Why does so much food suck?

[MarketStEl]

I want to speak up in front of Joe American Average.

Joe American Average knows a good burger, a good pizza and a good steak when he finds one. All other factors being equal, he'll take a hand-ground burger cooked over the grill rather than a Big Mac, or a wood-fired oven pizza made from fresh ingredients rather than some frozen nonsense.

However, Joe American Average does not fetishize food the way some of us -- and I'm one of them -- tend to. All other things frequently are not equal, so issues of time and money mean Joe American Average is willing to settle for the lesser product, which he does not think is bad just because it isn't great.

I do not feel I am in any position to criticize his priorities.

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I think most of the people participating in this discussion feel the same way.

There is a difference between not-great food and truly bad food, and it shouldn't take an excessive degree of education to tell the two apart. I doubt that the Old German Woman who could tell that the sauerkraut hadn't been washed would consider herself a "foodie" or "food fetishist," but she could tell when something wasn't right.

Now, most of us aren't German, old or otherwise, so we might miss this unless we have had sauerkraut made by someone who knows how to make it. But mushy French fries, soggy fried foods, burnt steaks and the like should be unacceptable to anyone with even a modicum of discrimination, given how frequently such foods appear on American plates.

I will admit that I'm usually not the sort of person who sends a dish back when it's not up to snuff. My preferred form of registering my displeasure with a restaurant meal is to avoid the offending restaurant in the future. I'm willing to wager that you could probably find several Joe American Averages who have done the same, and I'll also wager that if I took those same people to Tom Jones, they would enjoy their meals, as did I.

And yet the fact that there are places that serve bad food yet remain in business for years (what's the name of that tourist-trap Italian restaurant near Times Square in New York?) does indicate that there are many who do not. (Of course, tourist-trap restaurants are a special category, as they depend for their livelihood on customers who will in all likelihood never make a return visit. Some of these places can be incredibly pricey, too, as the prior incarnation of Old Original Bookbinder's here in Philly was.)

[gfweb]

And yet the fact that there are places that serve bad food yet remain in business for years (what's the name of that tourist-trap Italian restaurant near Times Square in New York?) does indicate that there are many who do not. (Of course, tourist-trap restaurants are a special category, as they depend for their livelihood on customers who will in all likelihood never make a return visit. Some of these places can be incredibly pricey, too, as the prior incarnation of Old Original Bookbinder's here in Philly was.)

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Edited June 16, 2007 by gfweb (log)

[grimod]

because in America we only care about the bottom line and we haven't a clue about quality. Case in point: Plugra butter. That is the worst crap on the planet. Plu (more) gra (fat) More fat... The company maybe ought to learn feed the f$%king cow something good and that flavor will be in the butter. Even the worst French butters (President) glean in comparison.

Bar food in America? Until we Americans stop accepting what we are brainwashed to accept than it will never change... ever. Do not blame the cooks. Blame the owners. Vote by not spending a single penny in that sh&t hole. Do not accept third rate produce out of season; do not blindly believe advertising. Forget Chilis for your baby back ribs... go to a real BBQ spot... you know the kind you can smell two miles away and that you are scared to drive to.

Food in America is so extremely second rate in comparison to just about every other country. We cry when we cannot have tomatoes in january or strawberries in february. Rather than accept things actually have seasons and that is when we should enjoy them. Do you even remember what a really good sundrenched tomato tastes like anymore? god I am getting so acclimated to those gas ripened in the back of the semi genetically altered pieces of crap that Monsanto wants us to eat.

Try to actually seek out restaurants and bars that have some slight bit of respect for themselves and do not be suprised when you go to low grade places and get low grade food.

Grimod

[grimod]

Not that Sysco is the epitome of artisanal ingredients, but Sysco and US Foodservice are often somewhat misunderstood. Restaurants at just about all levels use these companies as suppliers. Perhaps a restaurant like the French Laundry doesn't use Sysco, but restaurants at every other level do. You can order anything from lame frozen bar food ("Sysco Reliance") to better stuff ("Sysco Classic, Sysco Imperial") to pretty high level haute-cuisine ingredients ("Sysco Supreme" and various Sysco-owned brands for organics, etc.). It's up to the restaurant. Sysco didn't invent bad food. Food was bad before Sysco became a dominant distributor. Sysco just delivers what people order.

