a bit, you can also kinda notice it in eastern styles of eating together vs western, where everyone is served "family style" with multiple dishes in the middle. There might be something there but idk, it's pretty early in the day to think too hard about that.
I think the relatively lower number of multigenerational households in America definitely contributes; it's way easier to have homemade food at home if you've got more than two adults in any given...
I think the relatively lower number of multigenerational households in America definitely contributes; it's way easier to have homemade food at home if you've got more than two adults in any given household. When parents are around to help with childcare and cooking tasks then the scarcity of time stops being as strong of a factor.
That definitely tracks, though even in my own home growing up I had 2 working parents that didn't get home till late and we still made a point to eat together multiple times a week. It did get...
That definitely tracks, though even in my own home growing up I had 2 working parents that didn't get home till late and we still made a point to eat together multiple times a week. It did get less as we grew up and kinda started eating at our desks to watch TV or do internet things. I wonder if the prevalence of phones at the table or stuff like that also exacerbates the issue.
I grew up in a two-parent household, but the brunt of cooking fell to my mother (who worked the same hours as my father). Inevitably TV trays turned into “take to your room” meals, so I agree with...
I grew up in a two-parent household, but the brunt of cooking fell to my mother (who worked the same hours as my father). Inevitably TV trays turned into “take to your room” meals, so I agree with your interpretation. Had I had more meals together maybe there would have been more family cohesiveness, but it feels an uphill battle with American “individualist” culture.
That being said, my girlfriend’s family has heavy German roots and while the cuisine is more hearty/peasant than others, there does seem to be a micro-culture of family that extends beyond the sharing of food present in other cultures.
I wonder if the real issue is that America’s relative food prosperity has removed the need for tight-knit communities sharing scarce resources, and this prosperity has lasted through enough decades to wipe out memories of early struggle. I’m reminded of Jewish Seder meals wherein a main theme is a reminder of the lack of resources early Jews suffered through.
Even the American icon of the cornucopia for thanksgiving was representative of an alliance with Native Americans/Indians (still not sure what term’s preferred), specifically due to the lack of resources during winter bringing disparate communities together.
I guess my point is mostly that success breeds its own problems, and American society is currently dealing with that. Americans have never been more divided and yet simultaneously never more prosperous (if you trust GDP as an accurate measure).
Hmm that's an interesting take! I never really thought about it that way but it makes some sense in my mind! Unfortunately I've also never studied sociology so anything I can contribute would just...
Hmm that's an interesting take! I never really thought about it that way but it makes some sense in my mind! Unfortunately I've also never studied sociology so anything I can contribute would just be me blathering haha.
This article, as well as the discussion it's reacting to, are based on national boundaries. Each country is considered as a single place. The headline frames the debate in terms of whether America...
This article, as well as the discussion it's reacting to, are based on national boundaries. Each country is considered as a single place. The headline frames the debate in terms of whether America [does/does not] have a good food culture. (Pick one.)
The pro-US arguments boiled down almost entirely to pointing out that we have a huge diversity of restaurant choices.
[...]
It is also a rather narrow definition, because having access to a lot of different restaurants serving a lot of different cuisines is currently only available in a handful of large and mid-sized cities.
In this way, a strength of some American cities is set aside because it's not the "median food eaten in the US."
But averages can mislead. Instead we could talk about variation, the local and regional cuisines within each country.
We could say that many people in the US don't have good diets, while others eat very well, and discuss some examples without caring particularly about national averages.
When thinking about your own diet or what food is available where you live, a US national average is irrelevant. Perhaps it matters more when you're traveling, but it depends where you go, and our diets when traveling often aren't much like our diets at home. How much people eat out versus eating at home varies widely, depending on where you live and what stage of life you're in.
When are national averages important? What questions can we answer with them?
I think it’s also relevant that a country like France has an especially strong national identity and culture, which extends to food as well. You can describe the average food culture in France and...
I think it’s also relevant that a country like France has an especially strong national identity and culture, which extends to food as well. You can describe the average food culture in France and capture a majority of how the country eats, because the country prides itself on this cohesive “Frenchness”. Whereas describing the food culture in the US based on averages simply doesn’t work because there is too much variation in local, cultural, economic, life factors to describe the entire country, as you said. And I agree with your last question. What’s the point of such generalizations anyways?
For the traveler, maybe it's good to know what you can find anywhere? Although people have favorites, I don't think there's a special place to go in New York City to get good pizza; you can just...
For the traveler, maybe it's good to know what you can find anywhere? Although people have favorites, I don't think there's a special place to go in New York City to get good pizza; you can just buy it somewhere local.
Similar generalizations might be good to know when traveling in France? But this is more about what food you can find when eating out, which is not necessarily what people normally eat.
The part of the article that I believe to be the crux, and really resonated with me, was looking at expectations around food, particularly its quality and freshness. It's subjective just like...
The part of the article that I believe to be the crux, and really resonated with me, was looking at expectations around food, particularly its quality and freshness. It's subjective just like everything else in the article, but I think in the US quality and freshness aren't something that is really discussed until we get into fine dining.
I'm a big produce head, like an absolute whore for farmers markets, and even I don't usually think about it outside of my own cooking. If I'm hunting down Karaage Chicken or Neapolitan Pizza I'm looking at how crispy the chicken is, how hot the spice blend is, or how the crust of the pizza rises. Very rarely do I consider the freshness of the chicken or the tomatoes in the sauce. And I actively think about that in everyday life. As a nation it's not something that is front of mind, or even highly valued. I think output, like taste and texture, trump input, like quality of ingredients, every time.
And like he points out in the article, in many other countries there is an assumption of freshness, even if you're poor. Whole fish, not fillets. Freshly ground spices, not bottled. I think this leads us to generalizable eating habits. If ingredients are important, then meal preparation is important because you care and know about what is going into a meal. If ingredients don't really matter, then why spend all the time to make something when a microwavable bao bun from Trader Joes is going to taste just as good?
So we return to the question of what is better? Again, it's subjective but I'd say the "French" or maybe we can couch it as the "input" diet leads to healthier, more engaging interactions while the "American" is drastically more efficient. To me, efficiency is overrated but sometime a necessary part of living in the US. That said, those bao buns from TJs are freaking delicious.
There's an assumption here that preserved food must be bad that I think it needs to be questioned. There are many useful techniques for preserving food. Some are old and others are new. Many are...
There's an assumption here that preserved food must be bad that I think it needs to be questioned. There are many useful techniques for preserving food. Some are old and others are new. Many are traditional and nobody questions them, even in France. Wine and cheese are preserved foods.
I don't really see the problem with using tomato sauce from a jar? Many things freeze well.
What seems clear from this discussion is that many people are concerned about food, but these concerns are rather free-floating and not necessarily evidence-based.
I feel like demonizing preserved food starts feeling like the same boogeyman that people use when they say that all chemicals are bad for you, a lot of misinfo and straight up bad science when it...
I feel like demonizing preserved food starts feeling like the same boogeyman that people use when they say that all chemicals are bad for you, a lot of misinfo and straight up bad science when it comes to food and nutrition nowadays.
I've been losing weight recently so naturally all my short form video algorithms have been pushing me towards food videos and I notice that a lot nowadays. I also notice that there's been a bigger movement towards "add, not subtract" type of dieting mentality which I really like and appreciate.
Most of what I see are on Instagram reels which I don't really have handy on my desktop, but one of my personal favorite creators is SoheeFit, here's a youtube short about it who emphasizes...
Most of what I see are on Instagram reels which I don't really have handy on my desktop, but one of my personal favorite creators is SoheeFit, here's a youtube short about it who emphasizes healthy dieting mentality and all that.
That's actually a pretty good overview about the philosophy, and I particularly love that at the end she emphasizes that it's not a weight loss plan but more of a tool to gain health. Elimination...
That's actually a pretty good overview about the philosophy, and I particularly love that at the end she emphasizes that it's not a weight loss plan but more of a tool to gain health.
Elimination diets basically don't work - at least not alone. There's too much negativity around it so nobody can follow it. The mantra "add veggies" is a simple tool that gets you most of the way towards weight loss because it helps you get full before you start to overeat. One should also be eating the vegetables first, just like grandma would have told you to do when you were a kid.
It's good that this kind of thing is being spread through social media. The first time I was told to do this was earlier this year, by a doctor.
Yeah, I really like Sohee's take on food and nutrition in general, and I think a lot of my feeds have been converging onto that style of content which is nice! I think that in general it's helped...
Yeah, I really like Sohee's take on food and nutrition in general, and I think a lot of my feeds have been converging onto that style of content which is nice! I think that in general it's helped me a lot too, I personally lost 15 pounds since August lol.
Totally, that's kind of what I was trying to get at with my comment on Trader Joes bao buns. Good is a subjective measure and I think the author covers that well. I just don't think we even think...
Totally, that's kind of what I was trying to get at with my comment on Trader Joes bao buns. Good is a subjective measure and I think the author covers that well. I just don't think we even think about it domestically, whereas in other parts of the world they do.
Personally I think you get better food in small towns and villages across the country if you consider those things. Anecdotally, eating in small towns in France has turned up more gems than small towns domestically for me. Even the area that I live in that is small/medium sized with access to tons of fresh produce and fish has pretty lackluster offerings.
What seems clear from this discussion is that many people are concerned about food, but these concerns are rather free-floating and not necessarily evidence-based.
My only pushback to this would be look at obesity and nutritional data for both countries. You could even look at school lunch programs as a proxy. Domestically we have problems with obesity and nutrition because we preference high calorie, processed foods. Some of that is adhering to federal standards and some is expectations of the children. I don't think the argument is free from evidence, I think most folks are just adding their own anecdotal 2 cents. There are some very cool groups working domestically to change that though like Brigaid looking to shift back to fresher cuisine in schools.
Edit: Also copying here for relevancy
The main issue with highly processed food is that it removes transparency of our food system. If you know where your veggies are grown, the farm that your chicken comes from, or the people who make your bread/cheese/etc is that it's harder for really fucky stuff to take place. Slavery and debt labor is still rampant in our food system. So is environmental degradation. Highly processed food obscures it's origin and the required labor enough to make it difficult to say if there is slavery or destruction associated with it. The new yorker did an amazing piece on fisheries recently that highlights just how bad these systems can be. There is a sister article on food processing as well.
