"Rona Yuthasastrakosol" > wrote in message
...
> "Frogleg" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > From "Tea" earlier in the thread: "But I would suspect
> > that most Chinese food in the US is horrid- just as most food in the
> > US is horrid."
> >
>
> "Most" isn't "everything". And it sounds to me like Tea has a problem
with
> the US, anyway, so I wouldn't put too much faith in his/her statement.

Actually, I don't have a problem with the US. Most of the food all humans
eat isn't very hot. We don't usually have time to make gourmet food, and
few people in the world can afford such things, except maybe at festivals.


> However, I would go so far to say "most" of the food in Canada, and likely
> the US, ethnic or otherwise is mediocre.

"Mediocre' is actually a much better word than 'horrid'. I'll agree to
that. But quite frankly, most of what we eat in the US at chain restaurants
is 'horrid'. It's not just mediocre. Food that is made up of seemingly
nothing more than salt, sugar, fat and cottony bread of all kinds is pretty
damn horrid, and that's what most of us eat. IF it were that great, you
wouldn't get people to watch cooking shows- they represent of pornographic
fantasia of what we would eat if we had time and/or money- just as fashion
and home magazines show us what we would like to have in an ideal world.
That said, I think most home cooking is pretty damn good, even (and maybe
especially) when it's not fancy and made from the heart. I think the US has
wonderful cuisines- we match up against some of the best in the world when
we aren't eating fast food crap or doing poor renditions of other people's
stuff (which is not to say that all ethnic restaurant food is a poor
rendition- far from it).

It has been said by cooks with far more knowledge than I that Americans are
insecure about food. We are also (wrongfully) insecure about culture and
dreadfully afraid of knowledge. At the same time we produce some of the
most interesting culture and knowledge in the world- and usually don't value
either until it gets translated back to us (think of the number of people
who have pooh-poohed Westerns but love Seven Samurai without ever learning
about John Ford, or who will trip over themselves to get Stones tickets
while ignoring the blues artists who were their direct influences).
I don't think many people would argue that Americans are living in the best
and worst of times at once, food-wise. We have better artisanal breads,
cheeses, beers, wines and fruits available than ever before- and most people
are grossly overweight from eating at Wendy's while out and making Kraft Mac
'n' Cheese at home. We have great local cuisines- some of which are dying
because we are so busy learning Tuscan cooking. It isn't as if we don't
have 'peasant' foods here, whether homegrown, transplanted, or fusionized.

I hapen to love American food, in all its mutated, *******ized glory.
Everything from homemade macaroni and cheese to totally nasty Wonder Bread
and American cheese sandwiches. I like American food even when it is
horrid, when I'm in the right mood, or I wouldn't drool over White Castle.
But liking it doesn't mean I think everything I long to eat is good, or even
mediocre, anymore than my inexplicable desire to watch 'The Beastmaster'
every it comes on tv elevates that movie above the level of trash to which
it truly belongs. That movie is horrid, not mediocre. My love for it is
indefensible. So is my love for pork rinds and Dr. Pepper, and so is my
Chinese neighbor's love of chicken feet. The difference is, unlike most
people in the US, I'm not going to defend my love of such things, or pretend
that my adoration is ironic or kitschy, or that such a desire doesn't really
reflect a momentary lapse of reason. I love crtain things for the same
reason a woman will love her baby even if it is ugly- because it is
familiar, and simply just because.

Now, if you want to say that the average American simply eats medicre food,
knowing that it's mediocre, ok. I would argue that the average American-
like the average person anywhere in the world- eats mediocre food, even
downright bad food, and thinks it is the best thing ever. That may not
strike you as horrid, but it strikes me that way, especially since in the
US, at least, most of us do have a choice not to eat non-stop crap. If we
didn't have a choice, you wouldn't be on a list called alt.food.asian, there
wouldn't be a slowly growing 'slow food' movement, and 'Iron Chef' wouldn't
have anyone watching it. Lots of people think most food in the US is so
horrid that instead of buying crappy cookies from Keebler, they are learning
how to bake for the first time in their lives. I suspect the same thing is
happening in every part of the world where people are digging out old and
new recipes, many of which were once thought of as 'traditional', and
adapting them to modern life. I salute them. Crappy, badly made, over-salted
and chemicalized fatty food that takes years off your life and deadens your
soul is fine as a lark once in a while, but if you make a diet of it- well,
you are what you eat.

If most of the food people in the US eat is not horrid- horrid being the
opposite of tasty, satisfying and reasonably good for you- why is it that we
learn to cook from magazines and books, and not from our parents? Why does
it kill us and rot our insides? Why do we have to designate certain foods as
'tasty, satisfying and reasonably good for you' while charging a premium-
isn't that what 'organic' and 'free-range' and 'gourmet' and 'artisanal'
mean to most people? I for one think it's horrid that poor people can't
afford a normal chicken from a farm, one that does not have tumors from
being pumped with stroids and growth hormones, one that actually tastes like
a chicken, without having to pay top dollar for it. It's more than
mediocre- it's a crime. It's a crime that most American children have never
tasted fresh squeezed lemonade, and think that 'Countrytime' brand is like
the real thing. I have a feeling that underneath, you think the same thing,
since you strike me as a thoughtful person. When chickens served on almost
100% of American tables don't taste like real chickens- and they don't- the
word 'horrid' doesn't seem like too much of an exaggeration. Forget
'authenticity'. If you have all the right ingredients but those ingredients
don't taste like anything, the biggest problem is not whether you are
faithfully recreating a recipe from Thailand or even Vermont. The question
is whether you are eating something that is worth putting in your mouth- and
that seems to be a growing problem to people all over the world, or there
wouldn't be so much screaming about irradiation, hormones, steroids, and
factory farming pretty much everywhere on the planet.