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sorry I disagree. Sysco sucks. Us Food sucks. I am a Chef in a mid level restaurant. I kick both of their salesmen out because their quality is crap. But then I also do not buy farm raised fish (yes, I do not like color added fish) and I would rather die than serve that. Why on planet earth would you buy anything that IS SUPPOSEDLY ORGANIC BY SYSCO WHEN YOU COULD ACTUALLY BUY FROM EITHER A GREEN MARKET OR AN ACTUALLY HIPPIE FARMER? sorry the term organic means absolutely nothing anymore... try looking for the renegade label. Organic simply means that they have paid the 5,000 dollar fee to use that term. Organic used to mean something long ago. Organic now only means you have bought and paid to use another marketing tool. The problem is our government is solely interested in promoting large corporations over us, or we, the people. Take your blinders off. We are so blinded by advertising... In America we spend the least money of any nation on food. Why is it that we buy scallops with fibrin to make perfect form pressed medallions or buy scallops that are dipped in a chemical to make them soak up 25% more water or that Hormel injects it's pork with water or that we genetically alter our food supply or that our governbment allows nuclear sludge to be moixed into our pesticide (6%) with no warning labels. Why does single consumer want to buy anything that is slightly related to Monsanto? Why? because large corporations advertise and we are led to believe that this stuff is safe for human consumption despite concrete scientific proof to the contrary. Try actually reading the label of most Sysco products and read the large amount of additives and fake ingredients they add to make their food appeal to the preconceptions we have of food. No, sorry brother people buy from Sysco because they do not know any better... and most of their clientele has yet to ask the questions.

[grimod]

because this is how we raise what goes in our bodies.... follow the links

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story...rst_polluters/1

[Narcissus]

Not that Sysco is the epitome of artisanal ingredients, but Sysco and US Foodservice are often somewhat misunderstood. Restaurants at just about all levels use these companies as suppliers. Perhaps a restaurant like the French Laundry doesn't use Sysco, but restaurants at every other level do. You can order anything from lame frozen bar food ("Sysco Reliance") to better stuff ("Sysco Classic, Sysco Imperial") to pretty high level haute-cuisine ingredients ("Sysco Supreme" and various Sysco-owned brands for organics, etc.). It's up to the restaurant. Sysco didn't invent bad food. Food was bad before Sysco became a dominant distributor. Sysco just delivers what people order.

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sorry I disagree. Sysco sucks. Us Food sucks. I am a Chef in a mid level restaurant. I kick both of their salesmen out because their quality is crap. But then I also do not buy farm raised fish (yes, I do not like color added fish) and I would rather die than serve that. Why on planet earth would you buy anything that IS SUPPOSEDLY ORGANIC BY SYSCO WHEN YOU COULD ACTUALLY BUY FROM EITHER A GREEN MARKET OR AN ACTUALLY HIPPIE FARMER? sorry the term organic means absolutely nothing anymore... try looking for the renegade label. Organic simply means that they have paid the 5,000 dollar fee to use that term. Organic used to mean something long ago. Organic now only means you have bought and paid to use another marketing tool. The problem is our government is solely interested in promoting large corporations over us, or we, the people. Take your blinders off. We are so blinded by advertising... In America we spend the least money of any nation on food. Why is it that we buy scallops with fibrin to make perfect form pressed medallions or buy scallops that are dipped in a chemical to make them soak up 25% more water or that Hormel injects it's pork with water or that we genetically alter our food supply or that our governbment allows nuclear sludge to be moixed into our pesticide (6%) with no warning labels. Why does single consumer want to buy anything that is slightly related to Monsanto? Why? because large corporations advertise and we are led to believe that this stuff is safe for human consumption despite concrete scientific proof to the contrary. Try actually reading the label of most Sysco products and read the large amount of additives and fake ingredients they add to make their food appeal to the preconceptions we have of food. No, sorry brother people buy from Sysco because they do not know any better... and most of their clientele has yet to ask the questions.

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Amen.

[Carrot Top]

I had a very spooky food-sucking experience this morning.