I think there are things to be concerned about, but our concerns are free-floating in the sense of not thinking clearly and in depth about one problem at a time. Obesity is one problem....
I think there are things to be concerned about, but our concerns are free-floating in the sense of not thinking clearly and in depth about one problem at a time. Obesity is one problem. Environmental degradation is an entirely different problem. Labor issues are a third problem.
They may be related, but it seems like a big unproductive stew of worry about lots of different things at once that's largely good for marketing to foodies.
I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect that a public health approach might be rather different? What if cheap, nutritious food produced at scale turns out to be low-status industrial convenience food that doesn't particularly appeal to foodie biases?
(That's a vague, free-floating concern I have, though.)
I started questioning the value and healthfulness of industrially produced food products based on information I found in a book by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma a Natural History of Four...
I started questioning the value and healthfulness of industrially produced food products based on information I found in a book by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma a Natural History of Four Meals. The Omnivore's Dilemma The information reported in the book was supposed to be cutting edge at the time. Tildes might be a place where subject experts might share their knowledge. It definitely was a more sophisticated and nuanced perspective than just asserting all chemicals bad. Much more that the producers of food are sophisticated selfish/self interested capitalists who disregard health information related to food in similar ways as the tobacco companies disregarded the risks of nicotine in favor of perceived benefits to them and their business success.
It would be nice, but since Tildes is such a small community, I generally assume we don't have any subject-matter experts in most subjects, until proven otherwise. At least we have a lawyer now :-)
Tildes might be a place where subject experts might share their knowledge.
It would be nice, but since Tildes is such a small community, I generally assume we don't have any subject-matter experts in most subjects, until proven otherwise. At least we have a lawyer now :-)
I've received some brief fly by comments on posts here that lead me to believe I am far from the only attorney or at least legal savvy person here. I might be the only out lawyer lol.
I've received some brief fly by comments on posts here that lead me to believe I am far from the only attorney or at least legal savvy person here. I might be the only out lawyer lol.
You are right that some preservation techniques are fine. Drying and canning are really good examples. Fermentation actually has positive health effects! But not all techniques are the same, and...
You are right that some preservation techniques are fine. Drying and canning are really good examples. Fermentation actually has positive health effects!
But not all techniques are the same, and some can drastically alter the nutrition of the food you want to eat, and perhaps more importantly nearly all of them will affect the flavor.
You can, for instance, eat a can of peaches, which is stored in syrup. Or you could just eat a fresh peach when it’s available or if it’s not available you can eat another sweet fruit.
Even if a preservation method is traditional, it doesn’t mean that it’s good for your health. Storing things in brine means you will be consuming a lot more salt, for an example.
Depends on if you value that input to output ratio on the food you can just throw together with minimal or no effort versus making it yourself. I cook at home, a lot. I dunno how that translates...
Depends on if you value that input to output ratio on the food you can just throw together with minimal or no effort versus making it yourself.
I cook at home, a lot. I dunno how that translates to bought prepped food or meals because I'm eating food myself or my SO made weekly, either fresh or as leftovers.
I'd wager most people consuming overprocessed crap probably aren't viewing food in the same way.
I got called an ablelist and other stuff recently by someone when I suggested perhaps cooking your own meals would be cheaper than ordering DoorDash every day.
This person had also complained about how expensive "eating' is. So that really made me think about how people even see food.
Do people really give a crap about making good food for themselves or is it easier to just use a very overpriced app to have a simulacrum of (whatever food) delivered to your doorstep in lieu of figuring out how to cook - which isn't hard depending, it just takes some time management and a willingness to go to the store. Even Walmart has a fairly wide selection of ingredients that might not be the best, but are at least basically functional.
I feel sympathetic for people who think that way because that used to be me. I subscribe to the idea that it’s a good thing that women aren’t expected to be homekeepers anymore, but one of the...
I feel sympathetic for people who think that way because that used to be me.
I subscribe to the idea that it’s a good thing that women aren’t expected to be homekeepers anymore, but one of the negative effects is that it means that there is often not anyone in a household who’s job it is to cook. Making meals that are healthy, satisfying, and delicious is time consuming. In the meanwhile there are businesses who can give you meal for the whole family that meets two out of those three qualities so fast that you don’t even need to get out of your car.
Totally, this whole conversation is where we each apply value. There is going to be a whole spectrum a perspectives and priorities. I like cooking and fresh produce. I have a friend that hates...
Totally, this whole conversation is where we each apply value. There is going to be a whole spectrum a perspectives and priorities.
I like cooking and fresh produce. I have a friend that hates both of those things (big meat and potatoes type dude). Neither of us is wrong. The only thing I wish people took away from it though is the transparency of our food system. If you know where your veggies are grown, the farm that your chicken comes from, or the people who make your bread/cheese/etc is that it's harder for really fucky stuff to take place. Slavery and debt labor is still rampant in our food system. So is environmental degradation. Highly processed food obscures it's origin and the required labor enough to make it difficult to say if there is slavery or destruction associated with it. The new yorker did an amazing piece on fisheries recently that highlights just how bad these systems can be. There is a sister article on food processing as well.
As someone who pretty much only buys the processed prepared foods, figuring out how to cook for some is harder than you think. I made an effort to try that last year until I woke up in agony one...
Do people really give a crap about making good food for themselves or is it easier to just use a very overpriced app to have a simulacrum of (whatever food) delivered to your doorstep in lieu of figuring out how to cook - which isn't hard depending, it just takes some time management and a willingness to go to the store.
As someone who pretty much only buys the processed prepared foods, figuring out how to cook for some is harder than you think. I made an effort to try that last year until I woke up in agony one night, extreme chest pains, upset stomach etc. and vomited numerous times (after which I began to feel a little better). I live alone and hardly ever talk to my parents but I felt so horrible when I woke up that I actually sent my mom a text because if I died it would have been the whole weekend into Monday at the earliest when my employer would wonder why I didn't show up and I sure as hell wasn't going to plan on seeking medical help since I don't have health insurance.
Anyhow, pretty sure I got food poisoning from a meal I prepared for myself. I won't bore with the details of that but I stopped trying after that and haven't gotten sick since. I don't recall if I've ever had food poisoning before, maybe when I was a teenager or something but I don't recall anything specifically.
I hear you, and I wasn't trying to come across as an asshole, so apologies if I did. Cooking at home is so integral for me, and especially since the price of a sit-down restaurant meal has...
I hear you, and I wasn't trying to come across as an asshole, so apologies if I did.
Cooking at home is so integral for me, and especially since the price of a sit-down restaurant meal has steadily climbed the past few years. It works out significantly cheaper for me to do it myself.
Im sorry you had a bad experience giving it a try yourself, and if you don't want to try again, I'd understand.
But if you are still interested there's the whole internet and a whole lot of cookbooks for beginner home cooks out there if you prefer a physical book.
There's a ton aimed at basic but tasty recipes that build real useful skills and teach you about food safety along the way.
In rural areas you frequently have the choices of pizza, subs or greasy Chinese food with “pub food” as a distant fourth. It can be depressing on a road trip. There was that time we stopped in...
In rural areas you frequently have the choices of pizza, subs or greasy Chinese food with “pub food” as a distant fourth. It can be depressing on a road trip. There was that time we stopped in Watertown, NY and made fun of the “Mr. Subb” and then looked at the local paper and there was a picture of someone being hauled out of it on a stretcher. It wasn’t the food, it was that somebody got stabbed in the street and went into the restaurant for help.
Go to urban areas though and it is quite different, you certainly can find bad food in urban areas but you can find good food too.
As others in the chat have pointed out, food in America, like healthcare, can be a very different experience for the wealthy. Major cities and a handful of large tourist towns have enough great...
As others in the chat have pointed out, food in America, like healthcare, can be a very different experience for the wealthy. Major cities and a handful of large tourist towns have enough great dining options to hold their own against international cities, but the price of admission is pretty high.
I think it also affects how we approach dining. When I first started serving fine dining in LA, I had trouble adapting to the change of pace. I was used to serving people fairly quickly and turning tables, even in the fine dining restaurants I worked at in places like New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Coastal Florida. In LA, many of my guests would sit back and enjoy the meal for at least 90 minutes, often two hours or more. Part of it had to do with the spaces (one was very beautiful and Instagram-worthy, the other a large outdoor space), but I suspect housing also plays a role in that difference. If you're coming from a fairly small apartment, the idea of spending a few hours out of the house with friends might be a bit more enticing than if you have a house with a dining space and living room.
Raleigh nc reporting in. Our food scene sucks. People unironically celebrate chain restaurants. They were sad because we didn’t get a ginormous gas station (buccees). There’s not a single good...
Raleigh nc reporting in. Our food scene sucks. People unironically celebrate chain restaurants. They were sad because we didn’t get a ginormous gas station (buccees). There’s not a single good diner, the one opened with lasted nine months. No good pizza. A couple good asian restaurants a ways out from city center. And for all that, it’s expensive. I’d say prices are at d.c. prices with significantly lower quality. It’s a real disappointment living here.
We do have an h mart, but it is sadly far away from me.
I am genuinely surprised by this comment. Raleigh is one of my favorite places to eat! I lived in Clayton for about 10 years and still go back twice a year to see my parents. I agree with you...
I am genuinely surprised by this comment. Raleigh is one of my favorite places to eat! I lived in Clayton for about 10 years and still go back twice a year to see my parents. I agree with you about pizza (except i do love mellow mushroom), and that there a lot of people who celebrate subpar fast food chains, but hard disagree about there not being good options. The seafood options are fantastic, there is abundant barbecue, there is a whole food truck scene. I always like the shiny diner for cheapo stuff and Pooles diner is nice. There are great local coffee roasters. Flying biscuit. There is indian food emporium. There is an international grocery store between raleigh and greensboro. I dunno if chargrill is still around, but I know there used to be three or four of those walk up burger/hot dog/sub shops around NC state. Snoopys I think, for a greasy cheese steak sando. The whole range of fatty inexpensive comfort food to upscaled fine dining, all have non-chain options :)
Well, I’m coming from Asheville, where there is a knockout farm to table on every block. Still, that’s kinda the point of tfa, isn’t it? I understand Raleigh was better about 15 years ago, not...
