W8: A Response to B. R. Myers' "Crusade"

            You would be forgiven for thinking that the title of B. R. Myers’ piece, “The Moral Crusade Against Foodies,” initially sounds like a satirical look at some obscure, on-going critique of the poorly-defined group of American epicureans known as “foodies.” After all, “moral crusades” have never ended well historically and in contemporary society seem to belong primarily to the bigoted and the mentally unstable. While Myers is neither, his crusade is unironic to the point of being unsettling.

            This could have been remedied if the “moral” element of his passage had been elaborated on in a way that clearly defined the goal of his crusade, but early on it is made clear that Myers has little interest in elaborating on his views in a constructive way. The passage invites us to infer that the author is a vegan and then confirm our suspicion—maybe too condescending of a word—via the internet, and subsequently accept that he stands firmly on the moral high ground as a matter of fact. If the author had intended for anything else, perhaps he would have spent more time justifying veganism—of the militant variety, if his petulant tone signifies anything—as a remotely plausible 21^st century lifestyle for anyone but affluent Western society and the comfortable middle-class.

            Of course, that argument would inevitably read like the doe-eyed appeal of a naïve idealist, rather than the scornful preaching of a jaded ascetic. As such, Myers instead chooses to satisfy our love of unhinged fury with by indignantly re-labeling foodie-ism as a form of gluttony—a foodie is hazily defined for the reader in-text as a modern, affluent glutton best represented in literature by the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Alice Waters and Michael Pollan. I enjoy mocking the entitled and pretentious as much as the next self-respecting man, but without any courage on the part of the author to make a serious personal argument—of any damn kind—the passage gets tedious fast. It’s difficult to enjoy Myers’ humorous put-downs of Bourdain and Waters while trying to chew on his overwrought, pseudo-religious “Moral Crusade” against gluttony, which in Myers’ eyes is the sin of treating food as anything other than form of sustenance—pleasure or artistry are highly discouraged.

            Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Myers’ article is the casual way he disregards his subjects. I’ll accept that mining for damning quotes is an integral part of Professional Criticism, but cherry-picking quotes from The Omnivore’s Dilemma to illustrate instances of gluttonous thought in food writing seems a bit shortsighted to me. Personal hypocrisies aside—thought I’d argue such hypocrisies exist primarily in Myer’s mind—Pollan’s book is, at least, a responsible and informed look at America’s food culture and its future. Myers’ article, as stated, offers little when it comes to serious discussion of the food culture he seemingly abhors and fills in its blanks with character assaults. In one short passage, with a swift motion of his hands, Myers disregards the authors featured in The Best Food Writing 2009: “Seven pages on sardines. Eight pages on marshmallow fluff! The lack of drama and affect only makes the gloating obsessiveness more striking.”

Had Myers actually read Liesener’s marshmallow fluff article, he might have recognized that it and much of its sister stories use food writing as a vehicle to discuss the human condition and food’s role in culture and society. Of course, as a viewer of eating as little more than an exaggerated primal act, Myers would likely feel alienated by that interpretation, much like everyone who isn’t B. R. Myers feels alienated by his writing. Teasing aside, Myers’ ranting makes for pleasurable reading, but at seven pages of length, one wonders if it wouldn’t be better for him to calm down, step away from his least favorite subculture, and address what’s really bothering him.

In closing: infuriating lapses in good judgment and dedication to straw man arguments aside, B. R. Myers’ article manages to entertainingly assault the smug, self-assured doctrines of foodie gluttons by means of smug, self-assured criticism. It’s a shame, however, that he was unable to make a statement of any real substance in the process.

W6: (Not-so) Secret Recipes

As my previous blog posts may or may not have revealed, my brother and I worked together, on and off, at Steak and Shake. We typically didn’t see much of each other thanks to my brother’s heartless monopoly on the higher-paying night shifts, but on the odd occasion that we did share a shift, we typically treated it as an informal cooking competition.

