Food?

As you can guess from the title, this one’s about … well, food. I’ve noticed a phenomenon among highly educated people as I accumulate more time behind the walls of the university, and it concerns their food. There seems to be a correlation between the level of education attained and the avoidance of what most of us would call normal fare in favor of exotic, or in many cases, downright disgusting comestibles. I’ve observed a trend towards what I call yuppie fare, and it is the nature of yuppie fare as well as the causes for seeking it out that I wish to explore.

                First, what do I mean by yuppie fare. Yuppy fare is hereby defined as food eaten with an accompanying sense of pretention, or an accompanying scorn for plainer fare. For example,  go to the Bread Company on Oregon in Champaign and attempt to order a grilled cheese. What you will get is a sandwich that does indeed have melted cheese on it; however, last time I checked, the preparers felt it necessary to put either tomatoes or black olives on the sandwich, other toppings available upon request. Now since when did this simple comfort food, which is not healthy and is not generally supposed to be so (not that I have anything against healthful foods, but everything in its place if you please) need to take on the attributes of yuppiedom? Don’t like that example? Let me offer a few more. Go to the Golden Roast in Knoxville Tennessee and order a tuna salad sandwich. You won’t get one. You will get an open-faced half pita, first of all. In this pita there will indeed be tuna fish, but you will in it mixed with a distressing admixture of sliced apples, chopped nuts and several other vegetables and fruits which, at first glance, do not appear to belong to a good old tuna salad sandwich, or wrap, or pita, or … whatever it is. At this same coffee shop you can order gazpacho in summer. Now if you like gazpacho, fine, but most Americans, especially those like myself who were born south of Mason and Dickson’s line, do not like, or in academy speak, disprefer cold vegetable soup, which is essentially what the stuff is, a chilled tomato-based broth filled with raw veggies. Hence, cold vegetable soup. Nothing, in short, that a microwave couldn’t fix. Now before anyone charges me with not liking dishes of foreign origin such as gazpacho, I should put out there that I enjoy a wide variety of ethnic foods on a regular basis, so keep quiet. As a further example, let’s consider hummus. Now I personally like hummus. But I like it as it is intended to be eaten. That is to say, as a ground puree of chickpeas that is consumed with small slices of warm pita bread. This is a snack, appetizer or in some places a breakfast throughout the Middle East. Yet at several places in Champaign, as well as in other college towns such as Knoxville, hummus has become a sandwich topping. I have seen perfectly good hamburgers and chicken sandwiches topped with “cheese and a generous portion of humas”’ note the misspelling, according to one menu. Hummus is not, repeat not, a sandwich topping. But places like Knoxville’s Copper Seller pride themselves on it. Let me include one final illustrative example. The Chicago River Hotel is a decent hotel in downtown. I forget its star rating, but it’s prices are low considering where it is, that is, just off the start of Chicago’s magnificent mile. Now then, order a turkey and cheese from room service. What might you expect. Well it’s an Italian restaurant, so we’ll change the name to a Panini and get on with it. Turkey, cheese, lettuce and tomato, maybe onion and some sort of mayo or some such, right? … almost. The sandwich, as is, comes with turkey, brie cheese, a green apple slice and, I kid you not, cranberry mayonnaise. I’ve tried it. Now is there any reason to do this? As for me, being as well-exposed to food as I am, I didn’t even know cranberry mayo existed, nor would it have occurred to me to put an apple slice on a hot toasted sandwich. But then, if I’m room service and am charging $14 for the sandwich, maybe it would then have occured to me to do so.

                Now I said at the start that I wanted to consider the types of people who regularly order such things as I’ve listed above. I realize that there are exceptions to what I’m going to say, and if you are an exception, it is so noted. My girlfriend, for instance, doesn’t go in for this sort of food, but she did enjoy the turkey sandwich, unfortunately. I am talking about the greater majority of people I’ve observed eating this crap. Remember I said there was a correlation between education and food choice? I’ve noticed that it’s mostly grad students and professors, mostly in the humanities, who order this swill. For instance, you’ll never see barbecue or fried chicken at an academic function, ever. If you did, I’d enjoy them a lot more than I do. Lastly, you tend to see a disproportionate number of vegetarians in the ranks of the humanities. Why? Well there are a lot of reasons for becoming a vegetarian, but the one I have the least patience for is the social protest. There are people who don’t like how our meat-production industries kill, clean, sing about, package, price and otherwise handle meats intended for human consumption. So, to protest these practices, they go veggie on you. I’ll never forget my encounter with a grad student in another department, who engaged me in a lengthy discussion, trying her hardest to convince me of the moral rightness of her position. This tendency to attach ethical or moral concerns to vegetarianism is the bit that really causes me to lose patience with this type of person. Her concluding remark was, “as intelligent as you are, if you continue to eat meat, then that tells me you’re either willfully uninformed, or there’s something morally and ethically lacking in your character, because how could you knowingly eat meat, being fully aware of what happened to that animal.” My response? “One bite at a time.”

                So, I launch my own protest. I do this in full knowledge of what I am demographically speaking, namely a highly educated person pursuing an advanced degree at a research 1 institution. Ok, having established my bonifieds as far as my entrée into yuppiedom is concerned, here’s my pledge. You will not find this crap, either the aforementioned crap or the myriad dishes and wanabee foods I haven’t listed, in my home or at any function over which I have charge. When I, in future, invite fellow faculty to our home for a get-together, real food will be served, including meats. Real drinks will be served, not simply wines and sparkling water, and it will taste good. It will taste good, not because it satisfies the elitist nature of the academy’s food choices, but because it will actually … be … good. Take five. And thanks.