Well, I’m coming from Asheville, where there is a knockout farm to table on every block. Still, that’s kinda the point of tfa, isn’t it?
I understand Raleigh was better about 15 years ago, not just for food, but also art and music. I find it fairly drab, and also, what good (tasty) culture there is, is spread out very far and accessible only by car.
If you want NJ/NY style pizza, Primos in Cary is pretty good. It's the only place I've found that does that style right. Everything else is Papa Johns style pizza, bleh. Taipei 101 in Cary is good...
If you want NJ/NY style pizza, Primos in Cary is pretty good. It's the only place I've found that does that style right. Everything else is Papa Johns style pizza, bleh.
Taipei 101 in Cary is good for Chinese food. They have actual Chinese dishes in addition to the American Chinese dishes.
America is a big place. In terms of food, America has some of the best and worst food available in the world. Best in class: A variety of multi-ethnic options in larger cities. Worst in class:...
America is a big place.
In terms of food, America has some of the best and worst food available in the world.
Best in class: A variety of multi-ethnic options in larger cities.
Worst in class: Fast food restaurants and supermarkets that prioritize shelf life and sugar/ fats over freshness and nutritional value.
In terms of food culture, America is surely down there with the UK, Canada & Australia. In fact, I am surprised that the Aussies spend as much time eating as Germans. In my limited experience, Germans take their socializing over food very seriously. Does drinking terrible beer while the barbie cooks something really count as food culture? :)
Australia has a huge restaurant culture. When I moved here from the US, I was surprised to see how frequently people go to eat out here; I thought Americans ate out a lot, but I think Australians...
Australia has a huge restaurant culture. When I moved here from the US, I was surprised to see how frequently people go to eat out here; I thought Americans ate out a lot, but I think Australians easily match or outdo them. And that's my perspective as someone who grew up along the Buford Highway Corridor —which is well known for its huge variety of restaurants with really good, affordable food — and then moved to a tiny country town in Australia where the options are far more limited.
The food variety is a lot smaller in Australia, but I think they still punch way above their weight when you account for population size. A big part of it, it seems, is that approximately 30% of Australia's population are immigrants (compared to 15% in the US), which contributes a great deal to a country's food culture and general willingness to be adventurous with food. Another big part of it is that Australians seem to have a lot of discretionary income due to better wealth distribution, universal healthcare, and so on.
It's been a while since I last spent time in Aus, but even 20-30 years ago the food was authentic and fantastic. I'm not sure eating out a lot is the same thing as having a food centric culture...
It's been a while since I last spent time in Aus, but even 20-30 years ago the food was authentic and fantastic.
I'm not sure eating out a lot is the same thing as having a food centric culture however.
This is honestly a topic with a lot of depth, which could be excavated many different subtopics. I mostly agree with the points made (I've long been keenly aware that the majority don't share my...
This is honestly a topic with a lot of depth, which could be excavated many different subtopics. I mostly agree with the points made (I've long been keenly aware that the majority don't share my family's desire to try new things or diverse palette, to the point that I've met people who think garlic is exotic and unbearably "spicy."
It's also worth noting that, in addition to the fixation on chains and mass produced, processed food, quality on even those things has been on a long term decline. Once in awhile I'll hear someone talk about how one fast food franchise or another is astoundingly better in another country...because the state of raw ingredients and the end result has been "enshittified" for decades, slowly boiling the pot so nobody notices. Our supermarket chicken is flavorless, sad and injected full of saline. Our fast food beef is full of grain fillers. In an endless race to maintain margins, we pay more and more for worse mediocrity.
So I've finally got a chance to comment properly, instead of flinging a Tildes topic out on my way to work in the morning, while downing a giant mug of coffee, a handful of pills, and a protein...
So I've finally got a chance to comment properly, instead of flinging a Tildes topic out on my way to work in the morning, while downing a giant mug of coffee, a handful of pills, and a protein bar, as we Americans are wont to do instead of eating breakfast.
I've visited a very broad range of American locales, from the very wealthiest (Palo Alto and Santa Barbara, CA; Manhattan) to the very poorest (Tupelo, MS; Detroit, MI; East St. Louis, MO; Petersburg, VA, etc.).
I've had excellent meals almost everywhere, even if they came in cardboard boxes or tin foil. But ordinary tourists would never go to the places I've found great food in. We're talking food trucks; gas stations; nondescript storefronts adjoining boarded-up factories, surrounded by barbed wire and a few working prostitutes; strip-mall dives with barely lit signs where no one speaks English and I'm the only pale-skinned person within a square mile or two; Asian grocery takeout food courts...
What most of these places have in common is that they're close to the family recipes of the people who make the food, and they're buying fresh or unfinished ingredients that haven't been pre-prepped by way of Cargill, Miesel/Sysco, Gordon, or any of the other food service conglomerates, or a central chain kitchen. These are Vietnamese/Cambodian places that make their own phô stock; Chinese, Indian, and Mexican restaurants that specialize in the regional foods where their owners came from; the subtle variations from most of Central and South America (Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Equador, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela); Brazilian restaurants that serve dishes other than churrasco; Caribbean and African (Nigerian and Senegalese) carryouts; Korean restaurants with all kinds of homemade banchan; local U.S. barbecue, delicatessen specialties, cupcakes, burgers, gumbo, charcuterie, and soul food; wacky combinations of any or all of the above.
And you don't necessarily have to be in a significant metropolitan area to find this food. You just need a little experience, willingness to ask locals of all classes, and an eye for places that don't have much food service packaging by the dumpster. It's also usually a good sign if the owner and his/her family are working and eating there.
Will you enjoy haute cuisine, or a place you can linger in at pampered leisure? Heck no. Presentation, service, and scenery are rarely considered - just deliciousness. The underground informality, family business, and unpromoted nature of these places leads to a very biased view of American food culture in the media. Even Andrew Zimmern likely wouldn't stop at most of my favorites, and yet they're far more accessible to the least wealthy people than fast food and chain restaurants. [I used to drive my boss nuts by turning in $5/day food expense reports, with handwritten receipts.]
None of this excuses the obvious deficits in middle and high-end American food culture. We do rely far too much on ultraprocessed, quick-to-eat foods. We do have consolidated, homogenized food shopping in most metros. We do eat too much, too quickly, without pausing for social enjoyment. As /u/KneeFingers indicated, American tipping culture often makes restaurant dining uncomfortable if you've held a table longer than it takes to eat your order. We're way too dependent on cars for even the most basic food access. We're poorly educated about cooking, diet, nutrition, and health in comparison to most Asian and European countries, and most of us don't have multigenerational traditional knowledge in these areas.
The U.S. could certainly do better, but I wouldn't put us at the bottom of the league table, either.
America does not have a single, unified food culture and to paint it as such is either incredible ignorance or deliberately disingenuous. California alone has more than half the population of...
America does not have a single, unified food culture and to paint it as such is either incredible ignorance or deliberately disingenuous. California alone has more than half the population of France and roughly 2/3rds the area. Paris is closer to Berlin than El Paso is to Houston. Different regions, different cities can have their own food cultures, to say nothing of the myriad different diasporas living here. Guatemalans, and Japanese, and Armenians, and Pakistanis, and Jamaicans, and yes even French, British, German, and Italian and all their children.
But no, just sick with the same genetic White middle America stereotype and wonder how you kicked the hornet's nest.
<hot-take>Just remove the word "food" from the title for broader applicability.</hot-take> I'm off-topic, visiting Canada, and seeing people who bicker with far more solidity and far less.
<hot-take>Just remove the word "food" from the title for broader applicability.</hot-take>
I'm off-topic, visiting Canada, and seeing people who bicker with far more solidity and far less.
I'm surprise school lunches weren't brought up in the article. I believe the way we serve our children greatly influences how they view the world, and when you look at the slop most schools serve...
I'm surprise school lunches weren't brought up in the article. I believe the way we serve our children greatly influences how they view the world, and when you look at the slop most schools serve up every day (because they are so strapped for cash the cafeteria staff are reduced to mere prepackaged food reheaters) and how little time the kids have to eat (when I was in high school, our third class of the day was when they served lunch, which was divided into 4 groups of ~300 students given 22 minutes each to get through 1 of 2 serving lines, pay for their food, find a seat, and eat)...it's no wonder most Americans eat low-quality food and that the US has such a fast-paced food culture.
There are some really cool groups in the US trying to change that system like Brigaid. Brad Leone of Bon Appetite fame did a really cool episode of Local Legends on them.
There are some really cool groups in the US trying to change that system like Brigaid. Brad Leone of Bon Appetite fame did a really cool episode of Local Legends on them.
This article strikes me as writing about a series of disjointed stereotypes; its depiction of typical American restaurant culture is somewhat bleaker than reality, and it characterizes the food culture elsewhere from a best-case depiction. In essence, it's judging Americans by our work lunches and everywhere else by the best of its culinary scene. It's disingenuous to pretend that other countries lack cheap, prepared options - they exist, and they are as broadly-used as American prepared foods in the scenarios where they're appropriate.
I do think there are some points to be made, especially with regard to how Americans have a notoriously shit work-life balance relative to other countries. It leads to us eating quick food to fit into a short lunch break, and choosing fast options at home because we lack time and energy after a long day. Anecdotally, my own investment in food prep has scaled inversely with the time I've had to spend physically present in my office ever since COVID changed that equation, and I'm convinced that long working hours are a large reason for the enduring popularity of low-prep, low-quality meals.
Similarly, it's a common observation that the base tier of American ingredients or prepared foods is cheaper and more-processed than the equivalent European counterpart, in particular, due to more lenient food safety laws and the aforementioned appetite for cheap, quick solutions to address the lack of time in food preparation. The fresh foods available in low-income areas are often limited, and there is plenty of attention given to the problem of "food deserts" where options for anything but fast food or convenience store food are sharply limited.