In recent years, Steak and Shake’s menu has become a gargantuan clusterfuck of variety and decadence outdone only by, let’s say, Ben and Jerry’s—I’m only exaggerating of course, but we did serve quite a lot of Guacamole and Bacon Chipotle Steakburgers. Thanks to the combination of our restaurant’s wide stock of ingredients and the inevitable periods of customer-less boredom that comes with being open 24 hours, my brother and I were able to refine our culinary expertise during our stay. After all, the only places you can go after creating something as exquisite as a hotdog topped with French fries, chili and guacamole are either soaring new heights, or the restroom.

For the most part, we kept our experiments secret until we felt they had been perfected; few recipes managed to pass by our watchful taste buds and escape until the classless palates of our contemporaries. My brother had a number prejudices I had difficulties abiding—a hatred of nacho cheese or “chewy” wilted spinach on hamburgers, for instance. I myself have always loathed the use of Fritos on hamburgers and hot dogs. There’s something about the way the Fritos get ground up between my teeth and somehow manage to always feel stale that bothers me. Their god-awful taste bothers me sometimes as well.

The would, of course, be my one of the many fatal flaws in the tragedy that is my life. Earlier this year Steak and Shake unveiled its newest burger: the chili and cheese steakburger, a variation of the traditional double steakburger with Fritos, jalapeños, chili and cheese, and onions. It was pitched to the chain’s executives by the manager of the Steak and Shake in Pickerington. I knew the guy; I had covered night shifts for him several times and—chalk it up to fate or an elaborate, malicious cosmic alignment—the man was an utter jackass. He was exactly the kind of guy that would put Fritos on a hamburger.

And me? I treaded so closely to greatness, preparing to leap off the precipice of mediocrity, but backed off at the last moment. I may never be whole again

.

Look upon your God, Babylon.

W5: Bluh

My grandmother remembers the early days of fast food with fondness. She used to bring her (vast and horrifying) family to White Castle—then something of a respectable restaurant—to feed the whole family a decent, cheap meal. At that time, fast food was a novelty item enjoyed only on occasion.  The image she paints for me, though tinged with nostalgia, fits in line with the American 50s: families, blessed with an economic soaring skyward with reckless abandon and disposable income, appreciated fast dining as a luxury. I can’t help but wonder how she might feel after downing a slider today. Would the tiny hamburger contain vestigial flavors of a time when food was meant to be inhaled, and not sold?

The sea change of fast food in the United States from a pseudo-luxury item to a sloppy, thoughtless meal could be marketed as a capitalist love story.  As the industry grew, competition and demand increased. In true corporate fashion, food chains confronted the dropping salaries of working families over the years by presenting them with a cheaper corner-cutting product made by increasingly unskilled hands. The quaintness of the diner and drive-in fast food restaurant evaporated into the air above the new fast food model, which provided us with affordable slop injected into our arteries within seconds. Viewers of this phenomenon might see this as a romantic, truly American boon meant to be enjoyed by all members of the economic spectrum, or, alternatively, as a metaphorical stomp on the stomachs of Americans with a golden boot. Granted, the former perspective would require the viewer to already have a fondness for the ever-growing wage gap of the United States.

Of course, thanks to the extreme nature of this wage gap’s expansion, the notion that the fast food industry still panders to the lower class is nonsense. Anyone who has genuine experience with dire financial straits—not including the “I’m just a poor college student eating ramen” crowd—is well aware that fast food is hardly a viable option for feeding a working class family compared to cooking your own meals. Perhaps that’s the most American thing about fast food: like so much of our culture’s regrettable elements, it is propelled by an increasingly unaware, self-defeating middle class.

W4: Super Size Me review

In Super Size Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock undergoes a month-long experiment, in which he is required to eat three meals at McDonalds a day and to abstain from exercise, on-foot commuting and alternative sources of nutrition. Through documentation of this experiment, as well as interviews from industry insiders and research regarding rising rates of obesity in the United States, Spurlock hopes to call attention to the powerful role that fast food companies, particularly McDonald’s, have played in “supersizing” Americans. I believe that the film is effective as an awareness-raising feature length PSA, but fails as a serious critical look at the fast food industry, thanks to its absurd and largely irrelevant central experiment, as well as its flawed methodology.

