Food and class.

c'mon! discuss!

There will need to be, here as in every other facet of this country's existence, a paradigm shift at some point away from profit-driven lifestyles. The earth itself, and therefore all of us on it, cannot sustain perpetual development and growth. There will need to be a level of stasis at some point beyond which we cannot move for some time, if ever.

I've heard rampant allegations that Safeway grades their produce based on the neighborhood... i.e. the Marina store gets aweome, beautiful and varied produce, while the ghetto area stores get nasty old iceberg and hard, green bananas. I don't doubt it.

This doesn't just apply to the American ghetto, either. I remember reading an article in college about the health of the urban population in Nigeria. It was dire. Basically, all the arable land is used for export, commodified "produce," like cotton. And high-sugar, high-carbohydrate processed food gets shipped in, like condensed milk and shit.

Ditto Brazil. Deforestation is the result of small farmers trying to make more farmland. Why do they need it? Brazil is huge and fertile! Large, American/European agricultural firms are using up all the good stuff. Hence, the rainforest.

(...and all the logging, but, uh, that's off-topic)

Produce is a very low-margin (in some cases, negative margin) sector. The manager is not going to supply West Oakland with Whole Foods-ish quality (and PRICED) produce only to have it sit/spoil and take the loss. Although with the recent shifting West Oakland demographics of the past 5-10 years I'm sure remerchandising has been looked at.to maximize sales.

andy,
I'd be interested to find out who are making the rampant allegations: longtime W.Oakland residents or recent loft/condo-conversion transplants.

It's interesting, though, because you have east oakland with a large latino and asian population, and they have an abundance of good quality produce... because they demand it (like the Mission in SF). Mostly small shops, but you can find really good (though not organic) fruit and vegetables.

Part of the reason, I'm sure, that produce is a low-margin product is because of all the attendant transportation/storage costs.

radical food-access activist

This is a new one for me.

I think it has more to do with the fact that it's cheap, takes up a lot of space in the store and then goes bad quickly.

And also one of the reasons that supermarket sections like bread, dairy, meat and produce have been marginalized and continue to shrink in the blueprint of most stores' planograms. Processed and non-essential goods are margin-rich and keep most grocery chains afloat.

"In response, community activists started Peoples' Grocery, a community garden and mobile market in the heart of West Oakland. They transformed a 4,000 square foot vacant lot into a garden that now grows seasonal fruits and vegetables and educates youth and residents about urban renewal, food justice, and revitalizing the local economy. They also operate a mobile market on wheels that runs on bio-diesel fuel and sells fresh produce, staple goods, and healthy snacks from local farmers and urban farmers' markets..."

A primer on Food Access Activism: http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2004/w04v10n1.html

I guess I think of this more in terms of health. It's ok to be fat and lumpy as long as you're body isn't dying. The problem is that bad diets don't just make you look bad, they're just straight up bad bad.

And the central point here is that diet is NOT solely a function of personal taste/cultural background/whatever the fuck. It's that there are institutional and structural (?) impediments to eating well.

xposts This is what I get for answering the phone in the middle of a post. Uh, let me catch up.

I do think that people like Alice Waters have a very positive effect . I really like her tone etc, but there are a lot of hysterical and annoying types who really talk down to people.

Consumers are demanding better food and that does have to do with activism etc.

Do we know that? We have no idea what effect modern childhood diets will have on people as adults - 'being fat' is onyl one element of the problem. Maybe kids who are obese in childhood today face risks that people growing up fat in the '30s and '40s didn't.

But aside from that, the costs (medical and other) to keep a 'fat' person going into their old age are much greater than someone who remains fit from youth.

-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), October 13th, 2005.

Uh, I think you need to check your info on this.

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=obesity+and+life+expectancy&btnG=Google+Search

maybe fresh, good produce isn't a viable option for some people. but they could add a generic-brand one-a-day multivitamin and get those nutrients. (yeah, i know... this is where the anti-vitamin brigade tells me that those things don't really have any nutritive value. snuh.)

"It is our culture that makes us fat; it's not genes," she says. "Our gene pool has remained unchanged over the past 59,000 years. There is no change in genes over the last 10 years. What makes us overweight is our lifestyle and the way we think about food."?'

I don't think only poor people need this education. I am (of course) incredibly rich and well educated and I find shopping and label reading very confusing.

So yeah, some people are genetically predisposed to be larger. And more power to them: you can still be healthy and big. Pacific Islanders to thread (although, actually, that's a whole can of worms since I think that there's been studies about the effects of SPAM on the health of Pacific islanders, and the results did not favor SPAM...still, big people, like rugby).

-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), October 13th, 2005.

Are you one of those "sound science" Republicans or something?

The main issue you're talking about a LOT more potential deaths from heart disease, heart attacks, etc. Second, you have health issues such as diabetes and asthma, which, though controllable, will lead to more deaths in communities with inadequate healthcare.

But we don't even know the full extent of the consequences yet, because this is the first time in history we'll see such a huge portion of the population obese from childhood; a lot of our current data is based on obesity starting in adulthood.

Poor people (and this might be time to distinguish between urban poor and rural poor) have to deal with an almost-closed loop of availability too. Healthier alternatives may not be available in poor areas and supermarket selections are more limited. This is also assuming that you even have the time to eat something healthy when you only have a half-hour lunch break from your minimum wage jobs.

Yeah, I'm beginning to wonder here. It's one thing to be "dude, he's not big, he's my brother," it's another to claim that being FAT is actually, like, so unhealthy it's healthy. Big is not the same as obese.

This is, actually, very similar to the global warming debate. Look, eat whatever the fuck you want. Fine. But don't pretend that it's GOOD for you. Ditto the environment: I'm not asking for any major policy changes (well, I am, but...), can we at least face facts? Dude?

x[pst: once again, I take to long to post.

when i was a kid they showed us the food pyramid and told us we needed to eat six servings of grains a day, and that grains = rice and bread and potatoes. gah, no wonder we're so fucked up.

And, for what it's worth, I seriously doubt the ability of schools to effect kids' dietary habits. It doesn't matter if you learn about the benefits of fruits, vegetables and a variety of nuts if you come home to Rice-a-Roni.

There is someone close to me who was fat all her life. For me, she suffered far more from perceptions and cultural ideas about fatness (from others and internalized) than from the health effects of her obesity. I am not a denier about the effects of obesity, but I also believe there's a lot of unexamined rhetoric and talking down to "poor" people.

Try to tone down the accusations.

I dunno, my nutrition education in the schools was just like all my other education: thrown out on mimeograph paper by bored adults that were really there to coach athletic teams.

As to what drives the debate: are you trying to figure out if it's "poor people are fat, what can we do about it?" or if it's "poor people are unhealthy, what can we do about it?"

I'd say it's the latter. But, insofar as obesity CAN BE an indicator of poor health (see also: skin, teeth, etc.), the problem inevitably gets reduced to condescending "shape it up, poories" rhetoric.

xpost: It CAN impact life expectancy. Some people are just chubby, and they live as long as anybody.

I'd say that statement certainly implies that life expectancy is impacted because I assume that average life expectancy or life expectancy for people who are not obese is higher.

Sometimes.

gygax is right: eating right and not exercising is probably not as "good" as eating poorly and exercising all the time. Witness: all of my ski-bum friends.

Also, I started by referring to the rhetoric in the debate which puts people off. (Perhaps if certain Democrats would have thought about the same kinds of things, there would be a different person in the White House today!)

...although, the lady doth protest too much, yadda yadda.

I don't think this thread is specifically "about the children," but that's where issues of publich health tend to go, inevitably. See also: avian flu.

Here's what I think: you're right, w/r/t examining "life expectancy" and "obesity."

To be alarmed about obesity, is to assume that obesity is a de facto "bad thing." By which we mean: one cannot lead a full and happy life if one is obese. This is demonstrably false, as there are plenty of obese people that are straight killing it, funwise/happwise.

"Life expectancy," too, isn't necessarily a great thing. Leaving a beautiful corpse and dying content is probably more attractive to some than being old and in the way.

That said, the problem, as I see it (and, presumably, how these "radical food access activists" see it, too), is that the poor don't get any say in the matter. When the only food going is shitty food, then your health is going to be shitty. Too bad, you can't afford the good stuff, even if you want it. Except that, IRONY!, the good stuff is "peasant food:" fresh veggies and locally butchered meats, prepared simply.

So, as it seems to be all the goddam time, the problem isn't food access so much as it is poverty, straight up.

Then the question becomes: is making the distribution of "better" food (and it is, in my opinion) more equitable a reasonable way to combat OTHER social ills? Will improving the diets of the impoverished help them up and out? Does health truly equal wealth?

etc.

Well, that depends. Grains are very important in the diet - even rice bread and potatoes!

Its just when you translate that into fries, wonder white and mashed potato that it isnt quite what the nutritionists meant =)

But many people LIVE on white rice and are fine.

I think whoever mentioned exercise further back is very OTM. Sure westerners now eat too much fats and sugars and too little minerals/vitamins, but its the car driving, tv watching, sedentary job-having lifestyle that has GOT to be doing most of the damage.

Once of a time most people worked physical jobs, because we didnt have machinery to do things for us like cleaning, building, manufacturing, etc. People did it by hand and were fit and strong even when poor. The only people who sat about all day were probably philosophers and poets, and well they all died of drug overdoses anyway ;) (j/k)

Did anyone read that Jared Diamond essay? About farming? Worth reading.

Now Im a bloated booze soaked IT blob :(

Maybe I should get a job as a gardener or something.

Professional hunters do get a lot of excercise. But they don't necessarily eat better than anyone else. They seem to drink more, maybe, from the few I know. And it's accepted that by the time they're 40 their knees/back/hips/ankles will be a source of constant pain.

See also, Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction, which provides interesting charts and graphs regarding this very subject

I love this book so much. Bourdieu rules.

Poverty, access to food.. I could go on and on. I used to live in Petworth neighborhood of DC near a rather UnSafeway and it always had shitty produce whereas, say, the Social Safeway in Georgetown does not. Not sure if it's still true but Ward 8 (southeast DC) did/does not even have a supermarket. Fresh unprocessed foods are expensive, also, planning and preparing healthy meals is v hard if you're poor - plus kids quickly get used to fast food & junk food and it's cheap and readily available.

Also, it's hard to get exercise in yr neighborhood if it's plain unsafe to go out at most hours when you're not at work, or if there's no parks, or you live in the 'burbs and have to drive everywhere, or if you live in a high rise and can't just go out in the yard.

I'd say that statement certainly implies that life expectancy is impacted because I assume that average life expectancy or life expectancy for people who are not obese is higher.

-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), October 13th, 2005.

Ok, let's break that statement down a little more. What exactly is the problem with childhood obesity? That's a rhetorical question. You're implying that there isn't a problem.

You end up with fat adults, who have some more health problems, but generally live into their 70s at least.

No, you end up with an AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY that may still be somewhere in the 70s, but is decreased by six months, a year, or perhaps more (again, we don't yet know the impact of massive child obesity since it's a new problem.) Saying the average life expectancy is, for example, 72, doesn't mean "people generally live into their 70s, at least." And as far as the obese go, the overall drop in average life expectancy probably means a significant number of them are dropping dead in their 40s and 50s.

If you didn't mean to suggest that childhood obesity isn't really a problem, fine. But that's what you suggested. And I'm not sure what "condescening approach" it is that you hear in the way liberal or democratic politicians approach this issue. I rarely hear any politicians address it at all.

TS Jeff Spicoli vs. Mister Hand

Hurting, to Spencer's credit and just to point out a contradiction of yours:

Spencer merely asked for you to break it down for him , which you just did... and your personal estimates are far greater than the majority of results on the first page of googlage you linked upthread, most of which reference a study claiming that obesity may cause life expantancy to decline 2-5 years.

So how does 2-5 years become 20-30 years?

What's more, my hunch is that these statistics are deceptive because they don't account for degree of obesity. For example, at 5'9", a healthy weight for me would be about 125-168 pounds. I weigh 175, which makes me slightly overweight. When I was a sophomore in college, I weighed a little over 200 pounds, which would technically make me "obese." But when most people think "obese", they're not thinking of what I looked like in college. They're thinking of someone really really fat. And my guess is that your health risks continue to increase as you go up in weight.

What's my point? That someone 5'9" 200 lbs is probably much more likely to make it to age 73 than someone 5'9" and 300 pounds, but both are simply labeled "obese", thus skewing any "average" life-expectancy impact to look like less of a big deal than it is ("Hey, it's only a few years' difference")

it is a marketing lecture

Going to a big store is a commitment, and you have to maximize your investment by loading up the cart so you don't have to come back any time really soon. So maybe you get enough fruits/veggies for the coming week but not the week after that, or you rely on less nutritious canned goods.

And then of course you've got to drive or take the bus to the supermarket because you're getting so much stuff that you couldn't walk it all home even if you lived nearby, which you probably don't.

My life and eating habits totally changed when a small grocery opened up about a block away from my old apartment--I still make one big trip a month to the supermarket to stock up on nonperishables, but otherwise I just get whatever I need at the corner store. I'm in there about every other day. I know if I have a burst of energy/creativity for a big meal, I can get what I need in five minutes. If I don't have a veggie for dinner, same thing, no excuses.

This is all pretty obvious I know but worth mentioning because it goes beyond class--the big box store that saves us a dime on bananas or a dollar on meat costs us time/gas/exercise/community when we lose the option of the corner store.

Hurting, I really don't know how you can ignore the elitism inherent in a class based discussion of "real" food. There was a whole meme during the last presidential election about Applebee's and how Kerry couldn't connect with the kind of people that ate there regularly (and without shame).

The initial article linked upthread itself talks about how organic etc food is mainly marketed at urban elites. Despite the author's qualifications he writes this:

Industrialization, mass culture, wage stagnation, and Puritanism (e.g., prohibition) have almost completely destroyed traditional foodways here, allowing McDonald's and the home convenience-food industry to fill the void. A bad-feedback loop thrives; the food industry shovels billions of dollars into marketing and controls school lunches, leaving vast swaths of the population innocent of alternatives and ignorant of what real food tastes like.

This statement is anti-religion and describes consumers as ignorant of what "real" food tastes like. I agree almost 100% with the author's conclusions, but I'm just calling out elitism in the debate.

A statement against puritanism is not a blanket statement against religion. I think it's clear that there is a connection between the puritan roots of the US and the fact that it today spends less money on (more, but lower-quality) food than any other nation in the world.

In Japan, Shinto is a fertility religion, very much organised around agricultural festivals, the seasons, and so on, and fits well with a culture of respect for food (which might explain why the average Japanese woman lives five years longer than the average American woman). So this isn't about religion so much as the way religion interfaces with culture, and how a given religion incarnates values of either worldliness or asceticism.

Some of the points raised in the article echo what I was asking back in June on my blog: "Why does the world's richest country have some of the world's poorest textures?"

Momus, don't get me started on what religion in Japan has led to.

Even by Momus standards, which are pretty extraordinary, this is a spectacularly absurd statement. My one visit to India (and there are a bunch of poorer countries), the average daily income in the state I mostly spent time in was less than a dollar. How are these people outspending the US, exactly?

Looking over Momus' links, it becomes clear that it pertains solely to Western Nations, which makes sense. I thought about this thread last night, and I'll have more to add to it after I get home from work, but a basic primer is that my guess as to the popularity of such food is:

1) marketing, obviously. McDonalds has a base of customers built from birth.

2) convienence, particularly important when your average American working in the middle or lower classes works more hours than other nations people do, on average.

There's a whole lot of alternatives that has had a modicum or even great success to the typical fast food stuffs, and that would be good to at least discuss as well (eg, PB Loco, Chipotle, Ben And Jerrys (to some extent).

No, if you spent any time at all looking over those links, you'll have seen that they say:

"Americans spend less on food as a percentage of their disposable income than any
other country in the world."

This is because the industrialisation of food production does make for cheaper, more plentiful food. What it doesn't make for, though, is better or healthier food.

probably true in most cases, although for some reason the gourmet ghetto safeway is the most disgusting one I've been in and has horrible produce. I think they feel they can't compete with andronico's so they're supposed to be the cheap alternative. I wish someone would burn them down.

