006. Kitchen Stadium - What?

Food Network was launched in the early 90's to not much fanfare, but has caught on in droves. People sit in their homes every night after work, and usually before dinner, to watch non-stop, 24-hour coverage of other people cooking and subsequently eating food. Is this to prep themselves for their meal that night? Is this to maybe bring a higher standard to their end product at the dinner table? Nobody is really sure. Shows like Chopped highlight the competitive nature of the food industry in our country, and even bring to light a more subtle competition between judges and other renowned "foodies". Not only are the contestants vying to make it to the last "course" (or round) of the show, the judges themselves are busy trying to outdo and outsmart each other in both their critiques and their food vocabulary. Watching this show, or any Food Network show, is kind of exhausting if you're not a foodie. Sure, the food looks great and the competition is always something people can relate to - but it goes a bit far and becomes hard to relate to when these contestants, after being voted off, spend their last 15 minutes of fame crying in front of the camera. Food Network has mixed reality TV, comedy and game shows, and even food pornography into a package that is difficult to take seriously and even more difficult to digest.

    The most offensive and disheartening show on the network is Iron Chef America, where "renowned chefs" from across the world come together in an embarrassingly named "Kitchen Stadium" to compete for the best dish. It's all very subjective, as the end product of everyone's work is all very similar in appearance and taste, seeing as how they typically use the same main ingredients. The judges tear down these professional chefs at the critique period, and the end result becomes something straight out of an episode of Chopped. Alton Brown, the show's play-by-play and color commentator, looks juvenile running around this "stadium" trying to get interviews with the "contestants" while they are furiously working at getting food ready for the judges. His quips and comments throughout are difficult to listen to without laughing and the whole seriousness of the show is questioned constantly. But, this is what the Food Network wants us to fall in love with. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have this dream of being on Iron Chef America or even Chopped and find that sexy food and sexy secret ingredient and perform at this level. 

    Dreaming of being a TV-star chef is sort of like dreaming to make it big as an aspiring actor or rock band. Yeah, it happens to the lucky few from time to time, but most of them just maintain a minor level of success and eventually fizzle out when all is said and done. Food Network drives the point home that what most of us Americans are already doing at home can turn itself into a career. When I watch these shows, I think to myself, "So, Food Network, what you're saying is that my taco and pizza making skills can bring me to the top? Where do I sign up?" It's then that I realize that the images of the lusty and juicy food and ingredients are just a facade to the real world. It's then that the cooking equipment commercials commence and Giada De Laurentiis' latest line of cookware for Target comes on during the break. It's just another industry that was created by consumers for consumers and it's all just a mess.

    The obsession we as a country have with Food Network and other similar shows - don't even get me started on the clusterfuck that is Man Vs. Food and the Travel Channel - is disgusting. Sure, maybe you'll learn a few pointers from Aldon Brown and his cronies, but at the end of the day - cooking is simply a hobby most of us do in our homes. Yes, you can go to school at the many culinary schools in California and elsewhere and really become a 5-star restaurant's lead chef, but that is also like thinking your garage rock band will one day make it out of your parent's garage - it's simply unlikely. It's just unfortunate that the Food Network has succumbed to food porn - that is, images of food shown in a light similar to actual pornography - and invoking pathos at every turn, hoping to get some of us to jump on the bandwagon. At the end of the day, the Food Network isn't necessarily a villain, but a huge speed bump in our nation's image problem internationally.

005. The Animals Have Been Eaten

   The novel has been read, the responses have been noted and analyzed, and the conclusion has been well-digested. Why then, does it still feel like I'm waiting for more from Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Eating Animals? I've given him countless hours of my life, ones that I will undoubtedly never get back, and yet I'm still adding bacon to whatever dish it is that I'm having today. I'm not even thinking twice about where that bacon came from, or why it ended up on my plate. Eating Animals, although keeping you entertained for the entire ride, is a novel that sells itself short with too high of a bias and lack of focus and ends up on the end of your bookshelf for onlookers to judge.

    It's not easy to digest or analyze Eating Animals, but if you do it subjectively, you can be pretty successful at recognizing the great writing and form by Safran Foer. Once you start to get to the content of the book is when you start to run into some problems. All throughout my reading, I found myself questioning the writer's delivery and bias. Knowing a vegan and plenty of vegetarians in my personal life, I started to hear the all-too-familiar vegan/vegetarian excuses and "propaganda-esque" claims and arguments. It's almost as if they, along with Safran Foer, are put on this Earth to argue in favor of vegetarianism, even if nobody's asking. I don't see any carnivores advertising or arguing their viewpoint - in fact, most vegans love to argue or debate with carnivores because the average carnivore isn't up to arguing and will just let it go, giving a vegetarian the sensation of maybe getting their point across. Yet its this holier-than-thou attitude, that Safran Foer displays throughout the novel, that is frustrating and comical at best.