But everything I've mentioned so far falls squarely into the category of an economic problem rather than a critique of food culture. Americans who are not constrained by problems of economy or geography have plenty of options to take a lingering meal with decent food, even in areas which I wouldn't consider to be economically advantaged. Some of the most "American" restaurants I know are tiny neighborhood restaurants in historically blue-collar areas.
Ask tourists from other areas what their experience was with American food, and for the most part I find that people have a very positive view of American dining after taking a trip here. Anecdotally, again, I know several folks that live elsewhere and have traveled to the US as tourists; the variety and quality of food available is usually mentioned in a positive way when they describe how their trip went. The problem isn't a lack of good options, but rather a lack of time, money and will to exercise those options. That remains mostly an economic problem, I'd contend, and not a failing of American food culture. If we want to see a renaissance in the American mealtime I think the most productive step would be to ensure that we have the free time and energy to enjoy it.
It think you make a good point, but I'm not sure that our nearly universal choice of mass produced sandwich bread over bread from a local bakery is simply a function of work schedules and lack of time. Industrial scale food producers have dominated small shops in this country in a way that is a lot less true elsewhere.
I first knew Arnade from his book Dignity which focuses on the life experience of people in towns and cities left behind economically by the outsourcing and exporting of industry over the last 50 years. One of the points of his article is that poor people in France have access to fresh food and that is much less true here. I am not in a position to personally verify his point. But I saw him specifically distinguish the food that is available to our upper middle class from what he was talking about.
You’re thinking the same thing as I am, and bread is such a good example of the most major problems with US food culture. The bread you can buy at every grocery store here is a poor simulation of the real thing. It has considerably less flavor than real bread. It’s been made with wheat that has been hulled and therefore is stripped of important vitamins and fiber, and then is often bleached. It typically has added sugar, making it closer to cake than bread. Additives that would not typically be considered “food” get put into it as well. It has been changed dramatically from the source of life our ancestors relied on.
Why do we eat this artificial bread product? Is it cheaper? In some ways yes, others no; it’s generally not as cheap as bread made from just flour water and yeast, but with economies of scale it gets very close. But I think the thing that makes this example emblematic of the issues the US has with food is its longevity is that this fake processed bread will last for weeks on end. Our transportation systems in most cases makes it extremely difficult to go to the stores; most people don’t have a grocery store within walking distance of their house, so they have to take a car to go to a giant store where they buy food in large quantities to store in their homes. Popping into a grocer after work to grab stuff to make dinner essentially doesn’t exist for a vast majority of people here, so they buy processed and shelf-stable food.
Processed food is not entirely an American problem, of course; it’s a problem that most rich countries face. But it’s a problem that seemingly started in the US and has since then been exported to nations we trade with. You can easily see the effects because anywhere that does this sees a proportional growth in obesity rates in their population.
The author is right that France and much of the world has better food culture than the US, but what they don’t identify is the social sickness that causes it. The US didn’t just used to have a better food culture, it had many, and we just hear the echoes of it now. That’s part of why we have such a wide array of cuisines here now. It’s almost amazing that they didn’t bring up Tex-Mex, the Pennsylvania Dutch, Italian-American, or Chinese-American cuisines, or any of the others. But those have become subsumed by the corporate processed food giants as well. Spaghetti has become a two-ingredient meal: boxed pasta and canned sauce. Tortillas have the same problems as Bread and are more likely than not to be made from a single factory in Texas. We have made our lives more convenient but have sacrificed flavor and our health for it.
This seems like assuming all breakfast cereals are chocolate-frosted sugar bombs just because some are. There are many kinds of breads available in the grocery stores I visit. Some are better than others.
The last time I went to look for bread at a grocery store, literally all of the options had added sugar. There were zero options without it, even including the stuff baked fresh on location. The fresh stuff had preservatives, even! And this was a really big market with numerous choices. It's increasingly uncommon to find breakfast cereals without added sugar, too, unless you count oatmeal. Even plain corn flakes tend to have added sugar these days.
There is only one brand of bread that I've found that doesn't have added sugar or preservatives, and that's Food For Life, which isn't in all stores and is found in the freezer aisle.
I just looked at the ingredients on bread baked fresh at a local grocery store. I live where there are about 150k people in the Midwest metro area I'm in
The 2nd loaf had no sugar. (This was not an outlier either)
Going through the "bread aisle" was harder due to quantity as filters would just bring up keto bread so I didn't make it through that.
I checked another grocery store's bakery and the first one I selected did not have sugar same with the next four on the default sorted search list. If I was looking at a sliced "sandwich bread" then yes those do
Just really providing a counterpoint that these options are out there. They are however significantly more expensive than the bag of white sandwich, and with as much as Americans pay for things like transportation and healthcare our food budget is proportionally so much smaller and for that money the food we get tends to be more processed.
I don't think processed is always bad either, but when it's all you can afford financially or due to time or access it can be a problem
To be clear, I don’t mean to say that options without sugar and preservatives literally do not exist. Merely that they are difficult to access and have become niche. You could, after all, bake your own bread if the market didn’t have any.
I can’t help noting you didn’t mention if any of the bread you were looking at were 100% whole wheat, which was an important part of my original response. If it was made with hulled wheat flour, it’s already been stripped of all of its fiber and vitamins, which increases calorie density and makes it more carb-heavy. Also were you checking the ingredients list or were you checking the “added sugar” on the nutrition facts? Because if you were checking the ingredients then you might have missed some of the ways they add sugar. I just found an article that collected over 50 different ingredients used to add sugar.
Minimal processing is fine, of course, but when it comes to a lot of food that Americans eat, it falls into the ultraprocessed category, where it has been engineered to increase calorie density and reach a “bliss point” so that you’ll buy more of it. This is incredibly bad for your health, and a reason why poorer people in this country are more likely to be overweight or obese, which causes health complications.
You didn't mention the whole wheat in the comment I was replying to and while I was looking at nutritional info and ingredients I was also doing it on a mobile screen on a grocery website so I'm sure it's imperfect. At least one was sourdough. I don't prefer whole wheat bread most of the time.
My point was just that with minimal effort in multiple major chains did have un-sugared bread in their fresh baked sections. I'm not really wanting to scoot the goalposts any more on that. I understood you had a broader point and nodded to it.
I also don't care about processing from a morality standpoint, I care about it from a "this is all people can afford financially and manage with their limited time and resources". That's what drives the shopping behavior IMO.
I never once mentioned morality. There are also no goalpost here because I thought this was a conversation not an argument.
If I have offended you, then I sincerely apologize. This wasn’t supposed to be an attack on anyone. It was merely supposed to be a description of the way things are.
I'm not offended it just felt a bit exhausting? It felt like arguing. Perhaps it's just that I have particularly good grocery store access, I might, the Midwest does that pretty well. I wasn't trying to prove you wrong so much as say my experiences have differed.
You didn't mention morality but the discussions often becomes sort of a "evil food companies making lazy Americans fat" thing which is both moralizing around fatness and food on top of the corporations. You weren't necessarily intending to go there and I was definitely more tired than I'd intended when I replied so I apologize.
I have strong feelings about wanting to address the larger circumstances around why people eat cheaper processed foods without blaming them - American or otherwise - because it's so much more complex than that. I'm lucky enough to afford nicer breads, and yet my partner still sometimes wants white bread and lunch meat sandwiches because they're easy and accessible for him with his disabilities. When I'm exhausted from work and home responsibilities I may eat a freezer meal (or piece together something out of a variety of snacks). But I think food insecurity in the US is somewhat hidden by our comparatively cheap food costs, because we can't afford to spend the percent of our budgets on food that people do in Europe. But it's a vicious cycle and one that has to be addressed at those levels IMO.
Anyway sorry for being an ass.
I don't think that food corporations are necessarily evil, with the exception being the major meat providers like Tyson and Cargill. I think that market pressure essentially forces them into it. If your bread doesn't taste as good as the competition, people buy their bread instead and you go out of business. I think that public health is constantly encroached upon by a combination of capitalism and our natural desire for calorie-dense foods. Regulation is supposed to help (and indeed, it historically has very much) but it's famously slow and doesn't keep up with the times.
I understand you having strong feelings about food because I have them too; it's another universal human trait. Food is culture, and nobody likes to be criticized, directly or indirectly, for following their culture. I've been making it a point to not judge people for the way they eat. The truth is that I have a long history of eating absolutely terrible and the cumulative effects came on so slowly that I simply didn't realize how bad they got until I was having major health concerns. Earlier this year I cut out all of the processed and sugary foods from my life and the results have been fairly dramatic. I've lost over 100 pounds this year.
If there's one thing I want you to know is that I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings about the ways they are living their lives. I have strong feelings about this topic as well. If you look through my comment history you'll probably find a whole lot more talking about nutrition.
I can commiserate. Whenever I visit the US (think 150~200K cities, east coast, several times a year), I have the same pain of shopping for bread, unable to find multi-/whole-grain options without added sugar. I even saw one recently that, somehow, said it had no added sugar but also listed both honey and molasses in the ingredient list.
I don't think Canada's a whole lot better in terms of food culture, but pretty much every normal-to-large sized grocery store (at least in the mid-to-east coast provinces I'm more familiar with) carries several common brands of no-added-sugar bread that are some combo of multi-grain/whole-grain/sourdough.
Also astounding in terms of price. The Canadian options retail for CA$3.5~4.5, but the best US options I've found are US$5~8. Huge difference not even considering exchange rate.
I totally realize I'm not as familiar with the US grocery landscape as I am in Canada, so am most likely overlooking some options, but still, I've given up. These days I do my best to bring bread down with me.
There's a nifty episode of How It's Made that shows the commercial sandwich bread process. The nature of factory production requires more additives (oils and dough conditioners) and faster, sugar-fed yeasts to speed the rise. This comes at the sacrifice of flavor and nutrition.