>There will need to be, here as in every other facet of this country's existence, a paradigm shift at some point away from profit-driven lifestyles. The earth itself, and therefore all of us on it, cannot sustain perpetual development and growth. There will need to be a level of stasis at some point beyond which we cannot move for some time, if ever.<

While I think this statement is critically flawed, it also contains kernels of truth, certainly for America. After all, you can't ask people to just spend more money on food; the average American is spending upwards of 99% of their yearly income, which has led to insane consumer debt. So somehow, "good food" has to be either cheaper or more readily available. The question, of course, is how exactly to accomplish that. I'll get to that in a second.

>poor people obv. need better education about what's in the food they're eating (no not JUST mcdonald's, but everyday things they buy from the grocery store, which they might not realize are bad for them), how to read labels, and what they might realistically substitute into their diets based on their lifestyles/budgets/peer pressure. i KNOW they're not getting the info from school, because school doesn't teach anything anymore, and if they were getting it from their parents this wouldn't even be an issue.<

The issue for poor people goes beyond mere education on nutrition and/of what they're eating. Look, poor people are not stupid. They know that McDonalds is garbage and they know that being fat is unhealthy. Poor people typically don't have a fantastic secondary education, and often work longer hours for less pay than people with college degrees. Not a big shock, right? Well, when you're working 50-70 hours a week just to sustain basic necessities (shelter, clothes, utilities, car/public transportation, taxes, et al), two things are very important when it comes to food: Cost and convienence. It goes beyond poor people too; People in the US work far more hours than people in Europe do. I'm sure I'm not alone in having had to work a 14-16 hour shift here. And from personal experience, its not easy to have good, nutrient rich food for lunch or dinner when you only have 30 minute clips in which to eat it. Sure, you can cook something the previous day and bring it in to reheat (and microwaves aren't helpful when it comes to retaining nutrients), but if you have work days like this regularly, its a fucking chore to sit down and cook a meal after working a long shift or two jobs so that you can eat well at work the next day. Especially when equally filling (or more filling) meals can be had for approximately the same cost per meal from take out Chinese, Pizza, burgers, etc. That's the convienence portion of it.

The cost portion is just as big. People shop at Wal-Mart, Target, and dollar stores in droves for a reason. They don't have excess money to spend on food stuffs. If the difference of eating healthy and eating crap is 50%, 75%, etc, along with being more inconvienent, then people will naturally gravitate away from it. Add in the prohibitive costs of gyms and health clubs, and you have a epidemic of obesity that merely telling people to eat 6 servings of fruit a day isn't going to solve.

>Then the question becomes: is making the distribution of "better" food (and it is, in my opinion) more equitable a reasonable way to combat OTHER social ills?<

Yes, but "better food" will not succeed against tried and true foods like a crappy sandwich at McDonalds unless you package and serve it in such a fashion that makes it easily accessible and convienent ALONG with being cost efficient for people both below the poverty line and in the middle class. Nothing But Noodles and Chipotle, which are burgeoning chain restaurants, certainly go to show this. Chipotle just produces very large burritos, but makes them with superior elements than, say, Taco Bell. Yet, its equally filling, costs about the same, and as convienent. Unsurprisingly, stores are opening everywhere. People will flock to "good food" assuming it will not rob them of both their precious time and money, which folks of all classes (except the rich, but who cares about them anyways?) can appreciate at this stage of time.

There is a slight divergence I'd like to mention to: Ben And Jerrys. Yeah, I know, its not healthy. But, it shows that you can produce an ultra-premium product that costs much more than what people may be used to and still find large market shares. Ice Cream, of course, no matter what it is, all has the same virtual "convienence", so this isn't true of everything and you can't use a Ben And Jerry's model to say that a superior brand of anything will succeed in the marketplace versus cheaper, less worthwhile stuff. But in a lot of cases, it would succeed, which makes you wonder why more markets don't try and carry things like heritage vegetables and the like, at least in small quantites.

>gygax is right: eating right and not exercising is probably not as "good" as eating poorly and exercising all the time. Witness: all of my ski-bum friends.<

Well, not being fat doesn't mean you're perfectly healthy. Eating fatty foods has a horrible tendency to clog up arteries. Being fat, the likelihood that you'll end up with an MI goes up big time. Unsurprisingly, the US is among, if not the, fattest nation in the world, and also happens to have higher rates of heart disease than almost anywhere in the developed world (with well over 600,000 dying a year). Saying that there's absolutely no correlation is like saying that because some smokers don't die of lung cancer, cigarette smoking doesn't really have much of an effect.

Alan, I mostly agree with your excellent points except the one about poorer people working longer hours than middle class or upper middle class people. Americans in general just work way too much.

Its also certainly true for a lot of folks in the medical field. There's certainly a large number of people in the middle class that work a lot/too much, and I tried to reflect that. The issue of convienence is therefore virtually universal in this day and age.

>also there are places like panera where you can get a half-sandwich and a cup of soup for what it costs to get a much more fattening value meal at wendy's. ain't no panera in the ghetto though.<

Bingo. So the natural question is "Why not build one?" Therein lies the problem, at least for those of lesser means. Matter of fact, I'd love to know if its company policy to try and place the Paneras of the world purely in high traffic, high income areas. That would be something fun to find out.

do you know that having a starbucks in your neighborhood literally increases your property value? it's well-known that starbucks likes to open stores in "up and coming" areas, even if the outward signs of gentrification aren't really present yet (these guys really do their research). but once that starbucks is there, the neighborhood is ON THE MAP, baby. it signifies a lot! maybe other yuppie chains should be taking this initiative.

this is a pretty good thread, kind of confusing to read though

There's been talk of increasing U.S. farm subsidies for fruits and vegetables, though I wonder if just reducing subsidies to stuff like corn wouldn't have an equally beneficial effect without creating as many new problems.

Hurting, can you break it down for me? I'm asking seriously.

Well, I may be going over my own head here, but as I understand it corn is heavily subsidized and that's why corn is so cheap, which is part of why unhealthy corn products like corn syrup and corn starch are used so heavily in processed foods. Fruits and vegetables meanwhile are not so heavily subsidized. But I guess I was wondering is whether just reducing corn subsidies enough would in turn raise the price of crap processed foods, making fresh fruits and vegetables a more attractive alternative, or at least force processed food makers to turn to other ingredients.

From what I understand, corn-based food products are becoming unattractively expensive to food processors due to demand for corn to be used in ethanol production. Several soft drink manufacturers are considering a return to sucrose from HFCS.

Yeah, that sounds right.

Sad article about Mexicans not being able to afford tortillas due to lifting of Amrican price controls on corn & increased use of corn for ethanol.

fuck fuck fuck ethanol. There should be an ethanol thread.

Isn't corn also, like, not even one of the better crops for biofuel, i.e. isn't this all basically just a corn state boondoggle?

maybe fresh, good produce isn't a viable option for some people. but they could add a generic-brand one-a-day multivitamin and get those nutrients. (yeah, i know... this is where the anti-vitamin brigade tells me that those things don't really have any nutritive value. snuh.)

Haha, this is me...if I forget to take my vitamins my klutziness-induced bruises never heal. Gotta do something. Even bananas are 50 cents a pound, as the cheapest fruit, and me and the man eating 1-2 a day can cost like $1.50, an extra $10.50 a week we can't afford when our weekly food budget (at the moment) is about $20 each. Right now, shit, I'm just eating what's left on the cupboards...and expired can of fruit cocktail, gonna be the box of bread stuffing for dinner tonight...

Dude, it is totally a corn state boondoggle.

xpost...WITH MYSELF!

xxxpost YES. INDEED. BOONDOGGLE.

Now there is a thread.

god bless the atlantic's digital age trolling business model

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-junk-food-can-end-obesity/309396/

If the most-influential voices in our food culture today get their way, we will achieve a genuine food revolution. Too bad it would be one tailored to the dubious health fantasies of a small, elite minority. And too bad it would largely exclude the obese masses, who would continue to sicken and die early. Despite the best efforts of a small army of wholesome-food heroes, there is no reasonable scenario under which these foods could become cheap and plentiful enough to serve as the core diet for most of the obese population—even in the unlikely case that your typical junk-food eater would be willing and able to break lifelong habits to embrace kale and yellow beets. And many of the dishes glorified by the wholesome-food movement are, in any case, as caloric and obesogenic as anything served in a Burger King.

http://fatandskinner.org/2013/07/03/responses-to-atlantic-junk-food-article/

You would think fat and lumpy proles would make lousy soldiers, but since their primary function in combat is to be shot by the enemy, this all works out splendidly.

― Old School (sexyDancer), Thursday, 13 October 2005 21:17 (7 years ago)

Old ILX came out with some questionable shit huh

ugh that atlantic article

Been thinking about this.

1. I've definitely met preachy, smug 'real food' advocates, who had zero understanding of why it is so much more convenient to go to a mcdonalds or buy canned or instant foods from the shelf (to the point where doing anything else is highly unlikely). The injunction that one 'should' take the time to prepare 'a decent meal' with 'fresh, wholesome ingredients' was made with a kind of stupid earnestness. I suppose we all have met such people.

1.1 But does this actually describe the movement for healthier food as it really is? It seems a little convenient that people challenging the status quo should all be smug and earnest, really. Less healthy food does impact on people's quality of life.

2. 'Someone should just make a cheap, convenient mcdonalds type food that was actually healthy, then everything will be fine.' How realistic is that idea? It's the position I tend to end up at, really.

Possibly add

3. Is actually getting a load of ingredients and cooking them for anywhere up to two hours (that's if you want something that tastes exciting) + learning a load of recipes (if you want to avoid wasting yr ingredients or only eating one dish) basically regressive now? Is it like having a horse and cart instead of a car? Pissing on hay? Weaving your own clothes on a loom?

Once, a friend of mine who was chef more or less locked me into the kitchen and said 'Cardamon, for fuck's sake, u are going to make a nice dinner once in your life even if it kills me' and we got all this mincemeat and falafel mix and spices peppers and by the end of our two hour session I had actually made kobeda kebabs, falafel and harissa sauce and it was very nice and I felt very proud of myself. But my god, was that something I don't have the time or money to repeat on a regular basis.

Someone should just make a cheap, convenient mcdonalds type food that was actually health'

I'm sure this is theoretically possible, good luck building it into a brand as successful as mcdonalds.

was that something I don't have the time or money to repeat on a regular basis.

are you the lex? cooking doesn't have to be that hard.

it's basically kinda like language and articulacy imo. it's not bad to talk in teh omg lolz etc now and then if you know better, likewise it's tedious to advocate prolix grammarianism in regular interaction. but there's a normal basic standard people ought to be up to otherwise it impacts negatively on life (wrt health and finances)

"2 hours if you want something that tastes exciting"

wtf man seriously?

yesterday i bought some fresh pasta, some spinach, tossed all that with some butter and wine and garlic, and topped with some grilled swordfish. it took like 25 minutes and tasted great.

Fresh, high-quality ingredients are definitely easy to whip into something tasty and nutritious without much time but it's a little tougher for a lot of people without money / access to them.

Or any real education in how to make the most of what they do have. Home Economics isn't really taught that much in schools here.

and it was taught so cackhandedly when it was.

if we've got to have a national curriculum then some serious learning time for "how to manage your life and feed yourself decently" ought to be introduced. it won't tho.

haha i'll never forget my ex's parents in the midlands. they grew up making the best of what they had, basic family cooking like, then when they got money they bought a microwave and were just pleased as punch forevermore. why would we cook when we have this device? they argued, this convenience is everything we worked for. frozen in 50s utopianism like they were the jetsons

I'm not a food snob particularly but I used to live on ready meals that I mostly find really awful now I've been cooking everything myself for years. I don't know if my "palate" has changed or whatever but there are lots of convenience foods that now just taste of misery (including 90% of 'posh' soups and stuff, they have that weird taste which is annoying because pre-made soup should be the answer to everything). And loads that are just not interesting because they are mainly carbs. In the UK most supermarkets have half-decent convenience meals (better than a lot of US ones ime) but even then it can be just pasta & sauce with some dry chicken or similar.

I would like to point out that by 'cooking everything myself' I include pasta & sauce from a jar but then I can add interesting stuff! Most meals I make don't take more than 30 mins.
Fresh wholesome ingredients can still be full of sugar, fat, salt so from a health perspective cooking from scratch isn't necessarily better, just you have more control.

xp agree that education is greatly needed.

Once, a friend of mine who was chef more or less locked me into the kitchen and said 'Cardamon, for fuck's sake, u are going to make a nice dinner once in your life even if it kills me' and we got all this mincemeat and falafel mix and spices peppers and by the end of our two hour session I had actually made kobeda kebabs, falafel and harissa sauce and it was very nice and I felt very proud of myself. But my god, was that something I don't have the time or money to repeat on a regular basis.

i actually cooked my bf a three-course meal the other week (i made a stupid comment that backfired on me) and it came out really nice but basically it was like this. the next day i felt 50% smugness, 50% ptsd. pretty much hated the process and do not intend to make it a regular part of my life

also once you factor in looking at recipes, figuring out what you can make based on your equipment, ingredient availability etc, going to shop for the fucking ingredients and trying to match up what's on the shelf to what's in the recipe, and THEN going home to cook it, i refuse to believe that any meal could possibly take less than a good half day to make

for the record i cooked oeufs en cocotte, white gazpacho and harissa chicken. it was all really nice. i never want to do it again

competent cooking is much more about being able to knock yourself up something tasty in half an hour from store cupboard basics than it is the showpiece stuff, fun as that stuff is

i genuinely think it was only the fact that i was making fancy showpiece stuff that got me through the worst bits, i considered sticking to my skillset and just going for a spag bol but i couldn't think of anything more depressing than slaving over, and getting just as stressed over, something so ordinary (and have it still turn out underwhelming). the only redeeming thing about cooking that i discovered was the sense of adventure, getting to eat something out of the ordinary.

I don't know if my "palate" has changed or whatever but there are lots of convenience foods that now just taste of misery

yeah i've been thinking about this, the presumably psychosomatic aspect. i used to pride myself on eating everything and not foisting personal standards onto people but i've caught myself struggling a bit lately

xp

yeah i think whatever motivates you is worth it, and i can remember how hard i used to concentrate over even (what feels now like) simple bits of technique. i'm a million miles from being a chef-y type tbh but making a bog-standard spaghetti sauce from scratch is a life-saver for me, i get sick of the taste of a lot of hyper-processed food quite quick. there's no reason why schoolkids shdn't be taught how to make a couple of one pan quick hot meals - once you're comfortable with that then you don't ever really need to go any further unless you're into it

i've p much phased ready meals out of my everyday life as well, they're usually only for hangover days now

though i wouldn't be able to phase chilled soups out because there would be nothing substantial left for me to eat

Flora learnt not to cook from her mother. There is a generation of girls who have all learnt how not to cook from their mothers. But they all want to do one big entertaining thing, usually from the Ottolenghi cookbook. They just don't have the slightest idea how to prepare a pork chop or a kidney, or make a pie. Cooking is a recreational activity, like barbecuing and putting together a picnic, so the food in the restaurants that these young people like can serve the food that, 20 years ago, they'd have made at home. The idea of going out and ordering a pork chop or a kidney would have seemed odd then. Restaurants were for complicated, fancy, difficult food. Stuff that you couldn't get at home. Now kids cook nasi goreng, feijoada and cupcakes in the shape of a gynaecologist's crib sheet. Cooking is an exhibitionist hobby. They go out and eat omelettes in restaurants.

And I did think that I really could have made all this myself. I do understand that simplicity is a virtue. The ingredients were well found, and the service fine. The other diners were all happy, but there's simple as inelegant, and there's simple as in idiot. And this treads a smudged line. It almost isn't a restaurant at all. It's like orphanage dining for people whose mothers left a note on the fridge saying your dinner's in the phone book. Home-made has become a restaurant term, like artisanal or heritage or line-caught. I realise I'm being disingenuous when I say this isn't a keen for cooks in homes and chefs in restaurants, but what I sigh for is not that there aren't as many good home rooks as there once were, but that there are a growing number of home cooks in restaurants. I want a restaurant to have a higher aspiration than to replace what we're not getting at home. I don't want them just to be kitchen mistresses with better crackling.

enjoyable and basically otm imo related bit from aa gill review of 10 greek street

if we've got to have a national curriculum then some serious learning time for "how to manage your life and feed yourself decently" ought to be introduced.