From the get-go, the film’s focus on Spurlock’s experiment feels like a frivolous charade. The specifics of the project—three meals from McDonald’s a day, roughly 5000 calories per day, no exercise, etc.—are reflective only of a mythical American super-slob; the lone element of the experiment representative of the statistically-determined “average American” is the number of steps taken by Spurlock per day. While it could serve as a glimpse at the short-term effects of exaggerated overeating, the experiment says little about the reality of improper eating—it is a bastardized, mainstream variation of what a serious long-term study of the effects of eating fast food might look like, without any of the tedious credibility and relevance. Of course, it’s still a wildly amusing premise; Spurlock’s sense of humor carries throughout the experiment, interrupted only by occasional segments of vomit-inducing soap opera exchanges between Spurlock and his girlfriend.

The segments of Super Size Me unrelated to Spurlock’s experiment, however, are on point. Spurlock’s scrutiny of the fast food industry’s despicable strategies for marketing to children is particularly memorable. In one scene, several children are unable to recognize both George Washington and Jesus Christ, but are instantly familiar with Ronald McDonald—the power of this scene extends far beyond the power of marketing and makes an almost poetic statement on the whole of post-modernity. The wide variety of sources interviewed in the film—from silver-tongued lobbyists and medical professionals to cafeteria workers and schoolchildren—allows the film to focus in on the multi-faceted nature of America’s obesity problem. These interviews are both enlightening and provocative. There is a noticeable sting to one lunch lady’s admittance that she rarely does more than reheat food for schoolchildren on a daily basis.

Sadly, Spurlock’s interviews of “ordinary people” on the street are thuggish at best; We see continuous talking head commentary from the same six or seven interviewees, all of whom happen to be either blithely (and conveniently) unaware or—and who would have expected this—members of the lower class. As viewers, we are implored to suspend our disbelief that while in New York City, the filmmaker was unable to find one interview subject on the street that did not fall under his pre-established “average American” label—represented, apparently, by obese people already standing outside of a McDonalds or the uneducated poor.

That being said, I still enjoyed Super Size Me. It was funny, informative, and occasionally provocative. While I question a number of Spurlock’s techniques and choices, I believe any attempt to raise awareness on pressing cultural issues such as this, powered by hyperbole or otherwise, is admirable.

W3: The Dark Side of The Grill

For a period of roughly two years, off and on, my brother and I worked alongside each other at Steak and Shake. When I began my fledgling career at the age of sixteen, I saw little of my elder brother at the restaurant—as a seasoned member of the fast food community, his insider connections allowed him access to the coveted, higher-paying nighttime shift from midnight to eight in the morning. Only after a month or so of working did I finally share my first daytime shift with my brother—it and subsequent shifts with him were painful moments of bitter disillusionment.

Seeing that I had some difficulty increasing my efficiency on the grill, my brother took it upon himself to share with me some of his secret techniques. I watched in horror as the production of grilled cheese, a stubborn and time-consuming item, was streamlined by placing two slices of cheese directly onto a greasy grill for several seconds and then scraped onto unbuttered pieces of toast. I wept as our pre-cooked pepperjack bacon was made crispy not on a grill, but in a microwave. Perhaps most alarming to me was my brother’s refusal to follow protocol by lightly toasting each bun on the grill before plating a sandwich, considering it to be a “waste of energy.” Watching my sibling destroy my preconceptions of him as a cook with integrity brought me back to the first time I watched him play soccer in high school: expecting him to be an assertive confident player, I was disappointed to see him leave the bench late into the game, only to inadequately chase after opposing players like a timid child.

I do not, however, mean to imply that all of my brother’s actions at Steak and Shake were driven by The Dark Side. During his tour of duty at the restaurant, he created—and shared with me—a number of original, unauthorized concoctions that the two of us provided to friends as a part of our secret menu. Many originals came and went over the years, but there were a number of standouts that survived the test of time: Pasta A La Troy, the Strawberry Cheesecake Shake, the Cold Cut Steakburger, and the Jill special—a chicken sandwich with guacamole and Fritos, created for and named after our favorite night shift waitress.

