The Internet Food Association

Food Politics: Foodies and Their Liberal Politics

November 12, 2009 · 3 Comments

By Kay Steiger

Hunch, a site that uses “collective knowledge” to answer questions, released a report on “food-related preferences” by those on either side of the political spectrum. It’s worth reading the whole thing because it’s hilariously apt: liberals prefer arugula and “bistro-style” fries to meat and deep-dish pizza; conservatives classify Velveeta as “cheese” and accept Iceberg lettuce as an adequate means of eating plants. The survey confirms a lot of stereotypes about what liberals and conservatives eat, though the report doesn’t seem scientific by any measure.

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To me this survey might be more indicative of cultural differences in America. Since I hail from the rural part of Minnesota, much of the food in the left, or “conservative,” column matched my palate when I lived there. Once I moved to an urban area (and, incidentally, became more liberal on a lot of issues, including food policy), my palate changed. I ate food with more spices and made a point to consume more fresh fruit. Urban areas tend to be more liberal and they also tend to have a more diverse selection of food. It’s no accident that fresh fruit and arugula are more popular in “liberal,” i.e. urban, areas.

We can still find some common ground. Roughly the same amount of liberals and conservatives wouldn’t spent more than $100 on a bottle of wine and a solid majority of both groups found a bacon double cheeseburger delicious.

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Where Hegemony Goes, It Leaves Behind Plastic Otis Spunkmeyer Wrappers

November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

jingletruckBy Spencer Ackerman
Griel Marcus’ Lipstick Traces has an Afghanistan-centric coda, as tales are told of markets arising across that benighted country to sell purloined American goods. Those of us who’ve been to Afghanistan can testify to the pervasive logistical reliance on so-called jingle trucks — the garish, flaired-up convoys that traverse Afghanistan’s barely-existent roads, fighting off Taliban and corrupt policemen, in order to resupply U.S. bases, among other destinations. The Christian Science Monitor brings word of what happens after a jingle-truck looting:

In front of Tor’s shop was a nearly waist-high, three-deep wall of boxed food that apparently had been destined for military chow halls. There were cases of pre-cooked cheddar gravy sausage biscuits (forbidden to Muslims, who don’t eat pork), and dozens of flats of the Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and white chocolate macadamia cookies that soldiers often get at mealtime.

If you’ve ever eaten at a DFAC in Iraq or Afgh– sorry, that’s dining facility; force of habit –in Iraq or Afghanistan, you’ll be familiar with the glut of real-’Murkin comfort food items. Otis Spunkmeyer is high on the list. The Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad was stocked filled with apple OS muffins, ready to crumble into my mouth come breakfast or snacktime. It seems cruel to serve those to deployed troops and diplomats: they’re, shall we say, low quality. I can see a Pashtun militiaman sidling into Tor’s place to taste what his adversaries eat and misconstrue much about the dietary integrity of both the American fighting man and the American palette.

Also, I’ve been reliably informed that the cafeteria of the Blackwater training center in Moyock, North Carolina provides a lovely multi-fruit drink called Passo-Orange-Guava. Once we brought baseball wherever the Marines landed; now, high-fructose corn syrup.

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Black Is The Light That Shines On My Path; Black Is The Color Of A Bland Taco

November 11, 2009 · 7 Comments

By Spencer Ackerman

You’ve seen those ads for the Black Taco from Taco Bell? They’re good enough at marketing to convince me — someone who has nothing to do with Taco Bell unless I’m contemplating its combination with Pizza Hut on Jamaica Avenue in an absurdist and momentarily-amusing way — to try one. Mistake.

This weekend I found myself out in Northern Virginia for mysterious professional reasons, a trip that took me, too early in the day, to a mall food court. The person I was there to meet wanted some Taco Bell. I figured, what the hell, let’s try the Black Taco. Sure, it’s just a taco in a blue-corn shell. But the advertising, as I say, worked.

Maybe it’s because I am no longer the vegan hardcore kid who wandered into northern New Jersey in search of blastbeats and mosh parts, sating his hunger with the soft bean tacos, awash in fire sauce. Maybe it’s because I am now increasingly a food snob. But that is one bland, flavorless taco. The shell does not even taste of blue corn. The cheese is probably oil-based. Ugh, never again.