^ this. access to inexpensive & healthy ingredients doesn't count for much if people don't exist in a culture of cooking. suspect that for a lot of people, lack of access to decent cooking facilities and gear is a big problem too.

grill / pan-fry a bit of meat/fish
make pasta
make tomato sauce
make rice
make soup
boil an egg, fry an egg, make an omelette (fuck home poaching tbh)

i have zero beef whatsoever with someone who can do these things to a decent standard and nothing else

trying to match up what's on the shelf to what's in the recipe

tbf this will happen with fancy ingredients or "exotic" stuff and once you've done it once, you'll know what you're looking for. Otherwise 1 x onion = 1 x onion, or shallots, or go crazy and use 1x red onion.

One pot meals like idk stew take about ten mins to prepare tho obv not always a taste sensation and you need to wait three hours for it

brb btw just poppin home for lunch (moroccan lamb casserole i threw together last night nbd)

there are several types of onion in the supermarket! different types, brands, sizes etc. not knowing which to buy sends me into meltdown, and when my bf says IT DOESN'T MATTER that makes it even worse

grill / pan-fry a bit of meat/fish
make pasta
make tomato sauce
make rice
make soup
boil an egg, fry an egg, make an omelette (fuck home poaching tbh)

assuming you don't mean hand-making pasta, i can do all of these except grilling/frying meat/fish, making tomato sauce, making an omelette, making rice and making soup

i can technically boil/fry eggs but it often goes wrong when i try to boil them and i refuse to fry anything because of nightmares regarding hot oil and reconstructive facial surgery

The idea of going out and ordering a pork chop or a kidney would have seemed odd then.

this is flatly untrue though, as anyone who has ever read a novel from the 1940s to 1970s should know.

like, maybe if your only understanding of eating outside the home is fancy restaurants! but plain food of the type that could be home-cooked has always been a staple of eating out, in restaurants and cafes and hotel dining rooms and gentlemen's clubs.

and, you know, i am not saying but i am JUST SAYING that aa gill's statement really only works because he is talking about a woman -- because yes when we think of the person who, at any point in the 20th century, goes to a simple restaurant and orders a pork chop we think of a bachelor who of course could not cook that at home because why would he have learnt how.

although i suspect it's also a thing that female characters in the novels of e.g. virginia woolf or dorothy richardson etc would do

details, details

discussion of the deracination of english cooking culture is entirely valid but it's culturally ignorant to lay the blame on our mothers' generation -- it happened long, long before, and there was never a time when the household supplied all the plain meals of its inhabitants.

yeah no tho i must admit i wasnt looking at it in gender terms particularly. but the exhibitionist hobby / home fetishization / thumbsucker distrust of haute cuiz stuff rings true ime

I hate cooking. But also dishes, that just adds insult to injury.

I think there may also be, as well as diets, different types of 'enjoyment' of food stratified (in a complex way) along class lines.

Analogous to types of alcohol people drink and contexts in which people drink it stratified along class lines.

The obvious distinction would be 'savouring' food and passing comment on it while eating (something I find vulgar) as opposed to the huge mountain of mashed potato with sausages sticking out of it in austerity-era children's comics (which I am totally in favour of).

xxp:

That writer pulled nasi goreng out of a hat. Indonesian fried rice is anything but exhibitionist. Leftover rice and leftover vegetables. You might need to buy some shrimp paste for the sauce.

One notable benefit of adopting a dietary restriction (like my own veganism) in a decidedly unfriendly town is that I've learned to cook lots of simple dishes - soups and stew type dishes are the way to go - 20 minutes prep, 1-2 hours at a simmer while I surf, and the leftovers get better every day they're left in the fridge.

A pretty great documentary People Like Us: Social Class in America aired in 2001 an while about 45 minutes of it is up on YouTube, this is the bit I remember:

The Food Shelf is a place where people are entitled to get five days worth of groceries and they come everyday for bread. And, what’s really interesting is that White bread is basically a class issue. This is excellent organic
Lillydale. It’s sourdough bread. This is bread that would normally cost 3.50, 4 dollars in the store. We can’t even give this away at this point in time. We have boxes and boxes of this bread, yet all of our white bread, the bread that costs 99 cents, is totally gone basically because for most folks, they want their sliced sandwich bread. (To customer) How you doing? Would you like some Lillydale bread, it’s uh...
WOMAN (Handing it back): I’m sorry.
LEVI: No, you don’t want that.
NARRATOR: In Burlington, bread is at the heart of an ongoing food fight that has exposed cultural differences and turned into a mini class war.

As an aside, the bread chapter in Michael Pollan's new book Cooked relates how prior to the advent of the rolling mill in the 1860s, it was basically impossible to refine the germ and bran out of bread, so the poor who subsisted on it didn't suffer the anemia, beriberi, pellagra that became common in the world of Dickens. Nowadays, nearly all wheat has been bred to the standards of the rolling mills - even whole wheat flour is white flour with the crushed germ and bran added back in.

what you grow up with and get used to is gonna be desirable cos of the whole nostalgic element of food - one learns to distrust the fancy or low-rent stuff even if the price factor gets taken out of it, i guess

there's a great passage i very vaguely remember in Huysman's À rebours where the central character, monied and decadent beyond reason and perpetually inventing new diets to kickstart his jaded palate, has a sandwich made of (iirc) the cheapest bread and cheese spread and garlic, something from childhood, and the joy of the taste of it sends him in to a bourgie decadent swoon

xp:
If history is any guide, eventually the less affluent will come around to emulating the rich on bread. White bread, with the bran and germ picked out by hand before a fine grind, was the bread of the wealthy in the early 19th century. White rice was for the landowning classes in Asia. White flour tortillas were preferred by the upper classes in Latin America. It may take decades, but pecuniary emulation is a powerful force.

but i don't wanna eat gluten-free bread : (

ha

Cheap bread stays fresh longer.

depends, nowadays i find white sliced tastes stale within a day of opening at best. on the other hand i eat a lot of cheap wholemeal and it doesn't really go stale, just goes moldy eventually

If history is any guide, eventually the less affluent will come around to emulating the rich on bread. White bread, with the bran and germ picked out by hand before a fine grind, was the bread of the wealthy in the early 19th century. White rice was for the landowning classes in Asia. White flour tortillas were preferred by the upper classes in Latin America. It may take decades, but pecuniary emulation is a powerful force.

inverse of this may be driving the move to expensive healthy & sustainable eating. desire of the affluent to separate themselves from common things.

it all plays a part i think, i'm sure white flour was originally the miracle health food of its day

srsly i've been shopping at the grocery store for the higher income brackets and everything in there sez 'gluten-free' on it, i saw some gluten-free cheese the other day, and gluten-free guacamole

h8 the way bread and milk goes off so quickly, that shit is just not designed for people who live alone/in houseshares

Psst, lex, put the loaf of bread in the freezer and thaw out the slices you need on a plate. Bread doesn't refrigerate all that well but it freezes fine.

That bread line story is jerk house btw.

NV im p sure that was pixars ratatouille

xp yeah i do that, but sometimes i forget

http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_oh_to_be.html

A woman at my office told me the waffles she was eating were gluten free, and she didn't have a particular gluten sensitivity, so I asked "do you really feel better from not eating gluten?" And she said "When I went completely gluten free for a month, honestly, no I didn't feel any different. But I try to eat gluten-free products anyway." (???)

these threads make lex sound like an alien or a 9 year old boy lol

That kind of food hysteria makes me slightly crazy, if for no other reason than it's so entitled and annoyingly precious.

xpost

xp When I was a nine year old boy I could make a can of goddamned soup all by myself. So "alien" is the only option there.

novak djokovic credits going gluten-free with his rise to #1

i can make a CAN of soup, jesus, i just can't make it from scratch (well, i did the other week, but i can't make it from scratch without several meltdowns)

my mother says that her relatively well-to-do parents rarely ate fish and saw it as a lower-class foodstuff. lobster, shrimp, crab and certain fine-dining fish preparations were okay (sole meuniere, etc.), but simply cooking & serving a piece of fish at home was unacceptably coarse in relation to beef, lamb or pork, even chicken.

is this just family weirdness, or was fish once looked down upon by americans?

don't know about Americans but i swear i've heard about famine zones in parts of Africa and Asia where fish was available but ignored cos it was déclassé

did they come from maritime peoples?

quick google came up with a kinda relevant article re: the Irish famine. don't know how accurate it is:

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/41297/fish-not-regarded-as-real-food-during-the-great-famine

my grandmother's maiden name was "creelman", and she was quite proud of her scotch fisherfold ancestry. but looked down on fish.

fisherfolk

chicken used to be a lot more expensive than is now

I just read a book by Christian Millau where he deplores the Irish lack of interest in their abundant and delicious seafood.

fuck him too

theres plenty of fish consumed in ireland

even if it isnt gault-millau level

There's probably also some anti-Catholicism lingering in past anti-fish sentiments. Fish on fridays probably carried the stigma of the immigrant classes.

What about bivalves and crustaceans etc...?

lobster was food for the poor too, in 'consider the lobster' there's a quote about new england prisons in the c19th having rules to prevent it being served too often to convicts

Thought mussels were a big Irish thing

& oysters being used to bulk out beef pies xp

And now with rising sea temperatures the New England lobster population has almost doubled and the price has fallen.

inverse of this may be driving the move to expensive healthy & sustainable eating. desire of the affluent to separate themselves from common things.

Oh yeah. 'Healthy and sustainable' just mean 'expensive', I think; its one of ethical/intellectual things that's actually a money thing (or is always on the verge of turning into just a money thing), like classical music lessons for kids, visits to museums and art galleries etc.

One of the biggest farces of today is the way that the choice to be sustainable and healthy is generally taken against some presumed Other, who fails to make that choice; but that Other is not the huge conglomerate tearing down rainforest to put in farms for beans to feed cows to make burgers; rather it's the dirty poor people.

the bread chapter in Michael Pollan's new book Cooked relates how prior to the advent of the rolling mill in the 1860s, it was basically impossible to refine the germ and bran out of bread, so the poor who subsisted on it didn't suffer the anemia, beriberi, pellagra that became common in the world of Dickens. Nowadays, nearly all wheat has been bred to the standards of the rolling mills

yh but like the 18th century and 19th c pre-rolling mill is one of the prime periods for people in europe adulterating the fuck out of bread flour, loads of bread riots targeting bakers and millers for contaminating the flour and making people ill slash contributing to malnutrition so i thumb my nose at u mr pollan is that is your real name.

there's this great book called Fish on Fridays: Feating, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World which is excellent on the way that the plentifulness of certain fish v easily correlated to people despising them.

i might go to shaw's in a bit. sale on arizona ice tea: fifty cents.

"you just pull them out of the sea" = absence of protestant work ethic? but tell that to trawlermen and their families - must depend to some extent on where you had to go to get the fish, but on the other hand there is a kinda (shameful) profligacy associated with fishing people in some respects

these threads make lex sound like an alien or a 9 year old boy lol

this is bullshit. tbh I am in the same boat as the lex for the most part. I make myself cereal and sandwiches and simple things but when I want a cooked meal I basically have to eat out. nobody ever taught me how to cook things like meat or vegetables. it really is a hassle to try to sort through the process of cooking a real meal. that is not a skill that comes easily to me.

put em in a pan, turn up the heat

what kind of pan and what kind of heat and for how long and what cuts of meat and how do I prepare them and how can I tell that the meat hasn't gone bad and how thoroughly must I clean the pan afterwards?

use your head, just try things out

recipes are quite handy. Could you not knock up something like spaghetti bolognaise?

Tbf to you, lex can't make sandwiches.

use your head, just try things out

yeah, that's not very helpful

http://images.neopets.com/template_images/waffle_eating.gif

for the love of god do we really have to have this conversation again

some people don't cook; GET OVER IT

i tried to brown hamburger, but the hamburger didn't come with directions for how much i had to wash the pan afterward, so i was lost

adults who cant cook = subhuman scum

fuck off

http://www.clancysbar.ca/Images/eating.gif

you smug fucking cunts

or, rather, why don't we talk about it as something that relates or does not relate to class and society, rather than yet another opportunity to tell other ilxors they are weird for something that is TOTALLY NORMAL

what's going on itt. i didn't read most of this.

adults who cant cook = subhuman scum

― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Friday, August 2, 2013 12:32 PM

LOOOOOL

FUCKING COOKING FOREVER

I LOVE PRINGLES

YOU PULL THAT SHIT OUT OF THE CONTAINER AND SHOVE IT IN YOUR MOUTH.

HERE'S A GOOD RECIPE Y'ALL:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lme4fgvWbW1qjc1hzo1_400.jpg

http://www.clancysbar.ca/Images/eating.gif http://www.clancysbar.ca/Images/eating.gif http://www.clancysbar.ca/Images/eating.gif

gonna go 2 shaw's now for an arizona

nobody ever taught me how to cook things like meat or vegetables.

Do you know what cooked meat looks like when you eat out? Cook it until it looks like that, then eat it.

but i don't eat it with my eyes!!

what if the inside is different!!

go fuck yourself

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/homer-cereal-epic-fail_3125.jpg

yo i am sure there is another thread for you to give learn-to-cook advice that is simultaneously boring and wrong, maybe you should go do that there

or like i could talk about how you're basically subhuman if you can't sew or make your own furniture, or you don't have beautiful handwriting?

Emily Matchar's actually super interesting on this "new domesticity" phenomenon, where middle-class people, especially women, are taking up high-effort domestic labour and DIY culture as a kind of retreat from and salve against the results of their real economic precariousness: http://thehairpin.com/2013/07/d-i-why-emily-matchar-on-the-allure-of-the-new-domesticity

c# OTM

we've had this conv so many times and it wasnae interesting the first go round, subtle mix of humblebragging and fuck knows what else. i know a shit load of people who don't cook for a bunch of reasons, and i'm pretty sure LOL YOU CHILD never helped any of them learn

maybe I didn't grow up in the same kind of household you guys did. maybe it's not so easy for me to just ask my dad how he cooks. maybe this shit isn't as self-explanatory as you think because you're blind to your own fucking privilege.

thanks for being reasonable, C#.

chill out m8 lol its friday go cook yr tea and calm down lmao

the 'adults who can't cook are deficient' theme is shit primarily cuz it assumes adults have some sort of responsibility unto others or the world at large, even if they aren't asking anyone else to cook for them

it's probably more socially acceptable than 'congratulations on your professed amazing cooking skills but the food you cook is fairly shit' which is how i feel a lot of the time

amazed that 'Food and class.' has only racked up 236 posts in 7 years

Lol

let's be thankful for that

there's a difference between not cooking and insisting that cooking is utterly beyond you to the point of not being able to prepare basic meals. it's not a hard skill to acquire the rudiments of, you just have to be willing to try. like, frying an egg, making spaghetti, baking a casserole, grilling hamburgers, simmering beans in a pan. macaroni and cheese. lots of food you can buy comes with directions. just follow the directions and pay attention so that you learn something from what you're doing, then you can do more with it in the future.

it is beyond ridiculous to make this a matter of 'privilege'.

if you get all the nutritional value you need from sandwiches salads and soup in a tin then who fucking cares if you can't fry an egg and find the experience draining and awful.

cooking, like all domestic labour, is an investment of a person's limited time: if it is of more value to you to spend that time doing something else, then there is nothing wrong with spending that time doing something else.

'Someone should just make a cheap, convenient mcdonalds type food that was actually healthy, then everything will be fine.' How realistic is that idea? It's the position I tend to end up at, really.

this is kind of the crucial thing - you don't get a lot of marketing surrounding fresh fruit and vegetables because you can't make a lot of profit on them; part of what makes mcdonalds type food so appealing is the stuff that also makes it so unhealthy, the sugars and salts and fats that keep the palate coming back.

The idea that people who can operate smartphones and tablets and HDTVs and all manner of technological stuff cannot read and follow the three lines of instructions on a box of minute rice makes me feel like there's some real learned helplessness going on there, yes. You don't even have to risk a fire to make rice, you can make it in the microwave.

if it is of more value to you to spend that time doing something else,

But people aren't claiming they're simply making opportunity cost choices, they're claiming they literally do not know whether water is boiling or not.