I went down to the buffet breakfast at this hotel (Hampton Inn, first time I've stayed at one - maybe should have chosen the other one that has commercials that say they make you smart, instead) and went to look at what they were offering for hot food.

Sliding back the silver cover, I viewed something that looked like dog turds on the left that actually were sausages. How they could have been more dried out is awesome to consider, for probably they would just turn into a poof of black smoke if they had been heated one more second.

But that was not the suckiest thing. The suckiest thing I really do not even want to call eggs, but they were. Or that's what they were supposed to be anyway, but really I can not believe that they were not made out of styrofoam for that was the exact texture. They were these little round egg frisbees, all stacked up like so much cut wood on top of each other in three big piles. They were white with a tiny spot of buttercup yellow in the center. They looked like flying saucers. They were actually scary.

I've seen the hard little frisbee-shaped scrambled eggs before but never whatever this thing was supposed to be.

I went back to look several times to be sure that I wasn't hallucinating from the watery coffee or from the fumes that must have approached my nose from the yellow and orange cut up chunks that they called "fresh fruit" but which looked like sewage actually. Not that I've seen sewage but that would be the closest earthly thing they resembled, for they did not look as if they came from this planet, anywhere.

A man came up and looked at the eggs, standing beside me. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?" I asked him. "Noooooo. No." he said. "I have *no* idea what that is." he said mournfully and walked away, stumbling a bit in his shock.

Why? Why didn't they just make *hardboiled* eggs if nothing more difficult could be managed? What is the point of these hockey pucks and dog turds being offered to people for breakfast?

I wanted to ask the woman in attendance at the buffet but didn't want to depress her. Or alternately, if she was one of the aliens that actually think this stuff is the right stuff to serve, I didn't want to get beamed up onto her space ship and kidnapped.

[shelly59]

I'll bet that people ate that crap, though, Carrot Top.

I brought homemade strawberry shortcake into work one day last summer as I had gotten my hands on some lovely strawberries and made a bowl of REAL whipped cream to go with it. One of the women immediately ran out to the local 7-11 and bought some Cool-Whip to go with it, too. Why you ask? MY whipped cream "looked weird", too "heavy", had too many calories, it was just "not right". Some of those people had NEVER had real whipped cream in their lives. So, the Cool -Whip was demolished as were the shortcakes and the strawberries. How SAD that people actually PREFER the fake over the real..

And my whipped cream? I took it home to enjoy on coffee and warm, ripe strawberries and anything else I could think of.

[Carrot Top]

  I brought homemade strawberry shortcake into work one day last summer as I had gotten my hands on some lovely strawberries and made a bowl of REAL whipped cream to go with it.   One of the women immediately ran out to the local 7-11 and bought some Cool-Whip to go with it, too.

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I guess that b*tch (excuse the french) not only has limited taste buds and would like everyone else to hang right there along with her, but also has no fear of showing her terribly bad manners.

You made a fresh home-made dessert and she prances in with a tub of fluffed lard and says, "Put this on it?"

Meh. I am having fantasies of dumping a vat of Cool-Whip on her head.

Sigh.

..............................

I really don't know why I bother to leave home to travel anywhere unless it would be to a major city, as far as finding something to eat that does not suck goes.

After yesterday morning's styroeggs I went on to have lunch at the most promising non-chain independent restaurant in the area, a Mexican place, and was served a burrito the size of a WWII tanker which tasted like one too and had the same effect of literally trying to kill me, I do believe. If I had eaten more than an tenth of it, I would have been lying on the floor unable to move from the heavy denseness of it.

Dinner, again at "the finest place in town" (another independent restaurant) was better. It was amusing, though, that the place advertises itself as having a wine list. This is how it differentiates itself and touts sophistication.

The wine list had two producers listed on the top: Woodbridge and Beringer.

Then underneath that it listed three varieties from each producer.

*That* was the wine list.

Geez. I'm tellin' ya. It's either laugh or cry.

Honestly, I might head for fast food for lunch and just plain appreciate the fact that, expecting not-too-much except consistency, I might not be disappointed.