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Enough with the Cupcakes!

November 11, 2009 · 17 Comments

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photo courtesy of flickr user QuintanaRoo, used under a Creative Commons license

by Sara Mead

The neighborhood my office is in has a new street vending truck–Curbside Cupcakes. I learned this yesterday when I went to the ATM. Not because the Curbside Cupcakes truck was parked outside the bank, mind you–I’m not that observant. N0, the Curbside Cupcakes truck had caused a long line at the ATM, as people walked past the truck on the street; just had to have a cupcake; learned the truck took only cash, not credit; still really, really had to have a cupcake; and popped into the bank to grab some cash. My first thought: Strategic location selection on Curbside Cupcakes’ part. My second thought: Maybe this whole cupcake thing has gone just a wee bit too far.

Now, to be clear, I’m not knocking cupcakes in general. They’re miniature! They’re whimsical! They’re vaguely childlike! They’re sugary and very much not good for me! In other words, pretty much the kind of thing I, by definition, have to love. But it’s time to stand up to the hegemony of schmancy pants boutique cupcake stores. They’ve already taken over the tonier and gentrifying quarters of New York City, and now every time I turn around, it seems like there’s a new cupcake joint popping up in D.C.–in Chinatown, in DuPont, now on the street outside my office (Georgetown is not worth mentioning). I say: Enough is enough!

What’s my beef with schmancy cupcakes?

Keep reading →

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Daily Food Porn: Roast Chicken

November 6, 2009 · 3 Comments

By Kay Steiger

roast chicken

by Flickr user cscan (Creative Commons license)

 Cscan makes a classic roast chicken. Yum! This photo, as usual, comes from the IFA Food Porn photo pool.

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Daily Food Porn: Oysters and Garlic Bread

November 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

By Kay Steiger

oysters

by Flickr user queenieinmanhattan (Creative Commons license)

Queenie shows these oysters from the Marshall Store in Marshall, California on her epic West Coast trip. This photo, as usual, comes from the IFA Food Porn photo pool.

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Why Go to Culinary School?

November 5, 2009 · 13 Comments

By Ben Miller

Mike I. and Robin may not have gotten along on Top Chef, but they did have one thing in common–they were the only two remaining contestants to not have formal culinary training (At least according to the faulty Bravo bios. In the comments, someone posted a video where Mike says he attended the New York Restaurant School, now known as the Art Institute of New York City, which no longer appears to offer culinary degrees). With Mike’s dismissal last week, that makes Fast-talking Robin may be the only universally disliked contestant among the remaining chefs, but that’s not the only attribute that sets her apart from her competitors—she’s the only one still standing who does not have a formal culinary education.

Last year, I wrote a post discussing the merits of culinary school based upon information about student loan repayment from the U.S. Department of Education and in the context of the training of contestants on Top Chef (a really robust data set, I know).

Well, it just so happened that last season’s winner, Hosea, was the first Top Chef champion to not have formal culinary training. And he was one of only two contestants that season to fall into that category.

This year’s squad had a higher representation from the self-taught group with five four chefs that lacked formal training: Robin, Mike I., Jesse, Jennifer Z. (the one who got knocked out first), and Ash. Michael Voltaggio, meanwhile, did his training as part of an apprenticeship program, though he does not have a degree in the field.

Debating the merits of culinary school for success on Top Chef is a fun exercise, but it is a far more relevant question for the tens of thousands of students that attend one of these schools in the hopes of furthering career goals. Given the high price tags of these institutions, especially relative to the expected starting salaries for chefs and cooks,  determining the importance of this type of education is important for ensuring that students aren’t taking on unnecessary debt.

Though the data options are fairly limited, analysis I did over at my work blog, the Quick and the Ed, suggests that people taking on student loan debt at culinary schools actually defaulted on their loans at a lower rate than other institutions within their sector. (In other words, a culinary institute that is a for-profit, two-year institution has a lower default rate than the aggregate default rate of all students at for-profit, two-year colleges.) But borrowers at culinary schools do default at a rate not that far from the national average: eight of the 15 culinary schools or systems with data available had default rates close to or above the national average.