This is an issue experienced by those who live in the Mississippi Delta. The Delta is one of the most agriculturaly rich areas, but the people who live there are the most "food poor" population despite literally being surrounded by food. Locals are mostly forced to live off the processed offerings from Dollar Generals or hope to get a ride to a larger grocery store 40+ minutes away. This article does a great job of explaining the very situation. The food produced by the farms they are surrounded by typically is shipped out to serve others and not their own.
It's the same thing I see online a lot as a Brit. We get painted as a land of people who eat nothing but meat in gravy and beans on toast. While those meals definitely exist, they're quick and easy options for eating based on a similar work/life split where we get short lunches and we're tired after long days at work.
It's a shame as well because Britain's food culture while not as high class as France or as exciting as Italy's is still wonderful. Things like Cullen Skink, Haggis Neeps and Tatties, Scottish Tablet or Macaroon, Black Pudding, Arbroath Smokies, Aberdeen Butteries, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Welsh Rarebit, Irish Coddle, Boxty, Irish Soda Bread, Afternoon Tea, Regional Cooked Full Breakfasts, Fish and Chips and the world famous Beef Wellington are just a few of some of the amazing foods that can be eaten here.
I just get tired of hearing we left Britain because of the shite food or that we took over the world for their spices then didn't use them. It's pretty dire Reddit-esque patter that just gets beaten into the ground and stifles learning and discussion.
I think your time/energy/economics analysis is salient, but reporting on tourists’ experiences is not. Most tourists are going to tourist destinations, which have tourist food options. This may also be a hidden bias in the article.
Obviously there is a tendency for tourists to visit tourism-heavy areas, but a tourist visiting a major city will have access to the same slate of restaurants as that city's residents. Just because NYC is a "tourist destination" does not mean that it lacks a food scene; I'd argue that it's one of the better food destinations in the US despite (and, more likely, because of) also being one of its most popular areas for tourism. If those tourists end up eating at the Olive Garden in Times Square, then that's entirely self-inflicted.
My wife makes good BBQ. As a result, I've learned its nigh-impossible to buy good BBQ north of the Mason-Dixon line. If you're lucky there will be a place or two within 50 miles worth spending any money at. Smart BBQ afficianados don't share online lest their favorite place gets overrun and quality plummets as they struggle to meet capacity or prices skyrocket.
Even then its a crapshoot. I've been dragged to places by friends whom grew up in the Northeast and moved to Kentucky, who wanted to show us their favorite BBQ...and it was terrible. Texas is probably the best bet for tourists looking for a probably-good option.
Rules of thumb:
As a proud Californian I want to say try here next time. I imagine someone from New Orleans would feel similar. But thanks for the honest report.
How dare you call California part of the southwest. We're clearly Northerners. ;-)
As someone who was born in CA, In-N-Out is perhaps the single most overrated American restaurant of all time. Some parts of it are exceptional, true, but the food is extremely limited, the fries are terrible, and the burgers are the greasiest, fattiest ones you'll find anywhere.
There's a rule of thumb that most Californians seem to know (at least in the southern parts of the state), and that's to avoid the nice shiny mexican places and go to the hole-in-the-wall ones. They're the ones run by passionate people who know what they're doing.
Do make a point out of going to New Orleans if you can, if you're interested in food tourism. There's so many places there making food that you can technically get anywhere in the country, but it's just not the same somehow. You might also want to give American barbecue another chance; it's very regional so there can be some pretty pronounced differences. Texas style BBQ is the most popular generally, but I'd agree with you that it's often disgustingly sweet. You might want to try Memphis style barbecue which is based on dry rubs and vinegar based sauces, or South Carolina style that uses mustard as a base. They'll give you a very different experience.
I am convinced that the only reason In n Out is popular is because the fast food restaurant options in California are sooooo bad, that an average burger with a melty kraft single seems exceptional... The In n Out fries taste like paper. How is it possible to make a french fry taste that bad? Have they never had a good french fry? Do they know about seasoning? The "special sauce" is just ketchup mayo and relish mixed together. I appreciate the fast speed and the food being really consistent across locations, but as far as flavor it is pretty average and such a disappointment for all the hype. It seems like they got stuck in 1955.
California is worth spending a year in to explore food. It really has more produce and cuisine variety than anywhere else in the world, thanks to California's rare Mediterranean climate + ridiculous ethnic diversity. Step into Berkeley Bowl grocery store and you'll find 12 varieties of pear, 17 varieties of grape, galanga, taro, cassava, gingko nuts, Indian bitter melon, bac ha, shiso, 5 varieties of eggplant from Chinese to Indian to Thai, burdock root, banana flowers, and so on. The produce section alone is bigger than most grocery stores elsewhere in the world.
There's an incredible amount of ethnic food. You can find all kinds of ethnic and sub-ethnic food. Curious about Muslim Chinese cuisine? There's a restaurant (Darda Seafood). Burmese? Yep. Georgian? That too.
I totally agree with all of your points, generally we have worse versions of international food and you need to have insider knowledge to find a great meal. That isn't the norm across the globe and to some degree I just don't think quality/time/taste matter to the majority of American's. Obviously not everyone, but I'd say your average Joe doesn't care and honestly probably hasn't had a truly amazing meal.
Three anecdotal points I have from my own life back this up. I used to work internationally quite a bit on US Federal projects. We often worked in France and our American points of contact would often ridicule how much time their French colleagues spent on the prep and enjoyment of their lunch every day. Like actually making fun of how much time they took for their lunch! They were proud that they would go out and grab a sandwich and work while they ate. If there was ever a tangible example of the weird combination of protestant work ethic and puritan avoidance of pleasure in the American ethos, I think that was it.
Another example is one of my best friend's parents. He got married in Thailand as his wife was a flight attendant. We met up with his parents while we were there getting ready and they made us go to KFC, because they "didn't want to eat any of this spicy trash". I don't think they actually tried any real Thai food the entire week they were there. And these folks are the "average American".
Lastly, I worked in Spain for a few years. The thing I miss most were the daily menu del dias. They were incredible and lasted for 1-2 hours. Each day, regardless of your job or income level, you can get one amazing meal with a quality of food that quite frankly astonished me. It was obvious that enjoying food and having opinions about food was not a "high class" thing in Spain. I loved it.
Now all of that said, I'd like to echo you that it is possible to find good food, just difficult. And that EgoEimi is right, Berkeley is an absolute haven. If you're looking for some truly regional food, the California farm to table movement - honestly the farm to table movement across the US - is the place to start. You may already know all this but I really enjoy talking about it so I'm going to crack on. California is the salad bowl of the US and as such really does have access to amazing produce. The pity is so few places actually take advantage of it. I live further south on the California coastline and while we have an extremely active fishery (one that is accessible if you live locally) very few of our local restaurants actually sell their catch. There are probably 6 restaurant of the hundreds in the area that actually sell locally caught product. It's ridiculous. And of those restaurants, there are maybe 2 that have knocked my socks off and of them only 1 that even near approachable on cost (a $150 night our for 2 instead of $400). That's compounded by the fact that even a "Californian Menu" is some amalgamation or reimagining of diaspora cooking. Buuuut all that said, some of the farm to table restaurants are truly incredible and I think it's the most overlooked "American" style of cuisine.
And definitely give Berkeley a go. While you can absolutely get a variety of cuisines in any major city, I think for its size Berkeley punches way above its weight. And if you have the opportunity, take an afternoon in Berkeley Bowl. It's literally my favorite indoor location on the planet. Also Marin is very good about using local produce. I could Also all day, but I'll stop. This thread makes me think we need a megathread where folks can post their top X number of local suggestions. Like a local cheatsheet for travel.
If you visit the SF Bay area again, r/oaklandfood is a resource you should explore.
If you went to DC and didn't see the East African food, you missed out - DC is widely recognized as having some of the best African cuisine in the US, with a particular emphasis on its excellent Ethiopian food. There's a clustering of those restaurants in the north part of the city, towards Silver Spring.
I think that general idea is something that applies to most cities in the US; there are extreme variations depending on which part of the city you're talking about. NYC has some decent Chinese cuisine in its Chinatown, but I find that it's better in Flushing. Jackson Heights is the place to go for Indian. Forest Hills, among many other things, is one of the only places in the world that you can eat Bukharan food outside of Israel.
I do agree that it's difficult to find quality produce in the states. Most of the stuff in grocery stores is unimpressive, particularly when it comes to fruit. There have been promising strides against that trend lately, with stores taking efforts to make local farmer connections and showcasing stuff that is optimized for flavor rather than shelf-stability, but we have a bizarre obsession with ensuring that any food is available in any season - and it manifests in relatively-tasteless, extremely-hardy produce that is well-optimized to avoid inventory loss but pretty sad once you get around to actually eating it.
In restaurants, there has been something of a movement towards making direct farm connections to source produce locally. This limits what they can cook, of course, which kind of points to the problem with having such an array of various culinary traditions in one spot - you can't possibly have local, fresh produce available for all of them, because they're all products of various different climates. If you find a restaurant that does a seasonal menu using local ingredients, magically the quality goes upward as the selection decreases.
I'm glad you tried the pizza, but there's a reason why I mentioned Italian-American cuisine specifically, since there are a bunch of Italian-inspired dishes that you won't find in Italy. You found pizza, but there's also dishes like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmigiana, and chicken marsala that were made popular here in the US. Olive Garden is well derided in the US for being a pale imitation of Italian food, but in a way it's a really good representation of Italian-American food.
That being said, I could easily see how it could be too simelar to a better Italian dish, or simply be something you didn't like. America's love of chain restaurants that produce extremely uniform food mean that a lot of it has collapsed to glorified fast food in a way. Chinese-American food is a pretty good example; it has inspiration from a really broad area and is incredibly divorced from all of it, so the food is very different, but at the same time it's all basically "instant" food that can be prepped in no time flat and is almost always fast food.
There is real food culture to be found here, it's just kind of hard to find. You have to move in foodie circles, and it tends to be expensive.
I was responding to this. My point is that asking tourists their opinion does not provide an accurate view of food circumstances in a region generally. In other words, US as a whole can suck (and it does, imo), while tourists still report generally positive food experiences. This is because the tourists are selecting only the best (and rare, exceptional) areas to rate.
