Food Slumming

            Sometimes being bad can be good. Let’s go to a dive bar. Let’s go to that club in the shady part of town. Let’s grab a bite from the street vendor. So much of our daily lives have become stratified that it has begun to mock itself and we find novelty in reaching beyond the stratification that we ourselves assign to what we do. Unfortunately, the social stratification of such activities and materials are becoming full on dichotomies. What, where and how we eat has become a horrendous example of this. All too often there are food publications and advertisements about food tourism that encourage people to consume the best of the haute and the indigent.

            The food culture that is being promoted to us through these mediums smacks of from whom it is ok to buy your food and what is ok to make with it. The idea of making alta cucina food out of rustic products is very in style right now but nothing new. The problem with viewing these things so separately tarnishes the work of talented cooks with pretense and discredits the authenticity and longevity of traditional cuisines.

            This is not just in print but also in practice. There appears to be a rising trend among markets to take the ugly images of cheap food and authentic producers and make them fashionable for more affluent foodies that want to reach further beyond their more upscale grocer. This is more and more common among indoor markets than outdoor markets.  What is happening is that we are quickly turning our simple markets into the same upscale grocery stores that we were trying to get away from.

            The ultimate insult to the way we have changed our approach to food in these ways is saying that its fun to go slumming but not cool to be ghetto. The food and the food culture has just become a means of consuming a new food image (if not a new social image all together). Food has become so posh that too often people are more interested in what it is, than how it tastes. Restaurants today can become a quick success simply because of who works there and who eats there.

            Few things translate universally (math, art, music etc) and food is one of them. Sustaining this dichotic image of food is making what we eat esoteric and classist. So it’s acceptable to buy cheap ingredients but not to eat “cheap” food. Elitist foodies beware: everything you know about haute cuisine is rooted in the food of the poor.