Of course these results need to be highly qualified. There are many institutions that have some culinary school students, such as Johnson and Wales University, that cannot be included because they offer several other educational options whose students cannot be separated out. Second, it’s highly likely that the student populations between a culinary school and other institutions are not equivalent–I would guess that most people are not making decisions between culinary and nursing school or social work. Without being able to control for demographic characteristics it’s impossible to be sure that attending a culinary school actually provides better repayment outcomes than institutions in the same sector.

It’s also worth noting that repaying your loan and succeeding in the industry are not necessarily the same thing. And that ultimately is the deeper question about the merits of culinary school–is culinary school a requirement for success in the field?

Here’s my own personal theory, but feel free to share yours in the comments:

The only way to really get good at cooking and being a chef is to do it.* Honing knife skills, plating, flavor profiles, everything of that sort does not happen overnight. Finding time to do this on your own is not easy, and getting a chance to do this in a restaurant without already knowing at least most of these things is probably impossible. In that respect, culinary school probably is an important part of becoming a chef for all but the most incredibly talented individuals. By providing a structured and dedicated amount of time to cook, culinary school thus ensures that people actually work on those skills and help them develop. In that respect it serves a valuable purpose for the time commitment involved, not just the content knowledge that may be picked up along the way.

There are two other ways that culinary school can be worthwhile. It can provide important information about business practices and how to handle the managerial side of a restaurant, something the New York Times wrote about last week. It also may allow for networking opportunities and connection building that would not occur otherwise. In that case, I’d more liken culinary school to business school.

That being said, there are no guarantees that culinary school will be worthwhile. Bad facilities, incorrect teaching, or a lack of individual dedication, are among the many factors that could end up making the education a disservice to people enrolled.

Culinary school is a significant investment of time, money, and resources. For some who choose to pursue it, the experience ends up being worthwhile, but others may feel differently. Why that is, though, still remains to be seen.

*Obviously some people are freakishly talented, but even in those cases you will often hear them talking about beginning to cook at the age of three or having spent lots of time in restaurants growing up.

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Dick Armey, Big Shot

November 4, 2009 · 6 Comments

By Matthew Yglesias

800px-Barbacoa_taco 2

Solid anecdotes make a profile work:

Later, in North Carolina, we sat down to dinner, and he said: “You ever see that Danny DeVito movie, I think it was Danny DeVito, where he says big shots never order off the menu? They just say what they want.” We were at an On the Border, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain and not the type of place I imagine many big shots patronize, but he pushed the menu aside without reading it and told the waiter what he wanted the kitchen to cook up for him.

Tragically, we don’t get to find out what he ordered. Personally I have a weakness for kinda shitty Tex-Mex food. But surely part of the reason you don’t need to look at the menu at a place like this is that the menu is completely predictable. Walking into an Indian restaurant and ordering tandoori chicken without looking at the menu doesn’t make you a big shot, it just means you’ve figured out that Indian restaurants all carry this dish.

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Pie in Your Hand: Pumpkin Bars

November 4, 2009 · 4 Comments

By Mandy Simon

Last year I became obsessed with making lemon bars and, after getting a little cocky, I started to improvise and made clementine bars. This fall, with a pumpkin carving party looming, I wondered if I couldn’t apply the bar rule to pumpkin pie. I figured it’d be easier to feed 15 or so people with bars than a pie. Plus, who doesn’t want a nice little piece of pumpkin pie that fits right in the palm of your hand? Idiots, that’s who.

To make the pumpkin bars, I smooshed two recipes together – my go-to lemon bar recipe (Ina Garten via Smitten Kitchen) for the crust and a basic pumpkin pie filling recipe.

There were a baking time adjustments, though. For one, I didn’t pre-bake the crust for as long as the recipe called for. I also wanted to cut down on the time the filling was in the oven given it would be covering a larger area and would obviously much thinner than it would be in a pie dish.

Keep reading →

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Daily Food Porn: Lemon Tart

November 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

By Kay Steiger

lemon tart

by Flickr user eejones (Creative Commons license)

EEJones decided to combat the depressing weather in the coming winter months by making a tasty and cheerful lemon tart. (Elsewhere on her blog you can see photos of her very cute dog.) This photo, as usual, comes from the IFA Food Porn photo pool.

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