    The Guardian, a UK publication, published a book review by Jay Rayner about a year ago in February 2010, and it is no less relevant today than it was a year ago. Many of Safran Foer's head scratching-inducing points come up and get yanked into clear view by Rayner. Focusing on Safran Foer's arguments and whiny anecdotes, Rayner rips apart and critically shows you that the book isn't all it's cracked up to be. That isn't to say, however, that Rayner isn't a fan of Safran Foer's writing. He gives credit where credit is due, particularly when saying that "Safran Foer is at his best when he is presenting the facts of the matter: not just the gruesome manner in which poultry, pigs and cattle are raised in what has become the most grotesquely efficient food production system the world has ever seen, creating animal protein that is cheaper than at any time in human history, but also in his detailed account of the ways in which a billion-dollar industry has influenced animal welfare legislation in the US. Here he marshals his material with skill and precision". In so many words, Rayner was able to capture my feelings on the book entirely. There are parts of Eating Animals where Safran Foer is off the charts fantastic, and really showing you what he can be capable of. The rest of the novel, as Rayner stated, falls short of being truly good, due to Safran Foer's consistent unworldly bias and elitist attitude.

    I truly enjoyed reading Eating Animals at the end of the day. It's a great read, although not without its many flaws and shortcomings. If anything, I was happy to read it and get my vegan friends off my back for crying that I wasn't open-minded enough. This is interesting, however, because the vegetarian/vegan community doesn't see Eating Animals as their Bible, or end all literary reference. Why? It's a great personal account of a father raising his child in a world that he does not fully agree with and comprehend. It doesn't get much better than that if you're trying to recruit new Dads to raise their family meat-free, especially if you show them where the meat comes from. I guess the vegetarian/vegan community is waiting for something more universally accepted and understood to come along and grab the title of "Vegan Bible", if even such a term exists. 

    Like many of my other fellow students, this novel has not changed my eating habits - but has induced more thoughts about where the meat comes from. With that being said, I truly believe most of those thoughts are residual cognitive thoughts left over from an intense Food, Inc. viewing last year. Safran Foer's text on paper is not as stimulating as the sometimes difficult-to-watch Food, Inc. was. The new father anecdotes were difficult to relate to, seeing as how I'm not currently a father, not that I know of at least. Safran Foer is a great writer, there's no debate about that, but Eating Animals unfortunately falls short of being a great book.

004. Is It November Already?

    Being an American means something very complicated yet is wholly understood by most. It means being a part of a diverse nation of different people from (literally) all walks of life. It means taking part in "American values and traditions", which is an obvious loaded phrase. It means that the "holidays", as they're so delightfully called by retailers and companies alike, are something to look forward to and enjoy. At the end of Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer plants the seed of doubt regarding whether or not, as a nation, we should be huddling around a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Yes, we should huddle around that factory farming-produced bird that kids, adults and grandparents alike anticipate the first bite of.

    It's American tradition - whether it has anything to do with the actual "pilgrim Thanksgiving" or not. It's been there since before any of us were here, and it'll stand being a tradition until we as a nation move past it and onto the next new Thanksgiving centerpiece. The turkey is not only the thing we eat at dinner, it's the self-proclaimed "mascot" of Thanksgiving. We have Santa Claus for Christmas, the Easter Bunny for Easter, and we've even assigned New York City the mascot duties for New Year's Eve. If we stop eating turkey at dinner on the fourth Thursday in November for the rest of eternity, what should we tell children in school to draw when the leaves start to fall and the colors on the hills turn from green to brownish orange? There's so much more to turkey than just the bird that we spend all day basting and cooking. There are children, adults, families and entire communities that look forward to the turkey's homecoming in November. We can't take that away from them - not now.

    Sure, maybe it's a little facetious to say that we can't let this bird go, but it's also important to note that even though it's a meat, turkey is considered among many to be the leanest meat. There's nutritional benefits to eating turkey versus going without it, and there's so much socio-economical issues at stake with removing turkey from dinner on that fateful Thursday. Companies (yes, those devilish factory farms) and retailers rely on these dollars to get through November of every year. With Wall Street's increasingly high expectations for companies, it should come as no surprise that retailers push and push for bigger and more expensive turkeys to sell every year to big and hungry families. But is it really so wrong?

    American tradition is something so deep-rooted in our history, it's nearly impossible to change. So maybe we can't change tradition but we can surely motivate and instill change gradually. Foer presents good points but what if we attempt to promote organic turkeys that are certified free range and hormone-free? Will that be better? How much will it cost? There's so many questions and not enough answers. When push comes to shove, as a nation, we might just stick to the tried and true method of enjoying that last Thursday in November. I'll see you guys huddled around the turkey this November, and don't worry - I'll cut the first few slabs off for you.