Easiness of learning to cook a specific thing has to be weighed against the amount of free time you have to do it in though, plus whatever else is going on in your life

e.g. I don't have enough time or resources right now to learn how to cook any new stuff, nor play a new musical instrument, nor learn the trapeze. All of those things are not difficult in themselves, sure, but need time and resources

i.e. when someone says they're not going to cook it's probably not the cooking that's stopping them

I think learning the trapeze would be difficult in itself

the 'adults who can't cook are deficient' theme is shit primarily cuz it assumes adults have some sort of responsibility unto others or the world at large

surely there's room for "i believe the following skill would make your life better" without descending into "be like me or fuck off"?

this has been a fairly interesting conversation, except for "but i can't cook!" vs. "lol u dope it's easy!"

hint

and, like, people absolutely have responsibilities towards one another!

xp

i noticed this cooking trend even among my 'regular dude' highschool friends; cooking is like a go-to now for being a sophisticated adult. it's an easy way to signal the status of maturity, like going on a wine tour (which you must talk about in a loud enough voice so everyone can hear). i personally associate this stuff with 65 year old retirees, but what do i know, i'm just a dirty poor because I could give a rat's ass about fine cuisine and put consumer products as a low priority in my life.

i've definitely felt a little ashamed over my humble lifestyle, even though i've actually accomplished a lot of things that have taken serious work and long-term effort... but it's stuff you can't post on Facebook or Twitter (or I have no desire to, at least), or flash when you take it out of your pocket, so it doesn't matter in this screwy rat race we're all running on. i think to play the part you have to be willing to throw it in peoples' faces. "ho ho ho what a declasse food choice you've made!" or "here's all the fancy choices I've made today!" which is such a pathetic and shallow value to hold, imo.

but that's also a problem with our consumer society, 21st century capitalism, precarious place in the new order, the devaluing of "deep, hidden experiences and connections" blah blah blah. my values and our society's current values are in opposition, so i shouldn't be surprised to feel frustrated. might as well just accept the disconnect, because there's no way in hell i'm going to lord gluten-free bread and flashy gadgets or accomplishments over people. i see it as a complete waste of time, money, energy, and effort.

this has been a fairly interesting conversation, except for "but i can't cook!" vs. "lol u dope it's easy!"

These bits might be less interesting but they're very, very relevant to the thread I think

I guess they're interesting in that they demonstrate the kind of moralism that people are constantly bringing to the debate on nutrition and public health

xxp a lot of jumping around there between "cooking" and "fine cuisine" and other related-but-not-identical concepts. There's a lot of middle ground between "I can make pancakes from a box of Bisquick" and "I have a finely appointed kitchen with a $9,000 oven from Williams-Sonoma."

Have we mentioned how in e.g. italy and france making food good is just what you do, why would you not? Whereas in US and UK it's all look, look, i made food good! look at me!

Like with beauty

surely there's room for "i believe the following skill would make your life better" without descending into "be like me or fuck off"?

― eris bueller (lukas), Friday, 2 August 2013 18:07 (2 minutes ago)

the second is only the extreme form of the first

don't tell other adults how to be happier, unless you have already agreed to some sort of mutual edification pact

i could give a fuck about a debate on nutrition and public health but lex's preposterous stories about his kitchen breakdowns should in no way be allowed to sanction generalizations about how cooking iz hard

xxxp i'm talking more the second half, even these 'normal middle-class bros' are getting in on flashy cooking gear and rarified recipes they post on facebook and twitter, acquiring many "likes". it's like an arms race to grab social capital. i cook, but it's mostly just for health and fitness... it's not really anything you can brag about, and i have zero interest in it. i bug about it because there's a feeling of being left behind by not engaging in what i see all my peers getting in on, but honestly, i'd rather spend my money, time, and effort on other things. and doubt it matters on the end.

you would be a lot happier if you just calmed down about this xp

cooking well is hard! (eats peanut butter and fried egg sandwich)

xp yeah, I agree with that, I have no interest in some kitchen arms race, and tbh my wife does most of the cooking because she's simply better at it than I am. I can read and follow recipes, she can whip up dinner out of whatever she finds in the fridge. I don't think cooking should be competitive, I just think people should be able to feed themselves. Come the apocalypse there'll be no nights down at the pub or pulling sandwich stuff out of the icebox.

hey just fyi I can cook minute rice

i'm talking more the second half, even these 'normal middle-class bros' are getting in on flashy cooking gear and rarified recipes they post on facebook and twitter, acquiring many "likes". it's like an arms race to grab social capital.

see also novelty sports and pets and hobbies and mini-breaks: that 'return to domesticity' article is OTM, little fluffy worlds people create.

The anxious circulation of banalities WOW OMG that's amazing that you went on a historic steam-train journey at the weekend

Omelettes. – With Someone and Someone else at Somewhere. LIKE LIKE LIKE

mcdonalds, chips, soda, coffee, homeless shelter food

with alcohol and chinese, alcfohol and anything

i noticed this cooking trend even among my 'regular dude' highschool friends; cooking is like a go-to now for being a sophisticated adult.

i like cooking, kitchen gear, cuisines, food trends and so on. i'm not a "foodie", more a curious amateur, but i recognize that there's probably an element of aspirational/classist elitism in my enthusiasm. and maybe beneath all that i'm just trying to "win" at consumer culture by liking better things than everyone else, one of the saddest pursuits i can imagine.

but that's not the whole of it. on another (and i'd argue much more important) level, i'm just a person who likes food and cooking. i like the simple work of almost as much as the results. it's not important to me that the ingredients be expensive or the presentation fancy, just that things taste both good and distinctive. whether or not this is a trendy pursuit, i find it admirable in others.

curious amateur = foodie

i dunno. i don't go to restaurant openings or track the activities of chefs. i do read cook's illustrated. your call.

there's a thing that I think Matt DC of this parish once said which is that fancy food choices have kind of become the new indie music -- the same bunch of people you'd expect to be oneuppping one another and bonding over tales of gigs they've been to and albums bought and new band discovered are instead swopping tales of this and that soft open and this new burger press they've just found. it is a really big consumer moment right now, the fancy cooking.

cardamon's point about french and italian people and good food is kind of lol (i've known plenty of french and italian people who could not cook at all because who needs to) but there is the point to be made that e.g. during italian unification there was a massive push that connected regional pride with regional cuisine, a real political effort to cement "culture" through food culture particularly (this also happened in japan post-45, food history fact fans), and this sort of thing had an amazing long-term effect on how italian culture relates to class and food.

seems like keeping up with the jones's has reached apocalyptic, end-of-the-world proportions. maybe it coincides with the ending of the old world order, who the fuck knows. people don't know where they stand anymore, or where they stand today can be gone tomorrow in the blink of the eye.

plus lots of other shit: family, community, our inner lives, satisfying long-term careers, making real contributions to society or other peoples' lives, mean nothing in the face of getting THE LATEST SMARTPHONE! LOOK AT THIS AMAZING MEAL I"M EATING HOLY SHIT! I JUST DID A MUD RUN WITH FIREBALLS! YOU MUST DO THIS TO PROVE YOUR STRENGTH AND VALUE! (costs $399). or the need to be famous, idolized, loved by all, all through manufacture without substance, whether it's our purchasing decisions or our own personalities. i know this is some straight up hippie shit, but i find it so depressing.

i feel you on one level Spectrum, but i guess if we're gonna get all "what is the point" then you could argue that each of those things you list is about as valid and long-term important as anything else you or i might suggest

i suppose i'm saying "hate the player not the game"...pastimes, hobbies, skills, any kind of culture - it's all good if you invest it with meaning or purpose - being a douche about it is an optional extra

THE LATEST SMARTPHONE! LOOK AT THIS AMAZING MEAL I"M EATING HOLY SHIT! I JUST DID A MUD RUN WITH FIREBALLS! YOU MUST DO THIS TO PROVE YOUR STRENGTH AND VALUE! (costs $399).

Think this has to do with how unsatisfied people find themselves in careers they've spent youth and young adult-hood working for - but can't admit this so MUST BE EXCITE about all the CRAP they're up to

and just to bring us back on track, what invests those things with meaning and purpose is also, natch, riddled with class and social signification

Thread got trenchant

yeah those ppl who 'get' food and can cook well are priceless but in general, lex >>>>>

1. salad leaves: fresh spinach, lamb's lettuce, watercress with stalks cut off
2. melt a table-spoon of lurpak butter into the salad leaves
3. add a squeeze of lime juice
4. grate plenty of extra mature cheddar on top
5. layer on thin slices of sweet emerald green tomatoes
6. plus sugar-drop tomatoes, these cut into 4, length & crossways
7. drizzle on some Harissa dressing (best not to overdo it,
I prefer Sainsburys taste the difference, but if you like it really hot: use Belazu Rose Harissa)
8. mix in a little extra virgin olive oil
9. and some sainsburys tomato puree with hint of garlic
10. and a scoop of pequillo pepper dip
11. and an smaller scoop of beetroot tzatziki
12. then add one packet of Marks & Spencers classic beef jerky
(this is the soft kind anyway, but to prevent any excess chewiness, should be cut into small pieces first)
13. cut up a few sugarsnap peas and toss 'em in too
14. sprinkle some chilli flakes, and grind plenty of salt & pepper, over everything.
15. toss together

lol

<3

being an exhibitionist douche and being genuinely enthusiastic about something is harder to distinguish these days, though, c.f. guy fieri

Think this has to do with how unsatisfied people find themselves in careers they've spent youth and young adult-hood working for - but can't admit this so MUST BE EXCITE about all the CRAP they're up to

of course people are dissatisfied, we were taught from a young age that we have certain roles in life, but those roles were defined by people who want our money or time for themselves. you can't find fulfillment by following that shit. i suppose that's the thing: there are different paths you can take ... either go in the extreme to fulfill the promises our society gave us (by making more and better purchases, and showing it to everyone), or you can reject it as a bunch of crap and follow your own way. the first path is easier, the second one harder.

even if you find your fulfilment tho, it's the act of beating everybody else over the head with it as the One True Path that wd be a bad look, not the path you took yourself

even if you find your fulfilment tho, it's the act of beating everybody else over the head with it as the One True Path that wd be a bad look, not the path you took yourself

of course it'd look bad, it'd be the same thing: using your lifestyle as a tool to claw your place in a social hierarchy (manufactured personal branding, i'd guess). i'm a little frazzled by it because i feel pressured to buy lots of expensive stuff to take part in society, and i really don't want to part with the fruits of my labor like that.

example: i use a crappy old cellphone. i'm spending most of my money on therapy and health stuff to live a better life for myself and others. but i've been shamed about it at work, and shamed about the crappy car i drive so i can afford improving on my inner life. that's a choice i've made, and i'm happy with it, but i don't dig this pressure to sort my money into expensive gadgets and toys and away from things that mean something to me. i'm ignoring it, but i won't lie, there's a part of me that feels a little bad about it, like i'm doing something wrong.

i know what you mean, and it's simple to say, but in those situations the only people those douchers are really shaming are themselves. the commodityverse is a shitpit no doubt but you can paddle round the edges and nobody should make you duck your head under

i don't think even at a cellphone store that cellphone shaming is considered acceptable workplace behavior.

i have deployed food-shaming to get thai food instead of mcdonald's though.

who fucking cares if you can't fry an egg and find the experience draining and awful.

Only in the last century has cooking, and more recently, eating, become a solitary affair. Prior to the advent of the nuclear family, or the single-adult household, cooking was a communal, social affair.

I think the key to making cooking a pleasure (as it should be) revolves around making it social.

Mind, Teufel the mutt might not fully appreciate the recipe commentary I offer him. I think he just likes the sound of my voice.

love a bunch of dudes arguing about the cache of cooking

i wonder if the recent rise in 'dudes who love to cook' (non professionally) has anything to do with their not perceiving it as an obligation they've been thrust into since day 1. i love to cook! helen hates it. i hate to clean, helen finds it soothing. we all win.

sorry for arguing about cooking

I won't discuss things anymore

no, go for it! it just struck me as amusing. i love cooking, that's why i do it. i do not care if anyone else does it or not.

I love to cook but it takes me like 3 hours to make a meal no matter what

also if I am cooking for someone and they are in the room w/ me when I'm cooking I will scream at them in anger for about 1.5 hours because I will be so anxious about everything going wrong

the last time I cooked w/ someone I wasn't going out w/ (I made a meal w/ my dad for mother's day when I was visiting my parents) we got into a physical fight in the middle of the kitchen over who would fix the spice grinder or something, like the two of us were trying to wrestly the spice grinder out of each others' hands while my grandfather watched on the sidelines, he seemed pretty happy w/ it

Just wanna say that c#m has been otm upthread.

I guess I am a foodie - I enjoy eating good food and I'm always looking for new and better food experiences in the same way I'm always looking for music or the best classic disco 12" or w/e. I'm not immune to being judgemental ("pasturised cheese? I'd rather die!") but it's not AGL and I do my best to keep on top of it. Likewise, I sometimes get sucked into the exhibitionist tendancy but I don't enjoy it because of the stress in showing off. Basically it's a hobby for me and my gf but it seems silly to make it into a moral issue. Everyone can learn to cook but there's no reason why they have to - wrt lex et al's stresses, you just do the same recipe a few times and it gets a lot less difficult.

Have we mentioned how in e.g. italy and france making food good is just what you do, why would you not? Whereas in US and UK it's all look, look, i made food good! look at me!

My gf is from a working-class French family for whom food/cooking/provenance is very very important. They have had a lot more influence on my perspective than my own family, who do love food but don't cook at anything near the same level - all my formative eating experiences were in restaurants, which isn't necessarily worse but maybe is just typical of pre-21st century Irish middle-class values.

lots of typos there, for the sake of argument just pretend I can spell

neevr

i am a dude and i can cook, idk about the cache of anything tbh

thread could use a dash less vinegar, and maybe soften the butthurt in the microwave first next time

microwaves are awesome!

this machine kills aluminium foil

xpost yah for super pretzels exclusively

the sheer joy of watching those easter marshmallow peeps explode in microwaves is a testament to technological progress

Read this thread with much mirth and recognition this morning on my iPhone but didn't want to post because a; it was early and b; typing on an iPhone for more than six words sucks. And c; I rarely post anymore anyway, I guess.

Have agreed with many things on this thread, found some other things amusing or infuriating, too, especially the oft-repeated "I can't/won't cook, uergh the stress would kill me" vs "you disgusting savage for not cooking" tropes that get trotted out time and again on ILX.

I cook pretty much every day; I can't remember the last time I ate a ready-meal, unless you count the tin of sausages and beans I had on toast with grated cheese on top the other week when I was on holiday. When I also had some Bachelors Super Noodles for one meal; with a diced, fried onion and tomato, and some sundried tomato puree, and some chilli flakes in, and some grated cheese on top, because... well, exactly why because later. I've not had either of those things in many, many years.

I've never been formally or informally taught to cook; my mum didn't particularly show me (my dad doesn't cook, apart from an omelette), I've never had lessons outside of the cursory, uninspiring ones at school - I just bought some cookbooks and watched a lot of cooking programmes on TV and googled a lot of stuff. I guess I started teaching myself to cook when I was about 12 or 13, because my mum worked a couple of nights a week, so I'd get home first and have to cook myself tea. Which would sometimes be Bachelors Super Noodles (sometimes mum would leave a fish pie for me and dad to warm up); I pretty soon got bored of just the noodles and flavour packet supplied, so I started experimenting. And I've been doing myself beans on toast and cheese on toast since I was about the same age.

From there, it was pretty logical that I'd try other things; I remember cooking a lasagne for a bunch of mates when I was about 16, for no other reason than it seemed like a good thing to do, and we all liked lasagne. My parents are very working class northern; meat and two veg was usually the order of the day, and though they'd go out to a Chinese restaurant they'd never dream of Indian or Thai or Mexican or whatever - and, to be fair, in a small Devonshire town in the 80s and 90s there wasn't much to choose from beyond pub grub, fish and chips, and a Chinese takeaway - and I was always keen to try new food, new flavours; my mum and dad wouldn't even have garlic in the house. Food and class are totally linked.