Edited June 23, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[maurdel]

  I brought homemade strawberry shortcake into work one day last summer as I had gotten my hands on some lovely strawberries and made a bowl of REAL whipped cream to go with it.  One of the women immediately ran out to the local 7-11 and bought some Cool-Whip to go with it, too. Why you ask?  MY whipped cream "looked weird", too "heavy", had too many calories, it was just "not right".  Some of those people had NEVER had real whipped cream in their lives. So, the Cool -Whip was demolished as were the shortcakes and the strawberries.  How SAD that people actually PREFER the fake over the real..

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It is obviously NOT the problem that the good stuff is "not available" or hard to come by. The woman went on a special voyage and spent money to go and get the crap. She does not want the good stuff. I don't know if she has ever had real cream? but I am sure she could pick neither the cream nor the crap out of a lineup (taste test). It seems she can only enjoy what she has been told is "tasty".

I don't think she possesses the ability to determine what she, herself PREFERS. That is the result of an education (of any kind)- The ability to determine what you prefer, believe is right, or would want to choose. It is not to teach you what is best, but how to discriminate.

Not only does she not have any food education, but she works hard to avoid it. It seems in our society that critical thinking is neither revered nor encouraged.

And I certainly agree with Carrot Top that her words and actions are the epitome of impoliteness.

Edited June 23, 2007 by maurdel (log)

[divalasvegas]

That Cool Whip woman was beyond rude, I mean what exactly was she trying to prove anyway? And how the Hell can real whipped cream "look weird?" However, since I can also be pretty rude--unlike you shelly59 who is obviously a generous AND very tolerant person--I would've probably made a big show of reading off the list of ingredients from the back of the Cool Whip tub and then recited the ingredients in my homemade whip cream, as in cream, sugar, vanilla and then let her know that I now understand why she would prefer that gack over my homemade stuff.

Truth be told, I've had Cool Whip before, many times years ago growing up, but definitely prefer the real thing and even if I didn't I would never go the drama queen route of this obnoxious woman.

And Carrot Top I'd really like to know what those egglike things were. I've never seen them personally, but I remember seeing perfectly and uniformly round hard boiled egg slices on salad bars many years ago. They looked creepy to me and had a strange texture. I tried them once. Later I found out that this was some sort of FrankenEgg invention where the whites were separated from the yolks and then recombined using some kind of tubing so that they turned out long ropes of "perfect" hard boiled egg rounds.

BTW, per the Kraft Foods website, the ingredients of Cool Whip are: regular flavor--WATER, CORN SYRUP, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (COCONUT AND PALM KERNEL OILS), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF SODIUM CASEINATE (FROM MILK), NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, XANTHAN GUM AND GUAR GUMS, POLYSORBATE 60, SORBITAN MONOSTEARATE, BETA CAROTENE (COLOR).

Believe me, the list of ingredients on their Lite and Sugar Free versions were even scarier.

[CKatCook]

I read this whole thread with a kind of grossed out fascination. Let me start off by saying, I don't have the most educated of palates. (Mostly due to lack of availablity, and I am too scared of order food off the internet, something about it I don't trust) But I can honestly say I cook better food at home than any resturant I have been too (yet) here where I live. I live in Oklahoma, and most of the resturants here are chain food type eating establishments. The other Friday, my hubby and I ventured out to our favorite, locally owned, non-chain Indian food place to meet a friend of ours and it was nasty! It used to be quite good and it was so bad, my hubby and I agreed that from now on it was my home cooked Indian food or nothing. While I am picky about my food, I will sometimes when pressed for time eat fast food, or grab a sandwhich out, but I have to be starving. Mostly because of the lack of care that goes into it. At a fast food place I don't expect quality, but at least show a little care, or give me good service.

But I think for the most part most people I meet don't care. Some resturants I go into I can taste the heavy chemical taste of processed food, or I can tell it was frozen before, and whatever dinner companion I am with will either not taste what I taste, or will not care. It is always the biggest portions for the cheapest price. I think most people don't care at all about the quality of what they eat and have seen people eat huge portions of stuff that looks and smells repulsive to me. I just don't get it......I really don't.

Shelly59 ~ Take heart. This happens all over. I bought a homemade lasngna (sp?) to an office thing one day and no one touched it. They all ate these meatballs that another person makes with a jar of grape jelly and bottle chilli sauce. (oh, the meatballs are pre-frozen from Sam's Wholesale, the grape jelly and chilli sauce was the sauce they was floating in.....

the women was rude, sorry you had to go thru that.....

