Posted on 08/19/2004 7:01:22 AM PDT by Pokey78
My American friends in England never stop complaining about the food here. It’s all ‘gloopy’, they say, and they bitch about the warm beer, grey curries and unidentifiable soups. Sometimes their longing for US comfort food — beefburgers, hotdogs, cookies, tacos and dairy queen ice cream — becomes so strong that some of them even resort to a company called the Food Ferry, a British Internet site that delivers Skippy Peanut Butter, beef jerky and Oreo cookies.
My solution is a little different. I tell them that American food is overrated, unhealthy and revolting, and the sooner they wean themselves off it, the better they will feel.
American food seems pretty impressive at first sight, but during a four-year stint in the US I realised that it is basically a con trick: bigger isn’t necessarily better; brighter colours don’t mean more intense flavours; sugar tastes good, but leaves you feeling depressed, sick and still hungry.
British cuisine may be considered bland but at least, by and large, you know what you’re putting in your mouth. One of America’s bestselling snacks is a cheese dip designed to be scooped up with nacho chips. It’s runny, it’s orange, it tastes like cheese, but a label on the jar says that it’s a ‘non-dairy product’. Then there are Twinkies — small yellow sponge cakes found in the lunchboxes of most US children. Twinkies are made of such mysterious stuff that they don’t have a best-before date and are subjected to scientific tests. ‘A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for four days,’ says one Internet report, ‘during which time many flies were observed crawling across the Twinkie’s surface but, contrary to our hypothesis, birds — even pigeons — avoided this potential source of sustenance.’
Even the food that’s made of food is a challenge. A pastrami sandwich comes with a good six inches of meat in the middle — how do you get your mouth around something that’s nearly as big as your head? After a few attempts, any appetite you might once have had is gone. Have you ever tried an American apple? They look perfect — enormous, red and shiny — but have the consistency of cotton wool. It’s the same with the meat: huge, juicy-looking steaks, and chops, perfectly grilled, pink inside, but tasting of wet paper.
The Cheesecake Factory is one of the most popular family food chains in the US — and for me the most grotesque example of American food. A single slice of cheesecake is as big as a brick and would more than suffice for a meal. An entire cheesecake could quite easily put a small child into hyperglycaemic shock. It must put a strain on family life, having to watch your nearest and dearest eating this gunk. The cheesecake is just one of the ‘factory’ specials whose metal menu lists hundreds of other dishes, like the Tons of Fun burger: ‘Yes, It’s True! Double Patties, Double Cheese, Triple Sesame-Seed Bun with Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onion, Pickles and Secret Sauce. Served with Fries’ and the Mile-High Meatloaf Sandwich ‘Topped with Mashed Potatoes, Crispy Onions and Barbeque Au Jus. Served Open-Faced on Extra Thick Egg Bread.’
The labelling of dishes in American restaurants provides an interesting challenge to both menu-writer and reader. Ordering from the food encyclopaedias of restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory is rather like resitting one’s SAT tests. There is a full page dedicated to every beast, bread and starch as well as every national cuisine; also ‘fusion’ dishes. Whatever I chose, I was always left worrying whether I’d made the wrong decision. And despite the bewildering variety of foodstuffs on offer, any attempt to veer from the menu is greeted with blank incomprehension:
‘Just the turkey, please.’
‘The dish comes that way.’
‘But I only want the turkey, thanks.’
‘I’m sorry, miss, that’s not possible.’
‘But I know you’ve got grilled turkey — it says so right here.’
‘That’s our Grilled Turkey Sandwich, miss. Our Grilled Turkey’s on our dinner menu.’
‘But surely you can just remove the bread?’
‘No — I’m sorry. Like I told you before, the Grilled Turkey Sandwich comes with the bread.’
‘You make it sound like it’s born with the bread.’
So you decide to eat in, but this involves a trip to the supermarket and hours spent trying to spot the microscopic differences between thousands of identical brands. Whereas in England we would have an aisle of grains and jams and cereals, Americans will dedicate an area the size of a tennis court just to varieties of bread: loafs of every shape and shade, bagels and buns, waffle mix. Often, in desperation, I’d just go for the most adventurous option. ‘Coconut-sprinkled sweet potatoes’ made one appearance in my flat, but only one.