University exposed me to loads of other types of food and also made me self-sufficient; I like eating, and cooking your own meals in big batches and then freezing portions was a damn site more economical than buying ready meals. A big pot of bolognese sauce would do 6 or 7 meals over a couple of weeks; value mince, value chopped tomatoes, some herbs. When I finished university and moved back in with my parents for a few years, I still cooked many of my own meals, especially at weekends, and I'd cook for Em too a lot. She was vegetarian to start with, and then started eating fish, so I learnt how to cook things that would suit her, and then when we moved in together she started eating meat, and now I'll cook pretty much anything.

Most of what I do isn't fancy in any way; Lex's big flash 3-course meal sounds like a ball-ache to me, and all these people claiming they can't cook anything in less than 2 or 3 hours, wtf?! I get in from work at about half five, and we've generally eaten and washed-up by seven at the latest (unless, these days, Em's running or I'm riding straight after work, in which case we'll eat later in the evening). Most things I cook during the week - risotto, fish with new potatoes, pasta with a simple sauce or a couple of other ingredients to lubricate and flavour (pancetta or prawns, some broccoli, artichoke, olives, whatever), jacket potatoes on a Monday (they cook while I play football and Em runs) - take no more than 45 minutes from starting chopping to shoving down your gullet.

And cakes! I started making cakes because, well, I liked eating cakes, when I was a teenager. Easy peasy; you just weigh stuff out, mix it together, and bake it. Baking is about the only cooking Em does; she likes the safety-net of a precise recipe, whereas I'm a bit more jazz in my approach - I like a basic structure and then to improvise within it, adding what I like, changing small things, putting together flavours I know work well together in other contexts (throwing pureed pistachios into a brownie mix before you bake it; making a hundred different variations on risotto so you can explore every combination you can think of, or find on google). Oftentimes I'll have a handful of ingredients and an idea and think "this seems like it should be a recipe, but what?" so I'll just google it. Or else something just seems so obvious - ham hock and leek in a quiche. Plus we've got about 30 cookbooks - essential favourites include Appetite by Nigel Slater (love his books; find him creepy on TV), Fearnley-Gubbins' veg book, and Don't Sweat The Aubergine by Nicholas Clee, which was recommended to me by an old work colleague, and which dispels a lot of the 'lies' told in recipes and cookbooks - like how long it takes to properly 'brown' onions - i.e. about an hour and a half on a low heat, not fucking 15 minutes as Gordon Ramsey's books claim - and Delia's Complete Cookery Course, which my mum and dad bought me when I went to uni, and which has the basics on just about everything ever in western cookery.

tl;dr version; cooking is great and not that hard if you want to do it and can practice (and don't mind eating 'mistakes' sometimes, though I've seldom ruined anything into inedibility), but if you don't want to do it, fine. Don't moan either way, though, cos you'll come across as a prissy fucker either way. And eating healthy, home-made stuff is, in my experience, cheaper than eating ready meals. You don't need expensive ponce ingredients to make a good meal.

And if you ever use the word 'artisan' near me re: food I will fucking immolate you.

Recipes and t'ing on my blog: http://sickmouthy.com/category/food-and-drink/

i love cooking, that's why i do it. i do not care if anyone else does it or not.

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Friday, August 2, 2013 11:52 AM (Yesterday)

nuff said

On yeah, we don't own a microwave. We didn't have space in the flat, and though we do now the fact that we managed without for five years has made Em determined that we won't.

having some actually nice equipment makes cooking way more fun. nothing fancy -- just a nice knife that has a decent blade on it, a few decent pans. moving on to buying decent new stuff instead of just the random castaways i accumulated over the years was a big step for me. but then i've ended up too busy to cook much anyway. like beyond a certain point, fancy equipment is maybe a class marker. but having a pan that heats evenly, a saucepan that's not terrible to clean, a gas stove that heats well, a knife that slices cleanly, etc. makes all the difference.

mainly use my microwave for heating water for instant coffee and tea -- i am a disgusting savage

a gas stove that heats well,

class is relative. i am fucking dying for this, but to get it where i live, i'd need to move up an income bracket or two. buy stove, buy tank, run lines into the kitchen, le sigh.

i only wish i had a microwave when reheating leftovers. but then it's done and i don't care anymore. counter space is way more valuable anyway.

Every time I'm tempted to say to someone "Jesus, cooking is not that hard, just do it, why are you eating soup from a can" I think about how I feel when people tell me "Jesus, hosting your own domain is not that hard, just do it, why are you using Wordpress and Google Sites."

Lex's big flash 3-course meal sounds like a ball-ache to me

yes but everything above boiled egg level is a ball-ache. they sounded fancy, but i specifically chose recipes that avoided the things that stress me out most about basic cooking. not much chopping, not much need for multiple appropriately-sized vehicles, didn't have to touch the meat etc. i've tried, like, pasta bakes and spag bol and those were much more stressful.

also it's BECAUSE i value food that i reject cooking, and especially basic cooking. i love eating and discovering excellent food, whether at restaurants or courtesy of people who are magicians in the kitchen like my bf. i'm perfectly happy to have those moments as peaks in a general existence of functional pre-made soups.

to bring it back to the actual thread topic, i honestly haven't noticed a class dimension to the way in which certain people have ~judged~ me. if anything the ultra-foodie types have been most understanding because their passion enables them to recognise that some things are some people's territory and not necessarily for everyone. i'm not sure there's a class dimension to being able to cook (apart from at either extreme, obviously).

i'm sort of surprised i haven't seen more of a feminist backlash to the everyone-must-cook harpies though...

also, j and dwight yorke were being awful cunts to crüt upthread

the basic situation that turns "cooking is such fun" on its head is when you have kids or other dependents i think, when making meals becomes less of a personal pleasure and more of a chore that you have to do every day whether you're in the mood or not because other people are relying on you to be fed - in my experience that's when it becomes most job-like and satisfaction often goes out the window

that's probably true for most ppl, but I miss the days of cooking for the family when I lived w/ my parents. kids are not v grateful but they're also p easy to please & i miss the "event" that a daily family meal was. i find it more satisfying to cook for an audience than just gf&i. idk, if my flat was big enough for a dining table I might enjoy it more

I like it when people-who-can't-cook describe people-who-can as magicians, that's nice, come round any time.

I identify w your situation lex except with driving

it's seriously magic! when i watch my bf cook it's like, how are you even doing all of that

he made me ROTOLO the other weekend, still dreaming about that incredible dish

like, a sort of pasta swiss roll that you roll up in a tea towel and boil like that? whutttt? it was so nice

yeah ogmor it can be both i guess, still do meals at weekends where me and the kids sit down and appreciate eating together but plenty of days in the week it would be "what can we throw together that you'll eat before you've got to get to drama club/orchestra/whatever?"

xp I read ROTOLO as some kind of portmanteau of ROFL and YOLO thanks for clearing that up :)

rolling on the only live once *squints at screen*

i suppose it's undeniably true that one man pleasure is another's chore. i mean with me for instance, i see these people who listen to r&b and just like... how do they get this stuff, on the internet? you know? do they have their own special internet that you need a special computer to access? so i just get mine off pitchfork, and it hits the spot just the same. i see some people seem to get sorely vexed about this but between you and me i think they're projecting personal issues of their own.

I identify w your situation lex except with driving

― a blessing and an inspiration (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, August 4, 2013 10:20 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

opened this thread to basically post this. when I'm in ppl's passenger seats I essentially revert to a small child and am mindblown by the fact they can concentrate on manouvering this hulking death machine and talk to people, change the radio station etc AT THE SAME TIME

I had my licence once, I can parallel park like a champ and am especially good at not breaking the speed limit, but once the challenge of driving wore off I started falling asleep at the wheel like a narcoleptic.

failed my test 5 times, i swear i can more or less drive but i don't think my concentration is sharp enough to be legally allowed out

Driving is at least a hundred times more difficult than cooking, tbh its prob 103 times more difficult

it's harder to kill somebody by cooking badly, i guess

I'd say driving is about as safe as chopping onions with a knife, and safer than slicing cucumbers with a mandolin

I was in Crut's situ at his age, when I moved out of home. The key thing is if you'reonly in your early 20s and just moved out/been in college of course all yr cookin will be sandwiches and soup. ALl I ate back then was pasta with packet sauces on it, and plain grilled chops and mashed potato.I learned, like a few other people metioned, mostly from obsessively watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks like they were novels. DIdnt even realise I was absorbing all that Keith Floyd basic shit til I found I'd fall back to it without thinking, suddenly.

Myonly caveat is I *was* taught a few important basics by my parents that can be tricky to learn: bechamel sauce and gravy and similar; and making roast dinners.

Most of all you have to be prepared to just keep trying, and BEING OK with burning/ruining/weirding things/cutting yrself/making a mes, sometimes.

Pro tip #1; dreadful parents

My mam hated cooking! We mostly lived on fishfingers and overboiled cabbage.

BEING OK with burning/ruining/weirding things/cutting yrself/making a mes, sometimes

this could also be where class comes into it - a lot of people can't afford to be wasting ingredients for nothing on a burned or ruined meal. in my early 20s this was certainly my thinking - a lot of key ingredients could only be bought in bulk (like flour), which would then end up unused on the shelf for another year. ingredient shopping is a lot less budget-friendly than buying a pre-packaged thing per meal, where you can see exactly how much that meal cost.

Yeah I had that same thought after I posted what I did, tbh.

I mean I'm not saying I spent my 20s destroying food. I just had to be ok with a meal sometimes being sub par and still eating it. This goes back to what you said earlier about being enough of a foodie that that's why you dont cook. When you said that I finally understood yr fuss :)

a lot of key ingredients could only be bought in bulk (like flour), which would then end up unused on the shelf for another year. ingredient shopping is a lot less budget-friendly than buying a pre-packaged thing per meal

TBF 5 lb of flour costs about three bucks, but I take your point re things like spices

Yeah, the first curry you make might cost you £15-20 in terms of the spices you buy. Of course, you can make countless curries from that batch of spices, but the *experience of making your first curry might also make it your last.

almost every half-interesting recipe seems to require a teaspoon of this or a tiny amount of that, it seems to be the stuff that pushes it from adequate to delicious

a well-stocked pantry takes a pretty considerable investment of time & money, once you're stocked up it becomes a lot easier to pull together a quick meal on the fly. it's pretty easy to underestimate that initial investment imho

get yr spices wherever immigrants get theirs. ditto oil, rice, legumes &c. cooking can definitely be v economical

^otm, you can get a bag of like 200 bay leaves for the same price a regular supermarket sells 15

Even in the regular supermarket! I always used to tell customers about the secret cheap bay leaves

Some of them were too suspicious of the label saying laurelny or whatever & were like Nah I'll stick with the jar of 2 leaves for 1.69

I've noticed big supermarkets getting in their natco bags of cumin &c., even big tins of ghee.

One thing about places like Whole Foods is that, even though the price per unit is expensive, you can buy, like, a teaspoon of marjoram from the bulk food for 10 cents if you know with all your heart that you don't need an entire bottle of marjoram

almost every half-interesting recipe seems to require a teaspoon of this or a tiny amount of that, it seems to be the stuff that pushes it from adequate to delicious

After many years of cooking for my family, I've come to feel quite the opposite, unless "this" is salt, which actually does matter, but is cheap.

otm re: salt

There are kilo bags of this really amazing Sicilian sea salt for £1.50 at Earth, a good organic/health food shop in Kentish Town. Screw you, Maldon!

Two years ago the area where I live got its own small communal herb and vegetable garden. It has a large bay tree in situ, plus rosemary, sage, mint, three different kinds of thyme, chives and a potato/tomato plot. I'm always popping down there for huge fresh bay leaves, mint and thyme (which can be a bitch to grow). I've got parsley, lavender, rosemary and a very wan bay plant on my own balcony.

£5 will buy you a store cupboard's worth of Natco spices; if you start with turmeric, cumin, garam masala and chilli powder you have the basics for an average curry (use the change for a few garlic bulbs, a piece of ginger and a handful of green chillies). I have that freelancer's obsessive thing of walking past three shops with 90p coriander bunches to the place where it's only 60p. FYI: there are good Asian shops in Cromer Street by King's Cross and on Drummond Street by Euston, plus a less-stocked one on Boswell Street that's improving. I get most of my spices from them but a trip to Green Street Market near the West Ham stadium is good for those times when you want to eat a very inexpensive tandoori chicken or that spicy corn in a cup in between trips to spice and chilli shops.

My girlfriend loves to mock me because a) i can't identify a lot of fruit/veg due to a life of eating garbage and generally being rubbish and b) i particularly cannot tell the difference between coriander and parsley, and often must ask the man in the shop which is which.

Naaah re salt, but fresh basil otoh is u&k ime

my bf asked me to bring him some basil from my garden the other day, had a total meltdown in the garden because my phone wouldn't work to load the picture he sent me and i couldn't tell which plant it was

Haha I was in fruit & veg for 6 years and still sometimes mistake flat leaf parsley for coriander (on sight, a quick sniff will reveal which it is)

i hate shopping at ONE shop enough as it is, having to traipse around multiple shops to get multiple ingredients is worse than cooking itself. suzy can attest to the meltdown that ensued last time

Lex you know what basil smells like tho right

no?

i know what mint smells like and that's it

That surprises me!

It has a highly distinctive smell which is easily extrapolated from the taste imho

my bf asked me to bring him some basil from my garden the other day, had a total meltdown in the garden because my phone wouldn't work to load the picture he sent me and i couldn't tell which plant it was

i'm dead into making bread, and a little whiles back i got into making focaccia, and sarah was like 'try it with herbs, maybe thyme, we have some in the garden', and that's how i unintentionally invented the totally foul and disgusting dish that is 'focaccia with lavender'

Ahaja that's an easy mistake to make. But srsly guys, your nose is your friend!

Coriander is softer and has scalloped leaves, while parsley is darker and pointier, usually.

Lex was a very brave soldier that day but yes, meltdown achieved. I like going on an ingredients-shopping derive but I generally really like shopping - and I've already established I'll walk to the next store to save a few pence because ARGH.

My mother is a laser-guided supermarket shopper ('no, it's not on special - put it back!') knows her way around a vegetable garden, and thinks nothing of driving out to somewhere rural to buy huge bags of huskable sweetcorn for $5 or $10. We were not allowed Spaghettios-type convenience foods or Wonder bread, but neither did my mom like the pulses and sprouts end of health food. Owing to extreme latchkey child status I was cooking simple meals at 10 (lots of breakfast for dinner), furtively blowing up random foods (eggs, oranges) in the microwave at 11, cooking meals for babysitting charges at 12, fighting my male relatives for control of the grill at barbecues at 13, and cooking short orders at a soda fountain at 14. That does not mean, however, that I did not also eat my weight in Swensons chicken pot pies until I left home...

Re class. We were lower-end middle class when I was a kid, never had any spare money but got by ok on what we had and even had enough for caravan holidays every so often. But that meant my mum made *everything* as cheaply as possible so we ate lots of liver, mince & onions, home-made yoghurt, powdered milk, healthy veg etc - I don't think I ate a fresh herb until I left Uni. For a treat we would sometimes have a Sunday lunch of chicken kievs or turkey drumsticks (I *loved* those) and Gino Ginelli ice cream or even a Vienetta. I don't know what that would say about class in 2013 - it seems the other way around now, chicken kievs are for povvos and offal and home-made yoghurt is for the well-meaning middle-class.

Lower middle class income in our house, but upper-middle-class/Swedish/Polish diet (my first birthday meal out - fifth - was Japanese). When my mother was signed off work for her ongoing back problems, we were briefly on food stamps and I was on free school lunches from age 13 to 17, when she finally recovered.

Basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender, and perilla are members of the Lamiaceae family btw. Awesome family...

suzy has the best 'voice' on ilx imo

xp I used to think Vienetta was the unattainable height of elegance. You can get one for about 99p now. Ditto Black Forest gateau.

Magnum killed the luxury icecream dessert, rip romantica u had it all but they never understood u

thanking u mucho for kentish town sea salt pro tip

vienetta may no longer be elegant but they still have the otherwise unattainable jnsq

i could murder one right now actually. a whole one

Romantica! With those little balls. omg.

btw in America I saw this: http://www.balticfood.us/storage/dadu17.jpg

imho stracchiatelli = vienetta

yeh, but Maldon salt tastes of ESSEX

Well, this should keep us busy today:

https://www.idrlabs.com/food-choice/test.php

What class are you, as indicated by food choices? Mine came out upper middle, but I reckon that’s down to a lack of enthusiasm for Cobb salad.