"This article strikes me as writing about a series of disjointed stereotypes; its depiction of typical American restaurant culture is somewhat bleaker than reality"
This article was written by an extremely well travelled American. From the article:
From another article about the author you will find the author has also travelled extensively across America.
"That remains mostly an economic problem, I'd contend, and not a failing of American food culture."
In fact, in the article I just linked too, the author has clearly thought very deeply about the economic problem in America that you touch on, to the point where he spent three years of his life documenting it through photographs.
I suggest you re-read the bottom of the article, where the author celebrates southern barbecue as true American food culture. The author isn't trying to judge Americans by their work lunches. The author is definitely not limiting themselves to the perspective of what is available to tourists.
In fairness - if the guy's stated US experiences are the Bronx, east LA, and the Ozarks (I recognize that he has been other places), and his France experience is only Paris, it's sort of equivalent to a french guy who traveled around the coal mining region of France and then spent 2 months in NYC.
Chris Arnade is a former finance professional from New York who is now a social critic, writer and photographer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Arnade
Here is the book he wrote where I learned about him. Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38796298-dignity?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9VGGS0dznD&rank=4
@skybrian
You can have crunch time affect a culture, force them into fast food as the obvious go-to option, and still have a better quality food in response with less corn syrup and whatnot. I was pretty impressed by 7-11 in Japan, and I'm sure on a strict time measure they're a much worse country for crunch. But you're right.
Oakland in Pittsburgh, where CMU and Pitt are located, is awful with groceries. The campus options are always hideously overpriced with little selection, and the few grocery stores within two miles requires taking the crowded bus with your hands full and difficult mobility in the middle of the city in a dodgy area. As a freshman or sophomore (who are disallowed cars) on campus it's pretty nerve-wracking and exhausting - plus your dorm cooking facilities are non-existent. When someone asked about whether their daughter with Celiac should go to school in the area, I had to honestly suggest she shouldn't. Having crash-coursed my way into the constantly-aware lifestyle from my wife being diagnosed late in her life, I cannot imagine being a student and trying to get by on such a restrictive and cautious diet without easy access to groceries.
Any mix of these kinds of situations - poor accessibility, few options, lack of consideration of diets - aren't just a matter of culture or opinion, but straight-up dangerous to a lot of people IMO.
Hah, I used to live in Pittsburgh; when I was talking about food deserts I was thinking precisely about the massive store-less areas in Oakland, Uptown and Wilkinsburg. The lack of mixed-use development is a huge contributor, but also the proliferation of hyper-cheap big box stores that have margins local places can't beat. There were shuttered business districts all around Edgewood that likely used to have a local market or two, and I was living in Squirrel Hill when the last dedicated greengrocer there shut their doors. At the end of the day, the larger stores can benefit from much greater economies of scale than the smaller ones; the only viable way to remain a smaller food seller is to market yourself as boutique and hope you draw an audience from that.
I'm so glad the author brought up BBQ culture in the south! As frustrating as the politics of Southern states can be, it's a region in the US that I would argue falls into what the author is seeking. I've lived in some fairly rural areas and went to an ag-school for my degree. And living in such an area I think has given me a unique lens to my food.
I have memories of summers putting up corn with my mother-in-law that was freshly pulled from the field by my husband and his brother due to a friend of a family calling to say he grew too much. Going to local produce markets and seeing bags of local purple-hulled peas shelled by locals and put-up to freeze. Having pounds of fresh peanuts provided to me despite droughts affecting crop outputs and enjoying the opportunity that I was able to have them. My university made their own ice cream from the dairy program on campus and special days on campus were brought in by the cart serving it up. I even had the opportunity to buy sausages and pork chops on campus that were cut by the very machines that echoed in the halls of some of the buildings I had classes in (Taking a history class in a meat science building was a unique experience).
Cuisine in the south is shaped by what the crops provide or local innovation. Squash casserole or squash slightly sautéed with sweet onions if it's the height of the season. Fried green tomatoes as the first crops give fruit. Seeing old, grissled men with trunk fulls of watermelons for sale posted up at gas stations. Sometimes you'll see a large metal bbq going by them with "Big Bertha" scribbled on the side as it shoots out intoxicating smoke. If you're close to the coast or near New Orleans, fresh crayfish from large pots of heavy spices start appearing in early spring or a local with a cooler selling fresh red fish may set-up shop by the local watering hole. Mardigras season brings its own offerings with colorful King Cakes become a currency like gold and everyone is out to get "the one" from their preferred bakery; plastic babies safely tucked between the sheets of dough and cream is required.
The communal eating aspect of sitting for long hours while enjoying food is something lacking though. You may get the experience at a home BBQ or Sunday dinner with family, but not in a public restaurant scene. I blame US tipping culture for this because servers are actively encouraged to "flip tables." The quicker you get another set of guests at a table you're working, the more money tip wise you can make. They're a rarity, but there are some "old-timey" style restaurants peppered across the south where you eat at a large table with strangers and forced to pass large serving plates of food. I mostly went to them as a kid, but it's a more slowed down dining experience. You converse with people you may never see again while asking for them to pass the cornbread. It's an experience that last a few hours as dishes come out one by one.
Maybe the author sorta got to this point near the end of his analysis, but I think overall food culture in the US is very regional. My experience is not the norm and it is largely shaped by the Agricultural industries in my area. I highly recommend checking out PBS's Food channel on YouTube because they are doing some wonderful explorations of regional food culture. They have done an excellent job showcasing how immigrants have brought their food cultures and mashed them with local ones; their series with Chef Marcus Samuelsson is.my favorite.
From the article:
The essay goes on to expound on the way most of the rest of the world experiences eating as a social activity, to be engaged in at a leisurely pace with family and friends - not mere feeding to be dispensed with as efficiently as possible. There's also the mention that American food pales in comparison to treat made with the relatively fresh, local ingredients even the poorest citizens of most countries have available.
Speaking as one of the extra-privileged American eaters, I generally have to agree. We've gone out of our way to get something like a French lifestyle, but I still find myself eating kind of crap when it's expedient.
What are your theories/complaints/agreements beside the thesis that American food culture needs improvement? How much does relative economic privilege make a difference?
It's always great to see something from Chris Arnade. His book Dignity was moving and insightful and had great photos of US blight and poverty. He works in the tradition of the great photographers from the Great Depression.
And he made me think twice about US food culture. I think he is mostly correct, although there are other indigenous food obsessions here besides barbeque.
I grew up in America but have traveled extensively since I was young, but also I'm culturally from an eastern country. I think it's interesting seeing the differences of food culture in America vs the rest of the world. I tend to agree with the author though, other countries seem to do the "live to eat" vs the "eat to live" mentality. I mean, even looking culturally across the pond, in London I remember seeing the pubs being filled up by everyone right after the workday ends, every single night I was there. Obviously anecdotal.
I don't think the author touched upon it, but one of the reasons I also think this might happen is because the prevalence of the idea of "American Individualism", which in turn feels like it erodes family and connections with peers. Zooming out a bit, you can also kinda notice it in eastern styles of eating together vs western, where everyone is served "family style" with multiple dishes in the middle. There might be something there but idk, it's pretty early in the day to think too hard about that.
I think the relatively lower number of multigenerational households in America definitely contributes; it's way easier to have homemade food at home if you've got more than two adults in any given household. When parents are around to help with childcare and cooking tasks then the scarcity of time stops being as strong of a factor.
That definitely tracks, though even in my own home growing up I had 2 working parents that didn't get home till late and we still made a point to eat together multiple times a week. It did get less as we grew up and kinda started eating at our desks to watch TV or do internet things. I wonder if the prevalence of phones at the table or stuff like that also exacerbates the issue.
I grew up in a two-parent household, but the brunt of cooking fell to my mother (who worked the same hours as my father). Inevitably TV trays turned into “take to your room” meals, so I agree with your interpretation. Had I had more meals together maybe there would have been more family cohesiveness, but it feels an uphill battle with American “individualist” culture.
That being said, my girlfriend’s family has heavy German roots and while the cuisine is more hearty/peasant than others, there does seem to be a micro-culture of family that extends beyond the sharing of food present in other cultures.
I wonder if the real issue is that America’s relative food prosperity has removed the need for tight-knit communities sharing scarce resources, and this prosperity has lasted through enough decades to wipe out memories of early struggle. I’m reminded of Jewish Seder meals wherein a main theme is a reminder of the lack of resources early Jews suffered through.
Even the American icon of the cornucopia for thanksgiving was representative of an alliance with Native Americans/Indians (still not sure what term’s preferred), specifically due to the lack of resources during winter bringing disparate communities together.
I guess my point is mostly that success breeds its own problems, and American society is currently dealing with that. Americans have never been more divided and yet simultaneously never more prosperous (if you trust GDP as an accurate measure).
Perhaps they’re related?
Hmm that's an interesting take! I never really thought about it that way but it makes some sense in my mind! Unfortunately I've also never studied sociology so anything I can contribute would just be me blathering haha.
This article, as well as the discussion it's reacting to, are based on national boundaries. Each country is considered as a single place. The headline frames the debate in terms of whether America [does/does not] have a good food culture. (Pick one.)
[...]
In this way, a strength of some American cities is set aside because it's not the "median food eaten in the US."
But averages can mislead. Instead we could talk about variation, the local and regional cuisines within each country.
We could say that many people in the US don't have good diets, while others eat very well, and discuss some examples without caring particularly about national averages.
When thinking about your own diet or what food is available where you live, a US national average is irrelevant. Perhaps it matters more when you're traveling, but it depends where you go, and our diets when traveling often aren't much like our diets at home. How much people eat out versus eating at home varies widely, depending on where you live and what stage of life you're in.
When are national averages important? What questions can we answer with them?
I think it’s also relevant that a country like France has an especially strong national identity and culture, which extends to food as well. You can describe the average food culture in France and capture a majority of how the country eats, because the country prides itself on this cohesive “Frenchness”. Whereas describing the food culture in the US based on averages simply doesn’t work because there is too much variation in local, cultural, economic, life factors to describe the entire country, as you said. And I agree with your last question. What’s the point of such generalizations anyways?