[shelly59]

LOL, thanks for the support all. Truth be told, I was more bemused than anything else. When I take food into work, I am cooking for a small group of people whose opinions I value. They enjoyed the real stuff.

The rest of the place? I tend to be tolerant because I was once just like them. I was dead serious when I stated that some of the people had NEVER had real whipped cream in their lives..how sad IS that, I ask you? But I didn't taste it until my freshman year in college and was in a swanky cafe that served fresh strawberries and raspberries in real cream. Same semester I had my first: bagel, loks, gefilte fish - anything Jewish, actually - champagne, oysters, French Onion soup, caviar, Foie Gras, and many other things. I was lucky. And being open-minded and with people who didn't make a big deal out of the fact that I was new to so many things helped as well.

AND, the woman who left work to get the Cool Whip to begin with is completely uncouth anyway, so I don't get twisted over the stupid things she does. Especially as I did convince two Cool Whippers that the Cool Whip really wasn't as good as the real thing. So..VICTORY!!

[K8memphis]

Cool Whippers love that new term!

[Carrot Top]

And Carrot Top I'd really like to know what those egglike things were. I've never seen them personally, but I remember seeing perfectly and uniformly round hard boiled egg slices on salad bars many years ago. They looked creepy to me and had a strange texture.

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I don't know what they were, divalasvegas. All I know is that I got away from them as quickly as possible.

But considering my recent experiences with suck-y food out there in the world, I have now decided that the answer of "time and money" just does not cut it. It is not an adequate response.

Currently, I am quite certain that the answer to the question of "why does so much food suck?" lies in String Theory.

String theorists are betting that extra dimensions do indeed exist; in fact, the equations that describe superstring theory require a universe with no fewer than 10 dimensions.

Alternate dimensions, existing side-by-side with our own. How those people that make suck-y food ever fell into the other dimensions can not be explained yet, but surely with time an answer will come.

[dave s.]

Well, the Cool Whip story illustrates the kind of person I was referring to in my previous post when I said "Joe Average." Like CKatCook, I'm from Oklahoma, a place not known for fine cuisine-I was brought up on casseroles in which Campbell's Soup figured prominently, and I don't think I tasted real mayonnaise, or butter or whipped cream until I left home and joined the Army. I'm sure many of us did not spring from the womb with the rarified tastes we now possess. But the difference between US and THEM is that we tasted, believed and never looked back. And a lot of people taste, and say "ICK!" or "EWWW", and go buy the Cool-Whip. And these folks might as well belong to that alternate universe, because I do not understand them at all. So why does so much food suck? Well, it doesn't, to a lot of folks. It's real good. It's what they're used to. It's convenient, it's hygienic, it's attractively packaged. It comes in big sizes too-crates, vats, barrels-which is good because the nation of BIG PEOPLE we're becoming needs BIG FOOD. And it sure as hell is cheaper-try the value menu at Jack in the Crack, Burger Despot, Kentucky Fried Critters, or McGoogle's. So, OK-the aliens outnumber us a zillion to one. Let them have their sucky food. Stay close to home, and if you have to venture out, pack a lunch . Don't watch TV either-the aliens are using it to try and convert you-ever noticed that the ONLY food commercials on The Food Network are for the absolute suckiest of sucky food? And if you do watch TV and see a commercial for a restaurant, AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS-restaurants that can afford TV time are Corporate Hellholes staffed by can crackers, microwavers and shoemakers and frequented by aliens only. Be warned.

[mrsadm]

I had a very spooky food-sucking experience this morning.

I went down to the buffet breakfast at this hotel (Hampton Inn, first time I've stayed at one - maybe should have chosen the other one that has commercials that say they make you smart, instead) and went to look at what they were offering for hot food.

Sliding back the silver cover, I viewed something that looked like dog turds on the left that actually were sausages. How they could have been more dried out is awesome to consider, for probably they would just turn into a poof of black smoke if they had been heated one more second.