"Your food choices resemble those of the middle class (50%)". I didn't know (never tasted) half the meals.

If I had to self evaluate the way we eat:
- Rich man's foods: lamb, fish (cod, salmon)
- Poor man's foods: lots of legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils) typically in curries, Italian dishes, plantains, eggs, minced meat dishes, pork belly, burgers, chicken livers, meat pies, sausages.
- Somewhat in the middle: fresh fruit and vegetables since they tend to be expensive now. Parmesan and other cheeses, Greek yoghurt, chocolate.

I'm thinking more than class or money, the defining factors here might be education (both the ones we received and completed), culture, age / awareness, and values. Which can all be linked back to class obviously - which I would still say is middle / upper middle.

"Your food choices could not be tied to any one social class."

Admittedly I didn't know what some of the choices were.

it's an American test with American food and no connection to the English class system. Like an upper class English person could slum it and enjoy a chip butty, but they would never eat something with gold leaf as that would be unforgivably gauche.

lol at 'pork'

"Your food choices could not be tied to any one social class."

I did answer positively to everything.

"Your food choices could not be tied to any one social class."

Plenty of things I will eat if they are good homemade versions, like macaroni and cheese, but I won't eat poor versions or rarified trash versions of them, like lobster mac and cheese. Gtfoh with that shit.

Also, a lot of the food in this test presumably representing upper class is not actually upper class food, it is food that middlebrow frankenstein atrocities use to signify upper class food (cf. lobster mac, foie gras burger, gold leaf, etc.).

I coded those as lower middle class tbh.

I’m put off by the photos. Each one (except the chili?) looks unappealingly stock-photoish.

I went for vegetarian choices so two thumbs down for anything with meat or fish and came out solidly middle class.

Pork, somehow, looks pornographic.

I, too, am classless according to this survey.

Yeah, the lobster, caviar and foie gras are all a bit cartoon rich guy choices as opposed to actual tip offs.

it's an American test with American food and no connection to the English class system. Like an upper class English person could slum it and enjoy a chip butty, but they would never eat something with gold leaf as that would be unforgivably gauche.

I feel like it tries to break out of American food but in weird ways? Dunno what class connotation fish & chips could have in the US tbh, nor sachertorte.

Also re: slumming the American upper class def does this too, thus the culinary preferences of one Donald Trump.

"how often would you like to eat"

is a fairly ridiculous formulation

92% middle class- fairly nonsensical set of food choices all the same, about ten oyster/crab/lobster options out of 35?

Caviar on crisps is having a moment as hors d’oeuvres at fashion parties, wonder how that codes?

i like mac n cheese and hot dogs but not gold plated lobster and foie gras burgers … therefore i’m lower middle class

I got lower class, which surprised me only because I thought my answers would've read as more all over the map. I really like oysters but don't care for steak tartare. I'm not fond of beef stew but love a good fish and chips. (Basically, I prefer seafood to beef, no matter the preparation.)

I'm into fine dining generally, but I was lukewarm on some of the items with "luxury" ingredients (foie gras burger, truffle mac and cheese). Whenever I've had stuff like this, it just sort of feels gratuitous overkill and not worth the cost. And I was meh on sashimi -- because I prefer nigiri.

I said no to gold leaf ice cream, foie gras burger and lobster mac; yes to tartare, caviar and sashimi.

yeah i'm not sure exactly how this is reading class, and this probably reflects my bias toward "healthy eating" somewhat, but i suspect this quiz isn't weighing that influence out nearly as much as it should? one of the main markers of the well-off, especially where i am--people who ski and mountain bike and go to yoga classes and are hella body conscious etc.--is just how attuned they are to healthy eating they are--clean, simple, high quality proteins, fruits and vegetables, complex carbs. the amount of money those kinds of foods cost varies widely. you can be vegetarian / vegan, eat a lot of beans and barely spend money on the ingredients of food and still be very much in the upper middle and upper classes, in fact i suspect vegetarianism/veganism is correlated with the middle class and above? i think where rich people are paying for food isn't as much in the food itself (although surely they are spending more to get better-quality versions of the same foods), but in the preparation of it--relying on meal services, personal chefs, etc.

i'm kinda surprised to see this is like an official academic project honestly, it doesn't seem that well thought-out? my results were upper-middle and i'm very squarely lower-middle to lower irl.

fois gras burger and gold plated mac and cheese or w/e is an absolute joke, it's like what posh people eat in a Viz comic strip.

in fact i suspect vegetarianism/veganism is correlated with the middle class and above?

I'd say mostly yes but there are religious and cultural groupings that complicate this

Agreed that the “rich people food” choices are dumb. And who doesn’t like potato chips? That shit goes straight to your lizard brain.

Elon Musk probably eats nothing but junk food.

How often would you like to munch a croissant

right, i hadn't thought of that - my perspective is pretty bound by the western us.

i feel like if they had two meat options - steak from the supermarket and a grass-fed free-range "breakfast steak" (not a filet mignon, because part of being a rich person eating is that you have to kind of pretend that what you're eating is somehow down-home) - that would be a surer indication of someone's class.

I tested as middle class (71%), and I'm solidly trailer trash lower class.

Some of the foods that probably read more lower-class are things I liked as a kid but have trouble digesting now (like potato chips). So digestive health issues apparently elevate your class status. That said, I did get "middle class," which is pretty much where I grew up.

I too had some trouble with the images (e.g., I'd have a baked potato occasionally, but probably not with cheese and bacon).

I could eat an entire bag of Old Dutch potato chips in one sitting when I was in high school but I rarely eat chips/crisps now.

oysters used to be a poor person's food, they were cheap and you could order a mountain of them for hardly anything

I remember reading about woodsmen in scandinavia and alaska demanding that salmon could only be served four days a week in the cookhouse, they got so sick of it

Lower class, allegedly. Honestly most of it looked delicious.

i think this thing is broken

I got lower-middle class, which didn't surprise me because none of that garish shit would ever get near my plate and I don't like shellfish of any kind. No oysters, no mussels, definitely no fucking lobster.

i'd order moules-frites again but it's been a long time since i've been to the kind of place that would have them

most/all of this food looks good/great to me

got lower-middle class

Did y'all get "defrosted pizza" for one question? Because WTF does that even mean? A frozen pizza that you forgot to bake? No.

If those people think I am ever going to turn down sloppy joe meat with potato chips they are sorely mistaken. (lower class obv)

I got no class btw. I was meh on most.

I got the “defrosted pizza” question. I think this poll was made by AI or something, or at least by college students who have only a passing knowledge of why “food” is.

-What food is

Oh I thought we were all getting the same foods presented. I got the defrosted pizza too.

lower middle class -- ok, seen, I guess

says a lot about someone who thaws a pizza but then is too lazy to put it in the oven

defrosted pizza is an essential component of the Butterfield Diet

No one eats a frozen pizza without cooking it. I'm not going to say no one EVER has but that's not a thing. (It's not a thing, right?)

you could say the same about beef, but then there's this tartare thing

if you like the look of steak tartare and order it imagining you're getting a steak, your class is Mr Bean

The IDRlabs Food Social Class Test (IDR-FSCT) was developed by IDRlabs. The IDR-FSCT is based on a scientific paper, originally published in 2020, by Silvia Bellezza and Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania. The IDR- FSCT is not associated with any specific researchers in the field of behavioral psychology or any affiliated research institutions.

yeah because it sucks! silvia bellezza and jonah berger should not be doing academic research, but since they're at penn they're probably .. upper class.

I read "defrosted pizza" as implying lower class people buying transformed products, as opposed to the gourmet who will patiently make the dough at home and handpick the ingredients.

Agree the choices looked mostly disgusting and hardly qualified as food, but hey, different cultures.

Yes but the joke is you call that a frozen pizza, not a "defrosted pizza".

*Seeing reactions to Zohran eating rice with his hands* but that would be on the food and racism thread.

Not doing the survey but I love crab meat and wondering if this is the poorer version of Lobster.

Lobster, oysters, and crab, like most food, were local products that were available to nearly anyone of any means in those areas. Over-harvesting, scarcity and our demented food supply and incentives have have caused the prices for those products to rise and given them their upper class veneer.

Ime, blue crab at least is way more expensive per pound than lobster.

Sushi used to be poor man's food too.

Is therr any dish that's been a rich person thing from its inception?

roasted peasant

Not doing the survey but I love crab meat and wondering if this is the poorer version of Lobster.

it's not miles cheaper? but i guess so. crab prob is tastier/more versatile tho a grilled lobster is pretty great.

Sushi used to be poor man's food too.

Is therr any dish that's been a rich person thing from its inception?

Ortolan?

Famously Francois Mitterand’s last meal!

2The birds are then plucked, salted and peppered and cooked in their own fat for seven minutes. Many consumers of this dish then place the bird feet first into their mouth while holding onto the bird's head. They eat the ortolan whole, with or without the head, and some may spit out the larger bones, while others eat the whole bird head, bones and all. The traditional way French gourmands eat ortolans is to cover their heads and face with a large napkin or towel while consuming the bird."

I already knew about it but what the ever loving fuck. Horrifying.

Yeah map otm re health/nutrition and class intersections! Apart from mac & cheese, most everything with “empty” carbs I said no to because of health issues. I also was pescatarian for so long, all the things that are just “large portions of meat” didn’t seem appealing. My preference for fish/seafood is probably connected to the fact my family was from a coastal area where there was a lot of seafood and I grew up eating it.

I got upper middle/ upper / lower with hardly anything in between… guessing there is also regional & race bias as the foods that probably coded “lower” were southern / black American type things, like grits and lobster, which I was like … damn that sounds good. The southern cobb salad looked tasty too.

A more interesting version would be to take some of these things that are prepared quite differently based on class and survey the variants: like potato chips and fish sticks. There are bougie fish sticks… they just aren’t rectangular.

Those are fish fingers in the UK and everyone eats them, especially as kids.

do they come in a rectangular wire basket though

Can do!

In my house they go in a lightly toasted bap with mayo, sriracha and chopped lettuce.

I still need to eat this

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/fish-finger-bhorta

I didn't know about ortolan until that Succession episode where Tom introduces it to Greg.

I knew about it from some book, but first saw it on Billions.

In my house they go in a lightly toasted bap with mayo, sriracha and chopped lettuce.

Ortolan?

LOOOOL

No class here, I think for some of the reasons that map mentions— though I do have a sweet tooth and love chips/crisps, I try to keep them out of the house. I mostly eat like an athlete— lots of complex carbs, protein-rich foods that are relatively low-fat (or have lots of good fats), and I try to eat in season much of the time.

The one that seemed comical to me was tuna tartare tacos— like excuse the fuck me, that is not a taco filling, pendejo.

I also loathe mac and cheese and really creamy pasta dishes, whatever their class signifiers. They gross me out.

tandoori tacos are a thing here. that's a big no thanks from me.

i have had Korean tacos, tandoori tacos make sense. but why the fuck would you ruin tuna tartare by sticking it in a taco? it's basically a cartoon version of a "high class" dish, no real person except a fool would want to eat that.

You horrible bunch of scrooges, I haven't eaten gluten in over 13 years but I answered it as what WOULD I eat, if I could, and I would MURDER a tandoori taco are you kidding me

i'll eat anything, just no mayo/aioli/salad cream/ketchup please

The one that seemed comical to me was tuna tartare tacos— like excuse the fuck me, that is not a taco filling, pendejo.

― czech hunter biden's laptop (the table is the table), Tuesday, July 1, 2025 8:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Tacos mariscos?

¿O maricos?

mariscos usually means shellfish, fwiw, in the context of Mexican food. not fucking tuna tartare.

I know what mariscos means. I was looking at it expansively and comparing tartare to tuna ceviche, of which there are plenty of such tacos/tostados.

With tacos as with pizza it’s daft to get too precious about what is essentially “a flatbread with some stuff on it”

Actually, I guess I agree with tables that tuna tartare is bougie signifier food, while ceviche tacos are not.

wins, you're just trying to start the, "are tacos pizza?" argument, right?

as a non-beef eater who doesn't like caviar, oysters, lobster, or gold-plated food (wtf is that anyway), i ended up as non-classifiable. dumb quiz, probably find out later there is some connection to rfk jr or something

Isn’t ceviche Peruvian, made of whitefish, and not served in taco form?

No it’s all across Latin america, the Mexican version is served on a tostada

With like papaya & stuff

The Mexican versions I have had were served with tortilla chips or on a tostada, so technically not a taco.

xp

With tacos as with pizza it’s daft to get too precious about what is essentially “a flatbread with some stuff on it”

I would have previously agreed with you but unfortunately this clip of Marcelo Mayer (Mexican American Red Sox player) rinsing his bff for how he eats tacos (“He likes cheese and sour cream like a GRINGO”) is now canon imo

I came out as Middle class, with a wide spread. However I think a lot of the upper class food signifiers in that survey, gold plated ice cream and truffle on anything and everything are borderline vile.

I really hate the ubiquity of truffle as a lazy luxury signifier, it’s the koons balloons dog or kaws gonk of food. This hatred honed by a late stage Covid quarantine session locked in the Ritz in Vienna (no joke) - just try and pursue them not to put truffle on the chips.

It’s gone from a subtly applied rarity, to lazy disgusting slather thanks to people working out how to farm them. They just aren’t that nice especially when used to industrial excess.The flavour is so intense it’s not something anyone would want a lot of or often, yet here we are.

Lobster mac and cheez and tuna tartare taco are meant (in the hamhanded context of things like that quiz) as high/low mix novelty foods. Edible gold is an equally hamhanded stunt joke novelty food.

As I already don't like Mac and cheez I will not suddenly start liking it if it has a fancier food put on it. And foods obviously eaten once while on cruise ship or resort vacation are not indicative of anything interesting about diet or class imo.

A study designed to tease out real differences in how people eat day-to-day would not be blurred by Buzzfeed-listicle-level stunt foods, or by shit-stirring semantics disputes.

That said, a hot dog is a taco and a Pop-Tart is a calzone

yeah, i mean the real divide would be “Big Mac” vs “100% Free Range Grass Fed Beef Burger.” And i would go for the latter and never the former, haven’t eaten McDonalds in a decade and haven’t eaten a Big Mac in at least three decades, don’t plan on starting again anytime soon.

The only thing I will eat at McDonald’s (and not at the moment because BDS-adjacent boycott) is a Sausage and Egg McMuffin - the eggs are free range and where else in England am I getting a sausage patty?

I very rarely eat out because I can’t afford it, so the tuna tartare taco, to me, wasn’t a matter of politics around “fusion” cuisine and more, would combining these things in my kitchen as something I make for myself sound appealing. And I said yes! Would I go to a restaurant that sells tuna tartare tacos? Probably not, because they are out of my price range and chips & guac are probably $15.

But I grew up in a household where meals were often “what’s in the fridge and could be combined in a healthy, tasty and efficient manner?”

(Fwiw my health food consciousness started young because my mom had cancer when I was 10-13, so we ate vegetarian and very healthily for that period— I still don’t really understand “fast food”)

T - let me get this straight, you lived in West O for about a decade and you didn’t get the appeal of the Taco Bell open til 3am drivethru?

Taco Bell is foul

i will occasionally enjoy a del taco double del and the culver's grilled chicken sandwich is decent in a pinch but other than that i am firmly a no fast food kind of guy

Part of this is that honestly, fast food is expensive— the price for a disgusting burger at one of these places is equal to about two or three healthy, tasty sandwiches at home. Why would I spend my money on crap?

on road trips i just pick up some snacks from table's beloved trader joe's to see me through... until i can stop by the supermarket in whatever town i'm visiting to pick up a rotisserie chicken. i used to joke with my boyfriend who i miss dearly about fucking rotisserie chickens.. kind of a you had to be there thing..

Counterpoint: Taco Bell is amazing

Buttblast, Maryland over here

Taco Bell once lifted me out of a particularly bad bout of not being able to eat while grieving. But I don’t ever visit the branch about two blocks away from my flat.

It does definitely clean things out down there!

the runs to the border

I don't know much about their Flamin' Hot Enchiritos or whatever, but the basic bean/cheese burrito has been fairly reliable over the years

i used to get gas station hot dog depression meals - probably the worst food i've ever eaten.

