
Cuisine and empire - anigbrowl
http://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2015/8/18/cuisine-and-empire
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dcw303
I like the idea of McDonald's hamburger as a symbol of mass produced luxury.
Reminds me of when John Gruber quotes Warhol on Coca Cola. Whether or not the
product is to your liking, you have to be impressed at the level of consistent
quality that they can apply to an industrial food production process.

Chipotle may be the ascendant totem of aspirational ethnic food diners, but
more tribute should be paid to the original cultural assimilation cuisine.

Recently on my first trip to New York, I was blown away by the Manhattan pizza
shops. There is a huge number of independent proprietors, and each has their
own, slightly differing process for making pizza. It's tasty food with lavish
ingredients - meats, cheeses, fresh vegetables. Watching the queues at lunch,
it was interesting to see such variety in customers - white, black, business
suits, working class, etc. There didn't see to be any dominant demographic.

That level of uniqueness made me wonder why pizza is not a more celebrated
food. It certainly has the same characteristics that enable Tokyo ramen otaku
to write blogs painstakingly deconstructing their meals. Perhaps once the
current anti carb movement dies down, it will come back into fashion.