003. Do We Feel Bad?

Our global meat industry is one that serves and produces meat that shamelessly has growth hormones that is corn fed rather then grass and is done on a mass, global scale. How do you feel about our unnatural meat industry, and what can we do to change and better our meat for future generations?

    A large percentage of the world's population eats meat, and here in the United States, we are becoming increasingly aware of the details about how and where our meat is made. We're constantly being shown commercials and advertisements about which meat is locally grown and safest and organic. It seems like that kind of goes against the principle of the aforementioned. Organic meat? Who is the USDA anyways, and how do we know they're not corrupt like everyone else seems to be? Even though we knows the horrors and controversy surrounding how our meat products are made, do we as a society feel bad or have any emotions about continuing to eat these products?

    One could watch Food, Inc. to get a general sense of the disdain for the meat industry, but that film goes a little too in depth into the "soy bean controversy", which unfortunately is a minute issue in most Americans' minds. Maybe by going to Chipotle and eating their "hormone-free, free range meat" is a little bit easier to think about when going to bed at night. If you go to Whole Foods, are you supporting or just adding to the issues that the meat industry has created? How do we even know we're making a difference or promoting progressiveness? The argument could be made that avoiding meat all together is one surefire way of knowing that you're not giving the meat industry their dues. But even then, meat sales are still huge and the industry backing it all is even bigger than we can comprehend. Do we need to listen to writers like Jonathan Safran Foer to get a new sense of attribution to this obvious issue? Or will we continue eating what makes us happy and healthy (or not?) until the day we die? No one really knows for certain, but we can try and figure it out.

    Most of us are going to feel poorly if we have fast food more than once or twice a week. For some of us, even having fast food once a month is something we don't condone. Why then, do we continue these actions we know aren't benefitting anyone but the big meat industry? It comes down to a level of comfort and familiarity. We are comfortable eating what our parents grew us up on, and we're familiar with these foods because we've known them for 20+ years now. If you go to another country and stay there indefinitely, you might have these "comfort food" cravings - hamburgers, bacon, steak, etc - and you'll be hard-pressed to find something exactly like what you can get here in the United States. On the other hand, America has a huge economy around the meat industry, and it is what gives us that "American food" image. Look at diners, for example. They primarily serve meat products for lunch and dinner, and one could go insofar as to call the hamburger the diner's "flagship menu item". It's what drives people into places like Denny's and IHOP and other fast food restaurant chains. It's what helps pay the bills and keep demands high so places like Denny's can stay open 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. 

    Maybe we don't feel bad as a society, per se, but we sure understand that this isn't what we should be doing. But it feels like our emotions and good intentions don't ever outweigh and overpower our inherent knowledge. For me, no matter what evidence is presented against meat, I'll continue to eat it because I never saw it as a bad thing until I got older. There's too many years of the once a month steak dinner on a special occasion and the hamburger as a celebratory gesture after a good basketball tournament growing up as a kid. These things are embedded into me so deep that it's going to take a long time and a lot of concrete evidence against meat and meat products to make me turn my back on them. It's almost like they're my family. How terrible is that? So, yes, maybe we feel bad as Americans for eating so much meat, but is it really something as a society we intend to change together?

002. Sandwiches

    Sandwiches are largely seen in our culture as something to be discounted and a food that isn't meant to be high class, but sandwiches can be all these things and more. Eating a sandwich for lunch is the most comfortable and convenient way of enjoying your midday meal. Most of us don't think of a sandwich as something to look forward to eating, and others stray away from sandwiches entirely for whatever reason. Is it coincidence that the country's largest fast food chain is actually a franchised sandwich shop? Rooted deep in American culture and lore, sandwiches come in all shapes and sizes and are continually evolving, all while never disappointing Americans.

    You can go to almost any city in the country and plop down a $5 bill and get yourself 12 inches of mediocre sandwich heaven in any of Subway's 24,000+ restaurants in the United States. The "footlong sub", as the company so lovingly calls it, is a huge part of most Americans' every day lunch. The model that Subway has set up with a clear glass panel separating you and their "sandwich artist", whom you get to watch make your sandwich every step of the way as you see fit, is so successful that even upstart companies like Chipotle have "borrowed" their idea of assembling a customer's meal. Obviously, their monthly promotions for $5 footlong sandwiches or even their occasional featured sub of the month are huge draws to the general public keep even a fast food chain as big as Subway relevant. However, it all goes back to the sandwich, with the meat, cheese, and all the fixins' that make it so tempting to just spend your lunch with a sandwich instead of a burger. It's a lot better feeling after having eaten a low-fat, vegetable-ridden sandwich over a greasy, fattening hamburger. Americans like that feeling of being "healthy", as so many commercials and supermarket ads urge us to do.

