Friday, January 20, 2012
Food & Life Do you have a taste for shitty food?
Posted by Cliff Bostock @cliffbostock on Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 11:20 AM
John Cheese's latest column on Cracked.com is entitled "The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor". One of them is "You Develop a Taste for Shitty Food."
If you grew up poor, have been poor as a young adult, are poor now, or — most of all— if you are one of those people who just can't comprehend why anyone buys canned corn, please read it. A sample:
People who have never been poor love to point out overweight people in the ghetto and sarcastically exclaim, "Yeah, it really looks like she's starving!" And they have no idea that the reason many of them have weight problems is because everything they're putting into their bodies is dirt-cheap, processed bullshit. Grab a TV dinner and look at the nutritional information.
- myfitness.com
- Mmmm....fat and salt
Fresh food is expensive and takes forever to prepare. It goes bad quickly, so it requires multiple trips to the grocery store per week, which is something most impoverished people can't do. And since all of those time-saving frozen meals are high in salt and fat, they take up residence in the expanding asses of the people who can't afford anything else.
There's also a more shameful horror (please note sarcasm): growing up in a prosperous family and becoming a poor adult. That's me. It's long been my impression that many food bloggers and critics are from well-to-do families. It's not uncommon that they are subsidized by their families when young and, if not, often end up with significant credit card bills.
Even if you don't make writing about food your business, being a poor little rich kid as an adult can leave you with a sense of culinary entitlement way out of proportion to your income. I remember hosting dinner parties that left me with a $30 bank balance and no electricity for a week. I'm not exaggerating. Part of this was the ordinary impulsiveness of youth and I wised up eventually. I cut out the dinner parties and increased my balance to $98.60. Yeah, I remained poor and my father wrote the check that I taped at the last minute to the gas meter to avoid disconnection. (Did I mention I was working as editor of Creative Loafing then?)
I don't know any full-time critics these days who have a sufficient budget to do their best job of reviewing. That's why the blogs of the subsidized and those not depending on writing for a living often provide such a terrific resource.
Comments (7)
Showing 1-7 of 7
I think you're dead on describing the situation of the bloggers in Atlanta, myself included. I spend an outrageous amount of money on food, and grew up going to nice places.
Though I still marvel at the budgets of the super bloggers (dr tomo style, tasty bits, chuck eats, laissez fare, ulterior epicure, life worth eating). They'll eat at four of my bucket list restos in a week. And eat off-menu.
like
dislike
I don't buy this:
People who have never been poor love to point out overweight people in the ghetto and sarcastically exclaim, "Yeah, it really looks like she's starving!" And they have no idea that the reason many of them have weight problems is because everything they're putting into their bodies is dirt-cheap, processed bullshit. Grab a TV dinner and look at the nutritional information.
Typical liberal view - assign victim status and its not your fault. The fact is that "healthy food" is available everywhere - with a little bit of interest and knowledge anyone can eat a healthy diet. It does require effort - not a lot. I don't care how much money you make, it's up to the individual to take responsibility for their own lives...
I think you can eat healthy for not a lot of money. It's not necessarily the cost of the food (unless you're talking bullshit "organic" marketing), but I agree that there is an inconvenience to fresh food. One can purchase a whole chicken and cut it up and freeze for rather cheap. But it takes time. "Cheap & convenient" is the way to do it when one has little money and time. And that's usually where the questionable wholesomeness resides...
Geez, Bob. Did you actually read the link? You missed the first paragraph:
"As some of you know, until the last couple of years, I was poor as shit. The first 18 years, I was a kid and couldn't do anything about it. The next 17, I was still a kid and wouldn't do anything about it. I take full responsibility for that, and I don't point a finger at anyone for the way I lived. I dug my own hole."
Actually, did you even bother to read the title of the link?
Do you have a tendency to jump to conclusions? Maybe you're a victim of your own assumptions, to the degree that they cloud your immediate perception. Consider eating more carrots pulled freshly from the ground. You're welcome.
Jimmy: Do you remember when the ulterior epicure (whose blog I love) came out of the blogging closet? Eater interviewed him in depth and, despite the fact this guy eats all over the planet at outrageously expensive restaurants, they never asked him the obvious question (everybody's question): "How the fuck do you afford to do this?"
I know he was asked directly soon afterward and he said it was not family wealth but made no real explanation. Dunno if he's said more in the last year.
I think it's rude to ask people about their incomes generally, but when somebody is eating like Newt spends at Tiffany's, it's an obvious and fair question.
Tom: I prefer the stuff from Trader Joe's. Actually, I'm not even sure that the typical restaurant meal is healthier than a TV dinner.
Geez, Cliff I was specifically commenting on the a paragraph.
People "who have never been poor" (must be rich people) love to point out overweight people in the ghetto (innocent victims) and sarcastically exclaim, "Yeah, it really looks like she's starving (typical condescending evil rich bastard).
Well this is BS - I was commenting on class warfare implication of this statement - Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
At risk of sounding like a food ethnicist, I do believe that this tends to be more true for people who have more "Americanized" palates and appetites. We grew up poor in California, but being 1st generation Asian-American (I came to the States at the age of 6) and with my mother cooking, a typical meal at home was a small bowl of white rice that we would buy from the Asian markets by the 50-lb sack at a very reasonable price, along with family style dishes of stir-fried veggies with only a small portion of meats that my mom would buy when it was on sale and then frozen in bulk, defrosted when we had to use it. There was usually also a broth-y clear soup (usually chicken based, with cabbage or some other veggies) that helped take room in the belly at every meal. We never left the table hungry. But then again, I lived in a household where what you liked and didn't like was inconsequential... you still had to eat it. "Oh, you don't like eggplant? That's interesting - now finish your eggplant." And we would eat leftovers all the time so there was hardly ever any waste. Thankfully, pretty much everything my mom cooked was pretty healthy, and tasty, so I've grown up being a really easygoing eater...but still loving my meals at the WD-40s and French Laundrys of the country, now that I have the funds to do so. But in our youth, even with a very limited food budget our family rarely ate tv dinners, takeout, or fried foods. Think of it, even from a fast food perspective, the more authentic Asian restaurants provided a bigger bang for the buck, and less mess around your belly - e.g. a banh mi is $2.50, or for "fancy nights" you could splurge for a bowl of pho for as little as $5-6. Even now, when I'm trying to be healthy but still want a quick to-go meal, I'll head for the food courts at Assi, or maybe just get two tacos from Taco Veloz for less than $4 (no cheese or beans), bring them home and load them up with veggies and salsa. And no, places that serve General Tso's and orange chicken were also classified as "American" food at our house. Ugh, and so bad for you!
I've grown to be a very healthy 5'5" woman at 120 lb, and my brother is 6'2" (and maybe 170-ish?). I gotta admit though, eating the cheap bad stuff can be addictive - I love the $1.50 hot dog and soda from Costco - but my food upbringing while growing up in a poor family keeps me grounded, frugal, and healthy. Thus, I don't think it's just being poor that leads people to bad food decisions. I think even amongst the poor, gravitating towards the unhealthy stuff is in and of itself a culture.
Latest in Omnivore
-
Local restaurants honor the late Warren Bruno
Percentage of sales will be donated in Warren Bruno's honor.
-
Weekend food events, May 25-27: 3B Fest, a patio party, and more
Weekend events for Friday May 25 to Sunday May 27.
-
Waiting on Shaun Doty's chicken at Ansley Mall
It's a game of retail dominoes
- More »
More by Author
-
Mezza: Still among the city's best for Middle-Eastern cooking 1
Choose from well over 50 dishes
-
May Day means free food in Coan Park 1
Join the labor movement
- More »
