May 16, 2004
Corporate Food is Evil
by peterbI normally don't just link to other people's entries. It's against my philosophy. But rules are made to be broken. psu goes completely insane about how P.F. Chang's (and its equivelent alter-ethnic wannabe brethren) are destroying the American palate and wallet, and it's just such a righteous rant that I have to share it with you:
Lost in all of this is the fact that even in a relative backwater like Pittsburgh there are smaller, cheaper, better places that are far more deserving of your dollars. They are found on the sides of roads, in shopping centers, and off of highways. They are run by real people who care about making decent food that is not so much Authentic as at least genuinely distinctive and fresh. But, the tide is against places that serve Real Food because they don't have the connections needed to get the huge spaces and exposure that even a crappy shithole like P.F. Chang's can manage just on sheer volume. This is just another case where the Big Evil Coporation is crushing the forces of light and goodness.
Read the whole thing at Mixed Logs.
Testify!
Posted by peterb at May 16, 2004 10:22 PM | Bookmark ThisExcerpt: A continuing series of noteworthy tidbits gleaned from all over. Corporate Food is Evilpsu goes completely insane about how P.F. Chang's (and its equivelent alter-ethnic wannabe brethren) are destroying the American palate and wallet, and it's just suc...
Weblog: Celsius1414 Journal
Tracked: May 19, 2004 09:39 AM
The reason you go to P.F.Chang's is that your skanky big-haired date
finds it "classy". You get her going with the $8 pot-stickers and $6
glass of crappy-ass PF Chang's "house" wine. Then you make
knowledgeable comments about how authentic and unique the "dipping
sauce" is. After the sensual experience of eating that disgusting
lettuce taco thing with your hands, she will be so turned on that
if she doesn't blow you right at the table, she'll definitely do it in
the car on the way home. See, while to a gay man a blow job is no big
deal, it is still a special treat for a heterosexual.
PF Chang's isn't a restaurant -- it's a movie set, and should be critiqued as such. They could be serving ramen noodles and their fans wouldn't care, as long as the food is palatable and aimed at the widest possible pathogen-fearing audience.
A primetime show doesn't challenge you, frighten you, or fuck with your allergies. Its ethnicity is denuded of anything "dirty." You don't have to know a secret handshake or special pass-phrase. You don't have to do any work. It isn't scary.
Most people fall along a continuum of "raised by home cooks" vs. "raised eating out of boxes and bags." The raised-by-homecooks contingent goes for the authentic food experience, and that group gets smaller every day.
For people who grew up eating prefab boxed meals or being served in restaurants and fast-food joints, all food is mysterious. They have no idea what the ingredients are, what they cost, how raw foods are transformed into meals. They don't care. The key experience of food is its packaging. The important thing isn't how the food tastes or what it costs, but the Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark fantasy you can have about yourself while you're eating it.
PF Chang's is the future. When I was growing up, having dinner in a restaurant was a rare, twice-a-year treat. What family can say that now? In 50 years, cooking at home will be a specialty craft. Hardly anyone will know where their food comes from or how to make this mysterious chemical tranformation work in their own kitchens. Places like PF Chang's will be the only choice -- not because corporations are evil, but because we are rich and lazy.
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