Think the closest I have come to that kind of food has been occasional, desperate trips to the Chipotle on one of the campuses where I've worked, but then I discovered the excellent halal cart.

I also haven't been to most of the fast casual places— never been to an Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Outback, any of those places. The last time I was ever in one, it was a Cracker Barrel, and I ate the worst meal I've had outside of jail.

Keep honking, I am ordering The crunchwrap supreme

Chipotle is the best of the FF choices, well maybe Panda Express too - have had both within the last year or two.

Fast casual is the most depressing and demoralizing for me … with fast food at least you can go through the drive thru and it’s fairly cheap. I will also rep for Popeye’s

i haven't been to a national franchise in years -- iirc most were kinda-ok but the bad ones were really bad. food business people in my very pro-big business state are way into franchises so we have a couple of local ones. i think the level of control and care varies widely. but i just avoid franchises entirely now because it's so much more pleasant when i'm eating out to skip the corporate branding experience and go to a place where someone has created a wonderfully individual atmosphere (with good food crucially). usually those people are first or second generation immigrants.

I've been told that if you stay overnight in an NYC jail you get two pieces of stale Wonder Bread and a single slice of off-brand Velveeta, and I have had much more satisfying and even dare I say pleasant meals at lots of chain restaurants but y'all do what you want. There's a reason I got "lower class" on the food judgement scale lol

The only national fast food chain I've eaten at since 2023 (we had Wendy's before leaving NJ for MT) is Dairy Queen, and their burgers suck, but they sell dairy free (I know, right?) "ice cream" pops that my wife likes. There's a regional chain, Taco John's, that I tried when we first got here because they were down the block from our hotel. The tacos were OK, but they offered tater tots as a side, which was the real selling point. The tater tots were great.

I recently found a very good Chinese takeout place about a half hour's drive from me, and out here a half hour's drive is nothing, so I'll definitely be going there again. They offer the usual stuff, but they throw in small extras, like their beef with mixed vegetables has all the stuff I expected (carrots, baby corn, etc.) but also zucchini, and the brown sauce isn't nearly as heavy as I was expecting. Overall just a really good cheap meal.

Del Taco is insanely popular in Barstow CA where it was founded... there'll be thirty cars in the drive-thru, while the Taco Bell parking lot sits empty

in orbit, a piece of dry turkey breast with the consistency of leather slathered with disgusting white gravy on top of white bread was what I was served at Cracker Barrel. The baloney sandwiches at Glenn Dyer in Oakland, California, are at least edible.

del taco is ok. their burger is about in n out level. helps that they're about the only thing that's open 24 hours around here. i must live in the del taco corridor. i've seen taco john's but i don't think there's one close by? looks like theyre based in cheyenne, which yeah sounds about right, they're a truck-stop-in-wyoming kinda place.

never even heard of Taco John's, makes sense, there aren't any here...or any close by, it seems!

I grew up and went to college in Minnesota and I’ve never been to a Taco John’s despite their ubiquity.

Some of the best tacos I’ve had have been from a gas station in Gaithersburg, MD and a food truck that is permanently parked in Arlingto, Virginia.

I mean, yeah, that's the way a lot of this stuff works. The best enchiladas I ever had were in a hole in the wall in Globe, Arizona.

Speaking of Food & Class, do you guys ever make grocery decisions based on whether the packaging is actually recyclable or is just bullshit?

Like, I like how Laughing Cow cheese comes in a round cardboard box with aluminum foil wrapper within

I dislike how many plastic yogurt & cottage cheese containers come in #5 triangle 'recyclable', which almost guarantees they'll be in a landfill soon. Likewise, is my 'cardboard' milk carton actually less recyclable than the plastic jug? Tetra-Paks I avoid almost entirely

I wonder whether actual working class families have the time or energy to worry about stuff like this... oh, and Trader Joe's fruits and vegetable that come in pre-wrapped plastic packaging of dubious recyclability, the nets holding fruit, etc.

It does inform some of my choices for sure

me to

too

hate the nets

I buy produce at fruit and veg stalls (the kind of place you’d get 3 avocados or a bowl of tomatoes or peppers for £1) but also farmer’s markets (better potatoes, onions and high-quality seasonal treats) and grow all of my own herbs in pots on my balcony. It’s also possible to forage wild rocket and fennel on the canal towpath nearish to me. Asian or Turkish shops have good chillies and the best coriander bunches.

I use the little mesh garlic bags to hold my dishwashing sponge... yes they'll eventually end up in a landfill but they have a second life as a scouring aid, at least for awhile

Uh mesh garlic bags? I have never purchased garlic packaged this way. Usually the mesh bag garlic is imported and not as good.

I love finding out about chains that are really popular in the midwest or west coast but don't exist on the east coast. I've never even heard of taco johns. There is a taco place here in London that is owned by Danny Trejo which is so random and bizarre to me. I have to go.

I've been told that if you stay overnight in an NYC jail you get two pieces of stale Wonder Bread and a single slice of off-brand Velveeta,

similar to a UK hospital, in my most recent experience.

As table mentioned, California jails are partial to baloney sandwiches… I got released from Santa Cruz jail before the designated sandwich time.

on a related note, a friend of mine used to have a somewhat macabre poster of death row inmates, with their mugshots and their final meals... I'm not sure I'd be very hungry in that situation, but it was interesting to see their choices.. certainly nothing very fancy.. pork chops, strawberry pie, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, etc.

I've been told that if you stay overnight in an NYC jail you get two pieces of stale Wonder Bread and a single slice of off-brand Velveeta

it’s a slice of halal meat IME

As table mentioned, California jails are partial to baloney sandwiches… I got released from Santa Cruz jail before the designated sandwich time.

!!!!!

on a related note, a friend of mine used to have a somewhat macabre poster of death row inmates, with their mugshots and their final meals... I'm not sure I'd be very hungry in that situation, but it was interesting to see their choices.. certainly nothing very fancy.. pork chops, strawberry pie, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, etc.

They want the food they couldn’t have that brought comfort in their lives outside, makes sense to me

I thought it was stuff that could be easily sourced from local restaurants

If you really do get to choose I always think I would go for whatever would cause the most unpleasantness for the pigs who killed me when I voided my bowels

If I was on the IRB, I would have bounced this survey

It’s been too easy to replace fast food with small local fast casual Mexican/poke/Korean/etc. places since prices went up. A Wendy’s combo or a pork belly bowl with rice and veggies and etc. from the Korean spot for the same money is not a tough call except for the lack of drive through.

It’s been too easy to replace fast food with small local fast casual Mexican/poke/Korean/etc. places since prices went up. A Wendy’s combo or a pork belly bowl with rice and veggies and etc. from the Korean spot for the same money is not a tough call except for the lack of drive through.

honestly this was always what my parents said when i was growing up— why eat slop when you can eat decent food for nearly the same price?

I still remember this burn by Jess 20+ years later:

Subway. It's cheaper than Quizno's by far (12" veggie sandwich + a bag pretzels < $5.00), and seems healthier in the way that unmelted cheese seems healthier than melted cheese, even though there is actually no difference! I only eat there occasionally because it's a block away from where I work, though. Otherwise, I never eat at fast-food chains. (Taquerias and falafel joints, on the other hand...)
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

c/d: not eating "fast food" while eating at local quick crap joints
― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Offer for food on-the-go is pretty varied around here and lunch economy seems to be doing fine. There's always a tension between healthy and tasty, but it's not like you have to sacrifice your retirement savings or 20 years of life expectancy to get back to the office with a good meal in your belly.

honestly, while jess' point does have some merit, eating food that is made with whole ingredients by locals (and supporting locals), even if it isn't good for you, will always be better than the additive-addled crap that fast food companies serve up. like only an idiot would go for an egg mcmuffin over an egg and cheese on wheat from their local deli.

like only an idiot would go for an egg mcmuffin over an egg and cheese on wheat from their local deli.

Definitely the only reason people do what they do

If given the option, the point stands.

If the option isn't there, surely I understand going with McDonalds.

Your insufferable ability to read bad faith into every single thing that some people post on here must exhaust you.

table, that comment of yours was condescending and insufferable

Customers may choose an Egg McMuffin b/c McDonald's is open earlier while the local joint isn't? There's also the possibility that the local joint's breakfast sucks.

(I haven't eaten McDonald's since the early '90s; I just oppose this reflexive fetishizing of all things local or calling people idiots because of their breakfast choices).

egg & sausage muffin and a coffee is currently £2.99 at McDonald's, if I went to a local business, that would cost me £8 at least. Which is too much for me to spend on breakfast. I do not want to support McDonald's but I do not also have £8 for breakfast.

Your insufferable ability to read bad faith into every single thing that some people post on here must exhaust you.

You once emailed me to tell me I got you to leave ilx because you misunderstood a comment I made as being aimed at you, if we’re trading barbs about misreading.

Anyway I have never been interested in McDonald’s breakfast but it occupies an honoured niche in greasy breakfast fare aiui, didn’t think this needed explaining. I don’t think greasy spoon customers or people who buy breakfast rolls are under any delusions about the quality of their food either.

egg & sausage muffin and a coffee is currently £2.99 at McDonald's, if I went to a local business, that would cost me £8 at least. Which is too much for me to spend on breakfast. I do not want to support McDonald's but I do not also have £8 for breakfast.

Indeed. The thread is called Food and Class after all.

I don’t know about others but a simple sandwich costing $13 at my local mom and pop still gives me sticker shock.

can I interest you in a $6 taco?

There has been massive food price inflation in the last five years, especially in terms of restaurants as they have to pay a lot more for fuel and utilities in general. It can be a shock if you haven't been to the place for a while. I understand that cheap deals from fast food chains are loss leaders intended to wipe out the competition, should bear that in mind really, although local independent businesses are as often as not run by twats and I wouldn't want to go out of my way to support petit bourgeoise twats. Really there should be a sign, if they accept crypto maybe.

I will always stan for the humble Taco Bell bean burrito, a vegetarian-friendly mainstay for many decades. I eat a couple a month, typically when I'm out running around and need something quick and filling. It's not the healthiest thing in the world obviously, but it's under 400 calories and has 8 grams of fiber and 14 grams of protein. As an add-on, the spicy potato taco is good too. If you get those together, that's about 630 calories with 19 grams of protein and 10 grams of fiber, for $3.20 plus tax. Totally defensible!

I haven't been vegan in years but I still order Taco Bell bean burritos fresco-style - I much prefer the diced tomatoes to shredded cheese

the local bodegas charge $2.50 for a egg and cheese on a roll. if the options are there, i just don’t get why one would opt for fast food.

There's a dozen reasons! Familiarity, convenience, habit, enjoying the taste etc

I'm off McD's because Palestine but I don't think shaming people or questioning their faculties for what they choose to eat is a good look, honestly

xp equivalent to a bodega in UK is a corner shop and their sandwiches are horrible and more expensive than McDonald's

No one here lives fully ethically, let's not post otherwise.

fair enough, i’ll shut up

i didn't mean that tbh quite so "shut up", apologies for how i worded it, more that every ilxor is intelligent and empathetic enough to at least be able to think about the reasons people might have aesthetic values we vehemently disagree with

I guess that I just think that most fast food, whether corporate or local, relies on some assumptions that can easily be contradicted— many times it isn't fast, many times it isn't more affordable than other options, and many times the food simply isn't as good in terms of quality and ingredients. I understand why people make the choice to go for fast food, but also think that a lot of people would be shocked at how much time and money they spend on it vs. other possible options. That's all!

I vividly remember reading a letter in MRR from an outraged Tomas Squip in response to some Mykel Board troll column about how Board loved McDs. "My friends and I can eat like kings for a week on what you spend with one visit to that shitty place"

I choose sausage and egg mcmuffins over other options because I think they're delicious and sometimes they are exactly what I want as a breakfast treat, it isn't very complicated

We can move on to judging other people’s parenting in terms of encouraging kids to eat fast food and unhealthy foods as these will then develop into comfort foods later in life and prevent the child from living a righteous life?

Well they could always become a radical organic vegan because fast food reminds them of their dumb parents.

tbh I always think of the butterfly effect re: any parenting decision, prob a good thing I'm not one

the ned flanders path

Counterpoint: You can grow up as a vegetarian child of lefty vegetarians and learn to see fast food as a secret sacred thrill being kept from you by your gatekeepers — leading to a great overindulgence in Whoppers during those experimental college years. (Ask me how I know.)

Flanders field sans greens

lol tipsy

Sausage and egg McMuffins are made with free range eggs, at least in the UK. But I won’t be eating one any time soon.

A breakfast bap at my usual farmer’s market is £6 for bacon and egg or bacon and sausage (all organic except for the bun).

I worked at McDonalds as a teenager.. fuck that foul place

fast food not hugely different from social media - it's bad for you, everyone knows it is, but if it's omnipresent then most people simply are not going to be able to resist it, plus capitalism has gotten extremely good at redirecting all negative externalities into problem spaces entirely within the domain of the individual - you eat poorly because you're lazy, you don't have enough money for decent food because you aren't looking for a better job, you are too tired to cook because you're not good at managing stress, etc.

I ethically breed Mangalitza pigs in a small but acorn-filled dehesa in a corner of my flat, plus some chickens on the balcony. When the pigs have lived a full and happy life, I stage a humanist funeral for them, soundtracked by a representative selection of global artists. The resulting bacon and egg sandwich costs less than an egg mcmuffin, and the taste is greatly enhanced by the many hours of love and care I have spent looking after my pigs and chickens.

However if I'm out and about I usually grab a sausage and egg mcmuffin.

I feel this thread is intersecting neatly with the discussion on the Reginald Perrin thread about Reggie's son-in-law, Tom, and Nuts In May's Keith Pratt.

its relatively easy to eat well its also relatively easy to eat cheaply its also relatively easy to eat ethically its probably not relatively easy for most people to do more than two of the three unless they breed their own mangalitza pigs onsi- oh xps nvm

listen, i offered to send you some of the offspring but you were too high and mighty

I remember that doc about 10-15 years ago showing the price of being poor in America. A jumbo bag of Cheetos and a jug of Coke are cheaper than an arugula salad or whatever.

I've been doing a fitness program through my work for five weeks now hence tracking calories, macros, sodium, etc. and it is comically difficult to eat well

xp its not arugula science

right now I'm drinking a root beer-flavored protein shake, which makes me feel like a denizen of Vault 13

listen, i offered to send you some of the offspring but you were too high and mighty

is it true the chickens are the basis of Supermacs tenders

I remember that doc about 10-15 years ago showing the price of being poor in America. A jumbo bag of Cheetos and a jug of Coke are cheaper than an arugula salad or whatever.

A bag or clamshell of arugula costs between $2.49-5, I got a 2.49 bag at Walmart a few weeks ago. A salad with arugula and fixins from a grocery store like Trader Joe’s or a more regional chain costs between $5 and $10.

A jumbo bag of Cheetos and a 2 liter Coke cost between $8 and 10.

I guess I just don’t think the cost argument adds up.

The true issue, imho, is accessibility— do people have access to healthier food? And who has a stake in keeping people eating junk?

Of course people with access can choose to eat whatever they want, as all people should be able to eat whatever they want, but this is also an issue about more than class or ethics, but about civil rights and predatory capitalism, as well as corporate malfeasance and consolidation.

and food deserts! (speaking of access)

exactly

I am pretty sure issues of access are different in the US than in other countries in Western Europe that don't have as fucked up food distribution systems as we do.

saw a grim article awhile back about how big dollar stores demand all these tax breaks just to open in a these one stoplight towns across rural america... sometimes that's the only store for miles around

The quantities you have to buy to make an arugula salad changes the math - you're not just buying a clamshell of arugula and eating it straight. You need oil and vinegar or a vinaigrette, cheese, tomatoes, pine nuts, etc.. and you can't buy most of that in single-serving quantities. So now you're committed to eating arugula salads before the tomatoes and greens go bad and your up front costs are $20+.

