

A foodie repents - todayiamme
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/shut-eat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~
coldtea
> _not even Taco Bell quality_

Seriously now, come on...

~~~
Turing_Machine
Taco Bell is edible if you use their "Fire" sauce (which is still pretty
bland). Chipotle's sauce, at least in this area, might as well be Gerber's
baby food.

But then I'm an El Yucateco green kind of guy. YMMV.

------
mturmon
I liked this part:

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

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

 __*

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

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

Thomas Jefferson _bred human slaves for profit_. I am OK taking his spot in
heaven.

*Neither TJ nor I believe heaven exists.

~~~
coldtea
> _The author doesn 't care about animal ethics or sustainable agriculture,
> and mocks those who do to cover his guilt._

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

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

------
Animats
It's all about me, me, me!

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

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

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

~~~
Gigablah
"I was a foodie before it was cool."

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

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

~~~
calinet6
No, "I was a foodie before it was cool, and now everyone else is, so it's not
cool anymore and I'm out."

Useless.

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

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

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

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

------
sinemetu11
There is also "Brunch Is for Jerks" [1], and "I am not a coffee drinker" [2]
from the Times. What's up with the petty food articles these days from award-
winning print media? Aren't there real issues to talk about? These seem less
like interesting cultural takes and more like whining.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/opinion/sunday/brunch-
is-f...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/opinion/sunday/brunch-is-for-
jerks.html)

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

------
calinet6
This article gets it hugely wrong. Food is one of the highest forms of art;
one that's vital and human and social all at once.

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

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

\-- John Adams

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

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

We have taken some things too far.

~~~
calinet6
Balance, as with all things. We should see things for what they really are.

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

------
Buge
>after her ordination

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

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