    Subway isn't the only game in town though. Quiznos Sub, a little sandwich shop turned franchised empire from Denver, CO, aims to draw in the sandwich aficionado in all of us with subs that are "toasted" via a easily viewable oven with a circulating belt that takes your sandwich from cold to toasted almost instantaneously. Quiznos is very successful, utilizing the franchisee model that so many other restaurants have success with. The downside to all this toasting and franchise-driven stuff is the price of the sandwiches themselves. They can range from $6.50 for a regular to over $9.00 for a large sandwich. That doesn't include the signature chips or drink that usually accompany your meal from a sub shop. This is disappointing for some, but once the quality is recognized and enjoyed, you might be willing to open your wallet a little further. Local favorite shops like Mr. Pickle's Sandwich Shop are great alternatives to the larger chain ones, but their prices can often be found to be on the high side, but there's no shortage of quality and portion of your sandwich. Mr. Pickle's has found their niche with the younger crowd, offering quirky names and large, messy portions on some of their selections. On that note, the all-too-famous Ike's in San Francisco is another local choice. This time around, though, drama has found its way to Ike's. I won't go through the specifics but it's without mention that Ike's has had trouble getting people to buy in to the immense popularity of their also quirky named sandwiches and outrageously high prices. When you're as popular as Ike's, you too can charge absurdly high amounts of money for a decent-sized sandwich - think upwards of $10 for a regular sized sub.

    So there's a lot more to sandwiches than we might normally realize. It's hard to say if there's any real love that goes into sandwich making, especially by the employees at the larger national chain shops. There's no question that the roots of the sandwich are deep in American tradition and still continue to be wildly successful to this day due to the portability, convenience and all-around good nature that a sandwich provides. As to what shop makes the "best sandwiches" is a completely subjective argument, but one could be correct in saying Subway offers the best "bang for your buck" out of any of the typical shops. With that being said, it's safe to say the sandwich is not yet and is just getting started. Might we witness further evolution of the sandwich? You betcha.

001. "Foodies" and "Vegans"

Hey guys, my name is Dylan Andersen, and I'm a Junior here at State, and I should have taken this class a while ago, but am just now getting around to it. I'm an English Education major, and am enjoying the program so far. I live in Colma, which some of you that aren't from around here might not know about, but if you get some free time, visiting here is a must. I wanted to write my first blog and maybe a few others about the interestingness and popularity of “vegans” and “foodies” in 2012.

   I wanted to write my first blog entry about some groups of people that are interesting to me. We're living in this digital age - we hear about it incessantly in school and especially on television - and people that love food are especially interested in the new way of communicating. Through my years of college, I've come into contact and became friends with many people who consider themselves to be "foodies". These are, as I like to define them, people who are frequent Yelp reviewers, self-proclaimed food aficionados, and in general people that obsess over the next great restaurant. They're not "bad" people by any means, but getting to know foodies - if you're not already a foodie yourself - can become a bit cumbersome and maybe even difficult. If you're not already following your foodie friend on Yelp, then they'll make you create an account and start reading their "works of art" one by one. The Bay Area is a breeding ground for these kinds of people, as we have some great restaurants and areas to explore - most notably in the Peninsula. We have also launched some of the most successful "foodie contributing businesses" like Yelp and OpenTable. But that's not all. We have also created the second generation of foodies here in the Bay Area, who call themselves "vegans".

These vegans are people who follow a vegetarian lifestyle but also abstain from dairy products, other products that were made by a company that takes part in fair trade agreements, and even products containing gelatin, as these were harmful to fish. Being vegan isn't just about being a "foodie 2.0" - they take the Yelp obsession to new heights with rating which vegan-friendly (or "V friendly" as they call it) restaurants are the best. You can find a vegan any day of the week at any Cafe Gratitude or Herbivore in San Francisco. Cafe Gratitude and its related restaurants haven't been without drama and controversy, but we'll save that for a future entry. Stores like Whole Foods have relied on vegan and vegetarian customers to make up a big part of their revenue and sales, and find ways to even cater to them by introducing and bringing particular products to market. With that being said, I am in no way making the case against being a vegan or vegetarian - in fact, it has been proven that such a lifestyle promotes longevity in life and overall healthiness.

   Now that we are in 2012, an argument can be made about the seismic shift in the vegan community towards a more mainstream appeal bordering on "hipster". Again, we'll leave that discussion for a future blog. I am also planning on taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the blogs, so please don't be offended! It's all in good fun and this is all obviously my own opinion.