For the traveler, maybe it's good to know what you can find anywhere? Although people have favorites, I don't think there's a special place to go in New York City to get good pizza; you can just buy it somewhere local.
Similar generalizations might be good to know when traveling in France? But this is more about what food you can find when eating out, which is not necessarily what people normally eat.
The part of the article that I believe to be the crux, and really resonated with me, was looking at expectations around food, particularly its quality and freshness. It's subjective just like everything else in the article, but I think in the US quality and freshness aren't something that is really discussed until we get into fine dining.
I'm a big produce head, like an absolute whore for farmers markets, and even I don't usually think about it outside of my own cooking. If I'm hunting down Karaage Chicken or Neapolitan Pizza I'm looking at how crispy the chicken is, how hot the spice blend is, or how the crust of the pizza rises. Very rarely do I consider the freshness of the chicken or the tomatoes in the sauce. And I actively think about that in everyday life. As a nation it's not something that is front of mind, or even highly valued. I think output, like taste and texture, trump input, like quality of ingredients, every time.
And like he points out in the article, in many other countries there is an assumption of freshness, even if you're poor. Whole fish, not fillets. Freshly ground spices, not bottled. I think this leads us to generalizable eating habits. If ingredients are important, then meal preparation is important because you care and know about what is going into a meal. If ingredients don't really matter, then why spend all the time to make something when a microwavable bao bun from Trader Joes is going to taste just as good?
So we return to the question of what is better? Again, it's subjective but I'd say the "French" or maybe we can couch it as the "input" diet leads to healthier, more engaging interactions while the "American" is drastically more efficient. To me, efficiency is overrated but sometime a necessary part of living in the US. That said, those bao buns from TJs are freaking delicious.
There's an assumption here that preserved food must be bad that I think it needs to be questioned. There are many useful techniques for preserving food. Some are old and others are new. Many are traditional and nobody questions them, even in France. Wine and cheese are preserved foods.
I don't really see the problem with using tomato sauce from a jar? Many things freeze well.
What seems clear from this discussion is that many people are concerned about food, but these concerns are rather free-floating and not necessarily evidence-based.
I feel like demonizing preserved food starts feeling like the same boogeyman that people use when they say that all chemicals are bad for you, a lot of misinfo and straight up bad science when it comes to food and nutrition nowadays.
I've been losing weight recently so naturally all my short form video algorithms have been pushing me towards food videos and I notice that a lot nowadays. I also notice that there's been a bigger movement towards "add, not subtract" type of dieting mentality which I really like and appreciate.
Could you say more about “add, not subtract?” What sort of advice do they give?
Most of what I see are on Instagram reels which I don't really have handy on my desktop, but one of my personal favorite creators is SoheeFit, here's a youtube short about it who emphasizes healthy dieting mentality and all that.
That's actually a pretty good overview about the philosophy, and I particularly love that at the end she emphasizes that it's not a weight loss plan but more of a tool to gain health.
Elimination diets basically don't work - at least not alone. There's too much negativity around it so nobody can follow it. The mantra "add veggies" is a simple tool that gets you most of the way towards weight loss because it helps you get full before you start to overeat. One should also be eating the vegetables first, just like grandma would have told you to do when you were a kid.
It's good that this kind of thing is being spread through social media. The first time I was told to do this was earlier this year, by a doctor.
Yeah, I really like Sohee's take on food and nutrition in general, and I think a lot of my feeds have been converging onto that style of content which is nice! I think that in general it's helped me a lot too, I personally lost 15 pounds since August lol.
That's fantastic news!
There's a lot of negative emotions that come up when dieting, so having a positive voice in your life is really important.
Totally, that's kind of what I was trying to get at with my comment on Trader Joes bao buns. Good is a subjective measure and I think the author covers that well. I just don't think we even think about it domestically, whereas in other parts of the world they do.
Personally I think you get better food in small towns and villages across the country if you consider those things. Anecdotally, eating in small towns in France has turned up more gems than small towns domestically for me. Even the area that I live in that is small/medium sized with access to tons of fresh produce and fish has pretty lackluster offerings.
My only pushback to this would be look at obesity and nutritional data for both countries. You could even look at school lunch programs as a proxy. Domestically we have problems with obesity and nutrition because we preference high calorie, processed foods. Some of that is adhering to federal standards and some is expectations of the children. I don't think the argument is free from evidence, I think most folks are just adding their own anecdotal 2 cents. There are some very cool groups working domestically to change that though like Brigaid looking to shift back to fresher cuisine in schools.
Edit: Also copying here for relevancy
The main issue with highly processed food is that it removes transparency of our food system. If you know where your veggies are grown, the farm that your chicken comes from, or the people who make your bread/cheese/etc is that it's harder for really fucky stuff to take place. Slavery and debt labor is still rampant in our food system. So is environmental degradation. Highly processed food obscures it's origin and the required labor enough to make it difficult to say if there is slavery or destruction associated with it. The new yorker did an amazing piece on fisheries recently that highlights just how bad these systems can be. There is a sister article on food processing as well.
I think there are things to be concerned about, but our concerns are free-floating in the sense of not thinking clearly and in depth about one problem at a time. Obesity is one problem. Environmental degradation is an entirely different problem. Labor issues are a third problem.
They may be related, but it seems like a big unproductive stew of worry about lots of different things at once that's largely good for marketing to foodies.
I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect that a public health approach might be rather different? What if cheap, nutritious food produced at scale turns out to be low-status industrial convenience food that doesn't particularly appeal to foodie biases?
(That's a vague, free-floating concern I have, though.)
I started questioning the value and healthfulness of industrially produced food products based on information I found in a book by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma a Natural History of Four Meals. The Omnivore's Dilemma The information reported in the book was supposed to be cutting edge at the time. Tildes might be a place where subject experts might share their knowledge. It definitely was a more sophisticated and nuanced perspective than just asserting all chemicals bad. Much more that the producers of food are sophisticated selfish/self interested capitalists who disregard health information related to food in similar ways as the tobacco companies disregarded the risks of nicotine in favor of perceived benefits to them and their business success.
cc @phoenixrises
It would be nice, but since Tildes is such a small community, I generally assume we don't have any subject-matter experts in most subjects, until proven otherwise. At least we have a lawyer now :-)
I've received some brief fly by comments on posts here that lead me to believe I am far from the only attorney or at least legal savvy person here. I might be the only out lawyer lol.
I don't really have much to add besides that I agree! I'm a mobile app developer though so I don't really have too much insights into food lol
You are right that some preservation techniques are fine. Drying and canning are really good examples. Fermentation actually has positive health effects!
But not all techniques are the same, and some can drastically alter the nutrition of the food you want to eat, and perhaps more importantly nearly all of them will affect the flavor.
You can, for instance, eat a can of peaches, which is stored in syrup. Or you could just eat a fresh peach when it’s available or if it’s not available you can eat another sweet fruit.
Even if a preservation method is traditional, it doesn’t mean that it’s good for your health. Storing things in brine means you will be consuming a lot more salt, for an example.
Depends on if you value that input to output ratio on the food you can just throw together with minimal or no effort versus making it yourself.
I cook at home, a lot. I dunno how that translates to bought prepped food or meals because I'm eating food myself or my SO made weekly, either fresh or as leftovers.
I'd wager most people consuming overprocessed crap probably aren't viewing food in the same way.
I got called an ablelist and other stuff recently by someone when I suggested perhaps cooking your own meals would be cheaper than ordering DoorDash every day.
This person had also complained about how expensive "eating' is. So that really made me think about how people even see food.
Do people really give a crap about making good food for themselves or is it easier to just use a very overpriced app to have a simulacrum of (whatever food) delivered to your doorstep in lieu of figuring out how to cook - which isn't hard depending, it just takes some time management and a willingness to go to the store. Even Walmart has a fairly wide selection of ingredients that might not be the best, but are at least basically functional.
I feel sympathetic for people who think that way because that used to be me.
I subscribe to the idea that it’s a good thing that women aren’t expected to be homekeepers anymore, but one of the negative effects is that it means that there is often not anyone in a household who’s job it is to cook. Making meals that are healthy, satisfying, and delicious is time consuming. In the meanwhile there are businesses who can give you meal for the whole family that meets two out of those three qualities so fast that you don’t even need to get out of your car.
Totally, this whole conversation is where we each apply value. There is going to be a whole spectrum a perspectives and priorities.
I like cooking and fresh produce. I have a friend that hates both of those things (big meat and potatoes type dude). Neither of us is wrong. The only thing I wish people took away from it though is the transparency of our food system. If you know where your veggies are grown, the farm that your chicken comes from, or the people who make your bread/cheese/etc is that it's harder for really fucky stuff to take place. Slavery and debt labor is still rampant in our food system. So is environmental degradation. Highly processed food obscures it's origin and the required labor enough to make it difficult to say if there is slavery or destruction associated with it. The new yorker did an amazing piece on fisheries recently that highlights just how bad these systems can be. There is a sister article on food processing as well.
As someone who pretty much only buys the processed prepared foods, figuring out how to cook for some is harder than you think. I made an effort to try that last year until I woke up in agony one night, extreme chest pains, upset stomach etc. and vomited numerous times (after which I began to feel a little better). I live alone and hardly ever talk to my parents but I felt so horrible when I woke up that I actually sent my mom a text because if I died it would have been the whole weekend into Monday at the earliest when my employer would wonder why I didn't show up and I sure as hell wasn't going to plan on seeking medical help since I don't have health insurance.
Anyhow, pretty sure I got food poisoning from a meal I prepared for myself. I won't bore with the details of that but I stopped trying after that and haven't gotten sick since. I don't recall if I've ever had food poisoning before, maybe when I was a teenager or something but I don't recall anything specifically.
I hear you, and I wasn't trying to come across as an asshole, so apologies if I did.
Cooking at home is so integral for me, and especially since the price of a sit-down restaurant meal has steadily climbed the past few years. It works out significantly cheaper for me to do it myself.
Im sorry you had a bad experience giving it a try yourself, and if you don't want to try again, I'd understand.