Half the problem, I think, is that food isn’t just food in the States — it’s an obsession. Not only does Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple Cheesecake exist, it can be gawped at online. The Krispy Kreme website features a five-minute video with a jaunty electronic soundtrack showing rows of little doughnuts browning slowly on a conveyor belt, before being lovingly glazed, bought and eaten. Food even provides whole states with a sense of history and identity — Midwestern towns fight over titles like ‘home of the peanut’, ‘birthplace of the corndog’, ‘Krispy Kreme Kountry’.
And with the excesses of American food comes a national fixation on dieting: as Eric Schlosser reports, McDonald’s has attempted to cash in on this with a McLean burger for dieters. We may not go to the gym so often in Britain, but our food doesn’t demand that we do. I flew back from America looking forward to shepherd’s pie and pints of beer only to be confronted by an upsurge in American fast food in London — not enough to keep my US friends happy, but still worrying. Perhaps we and the Americans should pay more attention to global gastronomy. We could form a food think tank to wean the US off sugar and on to snails, squid and sushi. It would make us all healthier — and happier.
Budweiser (American) is the King of beers because of its virtues. It is light, clean with no skunky aftertaste, crisp and best from a tap or long-neck bottle. It should be served cold, but this amplifies the flavor and aroma of the hops. Bud gives the best head in beer. The only Eurobeer I find that I like is DAB, and it was always tough to find fresh here.
If I can't find Bud or O'Fallon Gold, MGD will suffice.
Michael Jackson reference?
Red Beans and Rice.
Jambalaya
Chiles Relleno
Chicken Fried Steak
Peach cobbler, chili mac, french fried zucchini with ranch dressing, watermelon, green beans with bacon and potatoes, jalapeno cornbread, chocolate chip cookies, apple fritters, catfish and hushpuppies...
So how does Luby's take the sirloin part of the cow and suck the flavor out of it? Or do they buy their sides of beef pre-sucked?
Uh-oh . . . what's different about the bacon? Pinging Bacon Man for obvious personal interest reasons.
Sorry, I couldn't resist the terrible joke.
Oh please...A Brit criticizing food in America? This from the country of blood sausage and mushy peas? I'll agree we often go overboard in terms of portion size. As for choice, I'd rather have too many options than not enough.
Bud is the king of beers because it is the lowest common denominator. It isn't too dark, too light, too flavorful nor too bland.
It's the vanilla of beers.
Good question! The bacon fiend needs to know! :-P
Laugh - y'all are TOO funny...
Basically they're bacon is more like canadian bacon - I think they call our bacon.. the more fatty stuff "streaky bacon"
But it also isn't smoked like ours... so it's not as flavorful...
Course you all may have known this and I'm taking this all too seriously... hahahaha
I love food threads
I think the author needs to come back here and eat at Tony's in Birch Run MI. She could get a 1 lb. BLT. That is some good food!!
Looks like I won't be taking her out on a date. ;)
Canadian bacon!? That's not bacon, that's more like fried ham. Not that there's anything wrong with ham but it's certainly not bacon. Bacon should be hickory smoked, encrusted with black pepper, have ribbons of fat in it and be about the thickness of a CD case. You know it's really good bacon if after frying about a pound of it, you have enough grease left over to lube an SUV's suspension.
Great, now I'm hungry. :)
I like fish, but tentacles, raw fish and slugs aren't what I want for dinner.
I do believe that England and Ireland hold the world's record for 2,755 ways to make potatoes....I don't want potatoes daily, I don't even like french fries.
I believe a study on farmer's markets, fresh markets and fabulous simple restaurants would help our English party find out we have great selections and simplicity is best.
Not everyone likes to eat at Ryans, or those tasteless fill up joints.
yep - you've got it on the bacon - I LOVE real bacon...
It is rather like ham over there.. It was the lack of taste the I found yucky.. laugh..
And a little homemade vanilla ice cream with the cobbler! Lordy, Ah'm gittin' hungry!
I made a homemade fudge filled turtle cheesecake for a police picnic the other day. They were small slices, and believe me they could not eat more than one slice. You're very right about cheesecake being filling. One slice is all you need when it's so rich.
When I used to sell them to bakeries, people would buy them whole sometimes instead of by the slice. I know they didn't eat the whole thing in one sitting lol..
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