'people have full autonomy to make the correct decisions about consumption and eating but they're stupid and lazy and don't' is libertarian wellness brain worms IMO, even if you can make the financial arguments stick it ignores that everyone is constantly pressed for time, particularly if they've got kids/are on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

Even in an ideal situation with easy access to stores via functioning car or mass transit, shopping and cooking eat hours. I've got about 6 hours between waking up and preparing to go back to work to have two meals (because on graveyard my lunch at 3AM is a piece of cornbread and some nuts) do everything else in life. The only way I'm creating that time is by making a big shredded chicken in adobo chiles thing on my day off and having that with rice I've frozen and reheated for five dinners out of the week.

the expectation that we are individually responsible to create 3 meals a day for ourselves is fucking nuts to begin with

the basic idea of a restaurant makes a million times more sense from the standpoint of economics, environment, food waste, community ... and in fact in the past it was normal for poor people to eat in restaurants nearly every day! how this became distorted is beyond me but i have some guesses

Middle class and poor ancient Romans ate street food.

cooking indoors is goofy too now that i think about it

the expectation that we are individually responsible to create 3 meals a day for ourselves is fucking nuts to begin with

― budo jeru, 07 July 2025 22:33 (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

second time ive seen this sentiment in a few weeks on ilx. boggles my mind tbh, the first time was in a context where it wouldnt have been very considerate of me to say so but look, weetabix and milk covers you from 8am through lunch, so we're down to two meals, most ppl will be providing perhaps half of the remainder ito "creating for themselves" and the rest will be yr sandwich yr deli salad yr sit in or takeout meal or might be sourced fairly handily from a reasonable stock set of ingredients starting as simply as having eggs, bread, tomatoes, cheese and or whatever you do yourself hanging about the house.

even presuming single- and tbf not presuming kids - its nuts to describe having to feed yrself as an adult around half of the time as nuts

right,.that should be good for a fight, hit send

toast is a meal

A wholemeal sometimes

I think the 'three squares a day' has generally been debunked anyway

I work from home and making my breakfast/coffee and lunch of whatever sort are welcome stations in the day. I like going into the kitchen, putting on the radio, I like preparing food. Usually a salad or sandwich. Takes all of 5-10 minutes to make.

And we give ourselves a lot of latitude for dinner. My wife loves cooking and often has a dish she wants to make. But also we’re fine with a pizza or Chinese takeout. And half the time we have leftovers from the last meal.

We "meal prep" by shopping for and cooking enough food on Sunday to cover lunch and dinner for the next 3-5 days. I don't mind eating the same thing a few days in a row, and it's nice not to have to think about having to make dinner on a weeknight. The only real downside is that it can take up a lot of time on a weekend and feel a bit tiring. But I don't mind the cooking itself and usually put on a podcast while I'm working in the kitchen.

the expectation that we are individually responsible to create 3 meals a day for ourselves is fucking nuts to begin with

no it isn’t.

more like food and sass lol

i used to do more meal prep, which was basically just cooking chicken tenderloins and rice all the time, but i discovered a good grocery store deli near my work so i just get chicken breasts and corn / black bean salad for lunch there. making food is work, i'm not always in the mood. when i am it's either because of fitness goals or because it's something i'm really hankering for. definitely try and make something that's going to have a decent amount of leftovers (at least 2-3 meals worth goddammit). my partner is in the habit of making big pots of "fridge vegetable and leftover rotisserie chicken" soups which are a godsend, even in the summer. he's going to europe for a week and a half, it's going to get ugly around here.

vietnamese and thai food are really good for lower carb / high protein / high veg options fwiw. for the large contingent of bodybuilders who post here.

ok so the first response talks about "deli salads" and a "takeout meal", so we can set that aside because what i'm arguing is precisely that it makes more sense to obtain food from places that make food in bulk (delis, restaurants) but that it's crazy how our society has twisted this into a luxury and now the baseline expectation is that you go to costco and make 14 frozen meals for yourself like you live on some remote research station.

to respond to another post, i'm not even going to get into how much of a luxury it is to wfh and be able to graze/cook/meal prep while "at work"

what i said does not = feeding yourself as an adult is difficult

the idea that you should trade your labor for a wage, give 30% of that wage to a capitalist in exchange for ingredients, and then spend a substantial portion of your already limited free time cooking for *only yourself and your immediate family* is the idea that i find amazing to accept althought i'm seeing that it's pretty deeply ingrained

we have no problem thinking of healthcare as a human right, my thinking is along these lines if the analogy helps u understand what i'm saying

idk i thought i was saying the most obvious thing under the sun but feel free to ask questions if my position confuses you

this is coming from somebody who meal preps like crazy btw

is there anything more miserable than making 7 batches of one thing only to find out it's too salty or in some other way too gross to eat? devastating.

i'm not even going to get into how much of a luxury it is to wfh and be able to graze/cook/meal prep while "at work"

Yes and no. My lunches at home are generally shorter than the lunches I had when I worked in an office. A lot of them are the same lunches, tbh, just a matter of what time of day I made them. (In the morning when I was taking them to work vs. at lunchtime at home.)

But yes working from home is a luxury, though a self-imposed one. I make less money than I did when I worked in an office, too. But I didn't want to do that job anymore.

Yes and no. My lunches at home are generally shorter than the lunches I had when I worked in an office. A lot of them are the same lunches, tbh, just a matter of what time of day I made them. (In the morning when I was taking them to work vs. at lunchtime at home.)

The amount of time I spend actually eating lunch is probably about the same as when I worked at a desk (15-20 minutes tops), but my "lunch break" spans from like 11:30 AM to 2 PM. I might as well take an actual siesta. (Don't tell my boss!)

i work from home. i consider it to be a huge luxury. but it's mostly about the time. time do laundry, time to cook and maybe even meal prep. but if i could afford to, i would get take out and/or eat in restaurants every day. and cook maybe 3-4 nice meals a week. cooking can and should be pleasurable. i really think that. but it's not as fun when you're making 4 portions of something and then you fuck it up and you're stressed thinking about having to eat something gross multiple times because that was your budget for groceries

i don't miss being a line cook. and i think a lot of the "hospitality" talk that goes on in restaurants is kind of phoney. but i do miss the expectation that every day we're going to cook a big batch of something and feed everybody who works here. it should be like that all jobs!

last i checked this thread was about taco bell and taco johns but i didn't have time to praise t bell on behalf of vegetarians. t johns not as great for us of course, though i do still love it, mainly because i get a side of jalapenos and make little jalapeno sandwiches with the potato oles.

#onethread

i wfh but my electricity tariff forbids me warming anything during these hours

budo jeru, i still don’t think prepping meals is insane or difficult, though i do think that one of your subsequent posts raises an issue that i think about: food should be free or close to free. like, it should absolutely be subsidized, and the fact that we have to pay so much for it is obscene.

the basic idea of a restaurant makes a million times more sense from the standpoint of economics, environment, food waste, community ... and in fact in the past it was normal for poor people to eat in restaurants nearly every day! how this became distorted is beyond me but i have some guesses

― budo jeru, Monday, 7 July 2025 18:34 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

it’s one of the paradoxes of economics that as a country gets richer labor intensive services get more expensive as measured by share of income. called baumol’s cost disease. same reason why middle class families in places like india/latin america can afford maids and nannies even though their absolute level is income is way below a north american/western europe middle class family. my friend who grew up in china said his family couldn’t afford *not* to eat out and home cooked meals were only for special occasions

i actually think judo is otm about the three meals a day thing. and i say this as someone who is a very enthusiastic “home cook” and enjoys grocery shopping and cooking. it’s a massive time sink that i would resent if it wasn’t a hobby

someone needs to get zohran mamdani’s to add communist milk bars to his policy platform

https://jacobin.com/2025/02/milk-bars-poland-state-socialism

“preparing a healthy meal for myself and my family” you guys realize that the problem here isn’t preparing meals it’s capitalism and wage slavery right

Citizens of rich countries spend proportionally less of their budget on food, ie. 6.8% in the US, 25% in Mexico, 60% in Nigeria. A significant minority of people in middle-income countries can afford maids + nannies + gardeners due to high levels of inequality (wages, education).

In the past, your average poor person was probably sharing a room with other people, didn't have the means to start a family, had to travel far to get to work, leaving early and coming back late. Only women learnt how to cook, cooking took the better half of the morning, you had to fetch the ingredients, meat was sold alive. Even in cheap popular restaurants, eating and drinking probably ate away a huge portion of the wages. People ate there because they had no choice, not because life was cheap.

like, only in an insane society would “preparing a healthy meal for myself and my family” be considered a “time sink”. jesus this is depressing to me

Yeah I have to agree, I find it very fucking difficult to complain about having the means, resources etc to have three meals a day in a world where so many go hungry.

add communist milk bars to his policy platform

now you're talking

One thing I've really noticed about the UK since moving back here is that food is much less central to peoples lives here than other places I've lived, like they will talk about it fuel or as a time drain, or any interest in it will have to be presented through a prism like healthiness, nutrition, indulgence, exoticism, nostalgia, etc. Just enjoying food seems kind of like a perversion, something private not to be shared in public. I don't want to say that's wrong, but I much preferred living in a culture where people openly care about enjoying eating and making food for others.

agree with that 100%

xp is this thread called food and moral superiority? what the fuck am i reading

eh i feel like time has always been scarce and cooking meals of the level of complexity that we are accustomed to today was for most of history either technologically infeasible or too impractical to do on a regular basis. cooking a protein + starch + salad “square meal” feels like a historical idiosyncrasy. imho it’s a fine and pleasurable thing to do but i get why someone would choose to spend their time other ways

(my last post was xp to gyac/tables)

Again cooking at home is not something written in the stars since time immemorial it’s bound up in culture and material circumstances

agree with that 100%

xp is this thread called food and moral superiority? what the fuck am i reading

The perspective of someone who grew up near a Famine graveyard.

One thing I've really noticed about the UK since moving back here is that food is much less central to peoples lives here than other places I've lived, like they will talk about it fuel or as a time drain, or any interest in it will have to be presented through a prism like healthiness, nutrition, indulgence, exoticism, nostalgia, etc. Juenjoying food seems kind of like a perversion, something private not to be shared in public. I don't want to say that's wrong, but I much preferred living in a culture where people openly care about enjoying eating and making food for others.

fwiw this doesn't resonate at all w/ my experience of London, whichI guess I shouldn't be surprised isn't representative of the country. Both restaurants and home cooking take up a huge space in people's conversations, I think it's also territory where it's easy to find common ground than other cultural or political subjects. Also so much food writing, celebrity chefs, etc. in uk media!

Blame evolution for the constant need to refuel. If we were Greenland sharks we could just float around for months without needing a nibble. (Greenland sharks: What are you doing with the time and gifts given to you?)

I went to a doctor recently who asked on an intake form the number of meals each week I ate from grocery stores (i.e., cooked or prepared at home) vs. restaurants. I was congratulated for preparing most of my meals at home. But this supposed proxy for health seemed reductive to me. It's true that many restaurant meals can be unhealthy, but there are so many different kinds of restaurants and restaurant-made dishes, many of which are totally fine. And I can make plenty of unhealthy food at home! If I prepare most of my meals at home, it is in large part because I am privileged enough to have the time to do so, not that I am healthier or more virtuous.

i definitely find that to be an interesting attitude. this being usa, there's also this almost protestant/puritanical element (see also: "eating clean"). going out into the world to enjoy food among others is not only a luxury but somewhat morally spurious and even decadent. having the discipline to stay home and cook healthy meals is not only a proxy for health but many other things as well, e.g., financial literacy

i think i meant to say morally dubious but anyway

https://files.libcom.org/files/Prole.Info-%20Abolish%20Restaurants.pdf

xps to Daniel - yeah I would say London is not really representative on the whole, but I still feel this for example when walking down Tottenham Court Road, just loads of chain restaurants and nearly all are bad and it's nbd. Also the supermarket meal deal thing. For TV cooking and food shows there's always that prism, the only one who seems to really enjoy food without that is Rick Stein.

I think most equivalents of Tottenham Court Road around the world will have terrible chain places dominating and the actual good stuff tucked away where the tourists can't get at it.

Not sure I know what prism you're talking about, dunno if I can concieve of a joy of eating that is "pure" without some fetischization coming in (nostalgia, nutrition, indulgence, etc), food doesn't exist in a vacuum after all.

Focusing on Tottenham Court Road as a more accurate representation than, like, literally any ocakbasi on Green Lanes to pick an unrandom example (and you can restrict it to the zone 2 end and it’s still true) or anywhere outside of chains is…strange. It’s like ignoring the people who incidentally live in the city in favour of those just visiting.

Tottenham Court Road is the main street near my work and my main experience of London, the restaurants are the same chains as in basically any small town in the UK, obviously there is a lot more elsewhere in London, but also plenty of areas where it's all crap chains.

when we moved back to the UK we lived opposite the primary school and when my wife tried to bring hot food across at lunchtime for my son the school freaked out. they gave us the most patronising pamphlet I have ever seen, "don't just give your child crisps for lunch" and the like, the attitude was just bewilderment that anyone would have any idea diverging from "sufficient nutrition for your child and that's it"

and obviously there is a lot that goes into enjoying food and there's no such thing as a "pure" experience, but the focus on these shows seems to be excessively focused on these other things, like I enjoy bake off as much as anyone, but the actual enjoyment of food there is like a contractual obligation.

If I was diagnosing anything re: Britain and food culture I'd actually say it's TOO obsessed with it, the general level of food was much better when I lived in Portugal but we sure as fuck didn't spend as much time discussing it.

I would say those endless food fads are much more about fashion and status than about food. (Dubai chocolate is the latest one I guess)

there's also this almost protestant/puritanical element (see also: "eating clean")

I don't like the way this is often framed, so agree with you to some extent, but truly think that the rhetoric has taken over the reality, which is that many many foods that people regularly consume in this country are absolutely *terrible* for them. This isn't a moral judgment on the people who consume them, but rather a moral judgment on the food industry and the way the government has continuously supported corporate food interests instead of the health of the populace.

The problem, as I see it, is not that "eating clean" is wrong or some sort of horrible puritanical thing, it's that it has become weaponized (often by white people) against a nefarious "other" that is unfortunately semiotically associated with non-white (and non-wealthy) populations.

But if you look at the classic cookbooks of Black southern cooking, for example, you'll find that the recipes might not be the most "healthy," but they are utilizing whole foods, fresh ingredients, and a fair amount of ingenuity to fill gaps depending on ingredient availability and time of year. What this points to is that eating clean isn't just the realm of foolish bourgeois honkies and Puritanical white supremacists, but that it is a cultural practice that has been impeded by corporate food lobbies and the illusion of choice offered in most grocery stores. You can't "eat clean" if finding anything that's "clean" is next to impossible in the first place!!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation

I went to a doctor recently who asked on an intake form the number of meals each week I ate from grocery stores (i.e., cooked or prepared at home) vs. restaurants. I was congratulated for preparing most of my meals at home. But this supposed proxy for health seemed reductive to me. It's true that many restaurant meals can be unhealthy, but there are so many different kinds of restaurants and restaurant-made dishes, many of which are totally fine. And I can make plenty of unhealthy food at home! If I prepare most of my meals at home, it is in large part because I am privileged enough to have the time to do so, not that I am healthier or more virtuous.

― jaymc, Tuesday, July 8, 2025 2:57 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this doesn't actually reflect nutrition science fwiw

What is the "this"?

no snark intended btw

many xps
probably due to my general lack of awareness of other people and the fact i generally dont get out much but it was largely thru reading ilx that i realised that going to restaurants was a very common thing to do even for working class people! i think i had been to a restaurant twice before i was 18 and it was seen as a very big deal and not at all i thing anyone except the very rich would do regularly. not quite on the level of a dinner party which clearly only existed on tv afaict.

havent been to a restaurant this century and have a very basic relationship to food ie ready meals for evening meal or soup (not homemade). fruit for breakfast, no lunch if working, sandwich if day off. i do like reading the london restauarnt thread of ilx even if it is kinda unfathomable to me like reading about serie a when i was a kid before ch 4 started to show it on sundays.

you haven't been to a food market or fast food joint in 25 years? I just wanted to be clear.

i've had takeaway chips from the chippy this century yes, this year even!! is a chippy a restaurant tho?

i dont really know what a food market is?? so no.

thread of missing Sanpaku

LOL

Dubai chocolate is a total mystery to me.

i've had takeaway chips from the chippy this century yes, this year even!! is a chippy a restaurant tho?

― oscar bravo

yes!

spotted that in the wild for the first time this week!

xp