But if you are still interested there's the whole internet and a whole lot of cookbooks for beginner home cooks out there if you prefer a physical book.
There's a ton aimed at basic but tasty recipes that build real useful skills and teach you about food safety along the way.
In rural areas you frequently have the choices of pizza, subs or greasy Chinese food with “pub food” as a distant fourth. It can be depressing on a road trip. There was that time we stopped in Watertown, NY and made fun of the “Mr. Subb” and then looked at the local paper and there was a picture of someone being hauled out of it on a stretcher. It wasn’t the food, it was that somebody got stabbed in the street and went into the restaurant for help.
Go to urban areas though and it is quite different, you certainly can find bad food in urban areas but you can find good food too.
As others in the chat have pointed out, food in America, like healthcare, can be a very different experience for the wealthy. Major cities and a handful of large tourist towns have enough great dining options to hold their own against international cities, but the price of admission is pretty high.
I think it also affects how we approach dining. When I first started serving fine dining in LA, I had trouble adapting to the change of pace. I was used to serving people fairly quickly and turning tables, even in the fine dining restaurants I worked at in places like New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Coastal Florida. In LA, many of my guests would sit back and enjoy the meal for at least 90 minutes, often two hours or more. Part of it had to do with the spaces (one was very beautiful and Instagram-worthy, the other a large outdoor space), but I suspect housing also plays a role in that difference. If you're coming from a fairly small apartment, the idea of spending a few hours out of the house with friends might be a bit more enticing than if you have a house with a dining space and living room.
Raleigh nc reporting in. Our food scene sucks. People unironically celebrate chain restaurants. They were sad because we didn’t get a ginormous gas station (buccees). There’s not a single good diner, the one opened with lasted nine months. No good pizza. A couple good asian restaurants a ways out from city center. And for all that, it’s expensive. I’d say prices are at d.c. prices with significantly lower quality. It’s a real disappointment living here.
We do have an h mart, but it is sadly far away from me.
But what about the critically acclaimed Olive Garden on Capital Blvd?
Raleigh’s version of the reality distortion field. And I have to admit, it really is the best Olive Garden I have ever been to.
Nowhere near as good as the michelin star red lobster.
I am genuinely surprised by this comment. Raleigh is one of my favorite places to eat! I lived in Clayton for about 10 years and still go back twice a year to see my parents. I agree with you about pizza (except i do love mellow mushroom), and that there a lot of people who celebrate subpar fast food chains, but hard disagree about there not being good options. The seafood options are fantastic, there is abundant barbecue, there is a whole food truck scene. I always like the shiny diner for cheapo stuff and Pooles diner is nice. There are great local coffee roasters. Flying biscuit. There is indian food emporium. There is an international grocery store between raleigh and greensboro. I dunno if chargrill is still around, but I know there used to be three or four of those walk up burger/hot dog/sub shops around NC state. Snoopys I think, for a greasy cheese steak sando. The whole range of fatty inexpensive comfort food to upscaled fine dining, all have non-chain options :)
Well, I’m coming from Asheville, where there is a knockout farm to table on every block. Still, that’s kinda the point of tfa, isn’t it?
I understand Raleigh was better about 15 years ago, not just for food, but also art and music. I find it fairly drab, and also, what good (tasty) culture there is, is spread out very far and accessible only by car.
If you want NJ/NY style pizza, Primos in Cary is pretty good. It's the only place I've found that does that style right. Everything else is Papa Johns style pizza, bleh.
Taipei 101 in Cary is good for Chinese food. They have actual Chinese dishes in addition to the American Chinese dishes.
I like Barcelona in Raleigh for tapas.
America is a big place.
In terms of food, America has some of the best and worst food available in the world.
Best in class: A variety of multi-ethnic options in larger cities.
Worst in class: Fast food restaurants and supermarkets that prioritize shelf life and sugar/ fats over freshness and nutritional value.
In terms of food culture, America is surely down there with the UK, Canada & Australia. In fact, I am surprised that the Aussies spend as much time eating as Germans. In my limited experience, Germans take their socializing over food very seriously. Does drinking terrible beer while the barbie cooks something really count as food culture? :)
Australia has a huge restaurant culture. When I moved here from the US, I was surprised to see how frequently people go to eat out here; I thought Americans ate out a lot, but I think Australians easily match or outdo them. And that's my perspective as someone who grew up along the Buford Highway Corridor —which is well known for its huge variety of restaurants with really good, affordable food — and then moved to a tiny country town in Australia where the options are far more limited.
The food variety is a lot smaller in Australia, but I think they still punch way above their weight when you account for population size. A big part of it, it seems, is that approximately 30% of Australia's population are immigrants (compared to 15% in the US), which contributes a great deal to a country's food culture and general willingness to be adventurous with food. Another big part of it is that Australians seem to have a lot of discretionary income due to better wealth distribution, universal healthcare, and so on.
It's been a while since I last spent time in Aus, but even 20-30 years ago the food was authentic and fantastic.
I'm not sure eating out a lot is the same thing as having a food centric culture however.
This is honestly a topic with a lot of depth, which could be excavated many different subtopics. I mostly agree with the points made (I've long been keenly aware that the majority don't share my family's desire to try new things or diverse palette, to the point that I've met people who think garlic is exotic and unbearably "spicy."
It's also worth noting that, in addition to the fixation on chains and mass produced, processed food, quality on even those things has been on a long term decline. Once in awhile I'll hear someone talk about how one fast food franchise or another is astoundingly better in another country...because the state of raw ingredients and the end result has been "enshittified" for decades, slowly boiling the pot so nobody notices. Our supermarket chicken is flavorless, sad and injected full of saline. Our fast food beef is full of grain fillers. In an endless race to maintain margins, we pay more and more for worse mediocrity.
So I've finally got a chance to comment properly, instead of flinging a Tildes topic out on my way to work in the morning, while downing a giant mug of coffee, a handful of pills, and a protein bar, as we Americans are wont to do instead of eating breakfast.
I've visited a very broad range of American locales, from the very wealthiest (Palo Alto and Santa Barbara, CA; Manhattan) to the very poorest (Tupelo, MS; Detroit, MI; East St. Louis, MO; Petersburg, VA, etc.).
I've had excellent meals almost everywhere, even if they came in cardboard boxes or tin foil. But ordinary tourists would never go to the places I've found great food in. We're talking food trucks; gas stations; nondescript storefronts adjoining boarded-up factories, surrounded by barbed wire and a few working prostitutes; strip-mall dives with barely lit signs where no one speaks English and I'm the only pale-skinned person within a square mile or two; Asian grocery takeout food courts...
What most of these places have in common is that they're close to the family recipes of the people who make the food, and they're buying fresh or unfinished ingredients that haven't been pre-prepped by way of Cargill, Miesel/Sysco, Gordon, or any of the other food service conglomerates, or a central chain kitchen. These are Vietnamese/Cambodian places that make their own phô stock; Chinese, Indian, and Mexican restaurants that specialize in the regional foods where their owners came from; the subtle variations from most of Central and South America (Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Equador, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela); Brazilian restaurants that serve dishes other than churrasco; Caribbean and African (Nigerian and Senegalese) carryouts; Korean restaurants with all kinds of homemade banchan; local U.S. barbecue, delicatessen specialties, cupcakes, burgers, gumbo, charcuterie, and soul food; wacky combinations of any or all of the above.
And you don't necessarily have to be in a significant metropolitan area to find this food. You just need a little experience, willingness to ask locals of all classes, and an eye for places that don't have much food service packaging by the dumpster. It's also usually a good sign if the owner and his/her family are working and eating there.
Will you enjoy haute cuisine, or a place you can linger in at pampered leisure? Heck no. Presentation, service, and scenery are rarely considered - just deliciousness. The underground informality, family business, and unpromoted nature of these places leads to a very biased view of American food culture in the media. Even Andrew Zimmern likely wouldn't stop at most of my favorites, and yet they're far more accessible to the least wealthy people than fast food and chain restaurants. [I used to drive my boss nuts by turning in $5/day food expense reports, with handwritten receipts.]
None of this excuses the obvious deficits in middle and high-end American food culture. We do rely far too much on ultraprocessed, quick-to-eat foods. We do have consolidated, homogenized food shopping in most metros. We do eat too much, too quickly, without pausing for social enjoyment. As /u/KneeFingers indicated, American tipping culture often makes restaurant dining uncomfortable if you've held a table longer than it takes to eat your order. We're way too dependent on cars for even the most basic food access. We're poorly educated about cooking, diet, nutrition, and health in comparison to most Asian and European countries, and most of us don't have multigenerational traditional knowledge in these areas.
The U.S. could certainly do better, but I wouldn't put us at the bottom of the league table, either.
America does not have a single, unified food culture and to paint it as such is either incredible ignorance or deliberately disingenuous. California alone has more than half the population of France and roughly 2/3rds the area. Paris is closer to Berlin than El Paso is to Houston. Different regions, different cities can have their own food cultures, to say nothing of the myriad different diasporas living here. Guatemalans, and Japanese, and Armenians, and Pakistanis, and Jamaicans, and yes even French, British, German, and Italian and all their children.
But no, just sick with the same genetic White middle America stereotype and wonder how you kicked the hornet's nest.
<hot-take>Just remove the word "food" from the title for broader applicability.</hot-take>
I'm off-topic, visiting Canada, and seeing people who bicker with far more solidity and far less.
I'm surprise school lunches weren't brought up in the article. I believe the way we serve our children greatly influences how they view the world, and when you look at the slop most schools serve up every day (because they are so strapped for cash the cafeteria staff are reduced to mere prepackaged food reheaters) and how little time the kids have to eat (when I was in high school, our third class of the day was when they served lunch, which was divided into 4 groups of ~300 students given 22 minutes each to get through 1 of 2 serving lines, pay for their food, find a seat, and eat)...it's no wonder most Americans eat low-quality food and that the US has such a fast-paced food culture.
There are some really cool groups in the US trying to change that system like Brigaid. Brad Leone of Bon Appetite fame did a really cool episode of Local Legends on them.