My brother’s magnum opus was, without a doubt, his Fiesta Fries. To prepare the dish, hot chili was poured on top of a plate freshly prepared French fries, and then topped with shreds of spicy pepperjack bacon, jalapenos, and nacho cheese. The fries were then covered with a layer of pepperjack cheese and heated further in the microwave to give them a gooey outer layer. A second sprinkle of bacon bits and pico de gallo topped of the fries—I liked to eat them with a side of guacamole. Special consideration had to be given to the fries—if they were too crispy they would distract from the delicate flavors of the added topping and if they were too limp they would need to be eaten with a spork. There was some disagreement between us when it came to the quality of pre-fiestafication Steak and Shake fries; I considered them to be just right, while my brother felt they were too thin and under-salted. Regardless, we could both agree that the final product was an orgasmic, mouth-watering piece of fast food artistry that allowed taste buds to briefly taste the Sublime and managed to wash away my bitter tears of disappointment in a sea of spicy chipotle sauce.

W2: Pawpaws [And Potatoes Olé]

“At least you were able to experience Taco John’s.” said my brother in the tone of a guilty child. True, it was partly my fault that we ended up in the horrific establishment, but fury visibly seeped through my flesh much like the grease of my mini hash browns seeped through my napkin. The tiny deep-fried potato circles are the pride of Taco John’s: Potatoes Olé. They are pathetic and revolting, just like me.

Earlier, the two of us had set out for the Pawpaw Festival, prepared to arrive just in time for Pawpaw 101. We had on hand a set of directions from Google Maps scrawled in shorthand by my printer-less brother, who agreed to provide me with transportation to the festival on the condition that I buy him a meal afterward. Suffice it to say, things did not go as planned. After getting off of US-50 and onto US-33—diligently following my brother’s dubious directions like the fools that we were/are—we eagerly searched for an “East Bentbrook Drive” that would supposedly carry us straight to Lake Snowden. We never discovered the mythical road, but did learn that once taken far enough, Route 33 is essentially a nightmarish racetrack into the hell that is Meigs County. Although we realized soon enough that we were headed in a hopeless direction, there were no roads to turn off on until 681 popped up out of nowhere. We were led through some quaint country scenery, admired a lovely sign advertising “SLABS” and eventually found ourselves in Albany. Sadly, we were far too late to attend Pawpaw 101.

Feeling jaded and without purpose, the two of us spent little time at the festival. After briefly loitering about, we grabbed a pawpaw and made a hasty exit. Once in the privacy of our vehicle, we set to work: A Swiss army knife was used to saw through the skin of the fruit, seeds were discarded, and two young men who once had dignity dug into their pawpaw halves with their fingers. The pawpaw has a texture quite similar to that of a banana, which makes clawing it with your fingers fairly easy, but also intensely embarrassing. The flavor of the pawpaw brought bananas to mind as well, but it was, to my surprise, considerably sweeter. The night before, to prep myself for the festival, I ordered a cinnamon and sugar-covered pumpkin and pawpaw pastry.Based on the experience, I would have suggested that the pawpaw fruit tasted remarkably similar to pumpkin and cinnamon.

As a man of my word, I entertained my dear brother’s desire to go to Taco John’s, despite his lackluster performance as a chauffeur.If you’re unfamiliar with the restaurant, as I once was, it is essentially Taco Bell with hash browns and insulting prices. It’s not that I hate the idea of Taco John’s—apparently “West-Mex” represented by tacos and potatoes—but in practice, the combination does not work for me. Potatoes Olé are presented to you in a bucket so that your likely already dwindling self-respect can be crushed further. They were even considerately inserted into my burrito, so that I could better appreciate their greasy, potatoesque flavor inside instantly recognizable, slimy meat ooze—an ooze that I will defend, as long as it costs me little over a dollar at Taco Bell. Despite being filled to the brim with ice, my sweet tea was warm. It failed to compliment the subtle flavors of my meat and potato burrito.

After jiving to musical classics like “Whoomp! (There it is)” and “It Wasn’t Me” we grabbed two churros and went on our way.While biting into his (admittedly delicious) sugar stick on the way out to our car, my brother turned to me and said, “What Athens really needs is a festival for is churros.”

“I hate you.” I whispered under my breath. “I have always hated you.”