But that was not the suckiest thing. The suckiest thing I really do not even want to call eggs, but they were. Or that's what they were supposed to be anyway, but really I can not believe that they were not made out of styrofoam for that was the exact texture. They were these little round egg frisbees, all stacked up like so much cut wood on top of each other in three big piles. They were white with a tiny spot of buttercup yellow in the center. They looked like flying saucers. They were actually scary.

I've seen the hard little frisbee-shaped scrambled eggs before but never whatever this thing was supposed to be.

I went back to look several times to be sure that I wasn't hallucinating from the watery coffee or from the fumes that must have approached my nose from the yellow and orange cut up chunks that they called "fresh fruit" but which looked like sewage actually. Not that I've seen sewage but that would be the closest earthly thing they resembled, for they did not look as if they came from this planet, anywhere.

A man came up and looked at the eggs, standing beside me. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?" I asked him. "Noooooo. No." he said. "I have *no* idea what that is." he said mournfully and walked away, stumbling a bit in his shock.

Why? Why didn't they just make *hardboiled* eggs if nothing more difficult could be managed? What is the point of these hockey pucks and dog turds being offered to people for breakfast?

I wanted to ask the woman in attendance at the buffet but didn't want to depress her. Or alternately, if she was one of the aliens that actually think this stuff is the right stuff to serve, I didn't want to get beamed up onto her space ship and kidnapped.

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Hampton Inn and other similar hotels - their customers choose the hotel because they get the free breakfast.

The worst eggs I ever had were in Germany at a buffet. It was a rectangular pile of scrambled eggs, like a big cement block, and you took a large aluminum spoon to "carve out" a section for your plate. But after a week of nothing but pastries for breakfast, I ate them, well, some of it. Rather awful.

[Carrot Top]

The worst eggs I ever had were in Germany at a buffet.  It was a rectangular pile of scrambled eggs, like a big cement block, and you took a large aluminum spoon to "carve out" a section for your plate.  But after a week of nothing but pastries for breakfast, I ate them, well, some of it.  Rather awful.

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Maybe that's where the idea of using ketchup on eggs came from. *Anything*, to help choke down the things.

[phaelon56]

Stay close to home, and if you have to venture out, pack a lunch .

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Yes but I'd still like to be able to go to a club with live music and get decent pub food or something even better - without flying all the way to Seattle for a show at The Triple Door.

[Carrot Top]

Like CKatCook, I'm from Oklahoma, a place not known for fine cuisine-I was brought up on casseroles in which Campbell's Soup figured prominently, and I don't think I tasted real mayonnaise, or butter or whipped cream until I left home and joined the Army. I'm sure many of us did not spring from the womb with the rarified tastes we now possess. But the difference between US and THEM is that we tasted, believed and never looked back.

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Oh, honey . . . I still love canned spaghetti.

But you know I make sure to *hide* when I eat it.

[annabelle]

I live in Oklahoma, as well. Everyone should come to the Huckleberry Festival in Jay today and tomorrow. Everything isn't Miracle Whip, saltines and white gravy after all.

[Carrot Top]

I live in Oklahoma, as well.  Everyone should come to the Huckleberry Festival in Jay today and tomorrow.  Everything isn't Miracle Whip, saltines and white gravy after all.  

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I'm glad that the required well-phrased defense of Oklahoma piqued you to a first post, annabelle.

And I was thinking about those huckleberries all day yesterday, too.

Had to eat blueberries instead from North Carolina and they were obviously grown to be shipped, because they tasted like little purple cotton balls.

Edited June 30, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[shelly59]

Oh, my, I haven't thought about Huckleberries in years. Grew up in central Pennsylvania, where they grew wild. Used to pick them & teaberries. Yum..

Edited June 30, 2007 by shelly59 (log)

[annabelle]

Thanks, Carrot Top. I figure it's about time I quit lurking. I feel like I "know" many posters from reading them for so long. Anyway, it's nice to be here. Me and my huckleberries.

[divalasvegas]

Welcome annabelle. I've never been to Oklahoma, but any state famous for its huckleberries has got to be good! Funny, but I've been thinking of huckleberries lately too. I had my first taste of them as a topper to a wonderful lemon curd tart several years ago. I was blown away by how delicious they were--like blueberries on steriods--and I'd like to get my hands on some soon. And BTW, I happen to LIKE Miracle Whip, saltines, and white gravy, just not all together.