Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The Epitome of...

Are you someone who leaves the crust after devouring all the "important parts" of a pizza slice? By the time you get to the built-in handle it's usually cold and unappealing to ram into your orifice. Try eating the pizza backwards next time. By backwards I mean crust first. While I let your mind recover after blowing it, I'd like to remind you that the base of this delicious, all-in-one, goombah, dish relies on a specifically crafted crust. If you're throwing it out it just means you aren't enjoying it to it's fullest and you're probably getting ripped off.

Scott Rao, author of the new espresso bible, once asked, "Are you enjoying that?" It's a simple question we often avoid (or forget) asking ourselves because we think we're getting what we pay for. This relegates the more economically endowed to be the sole beneficiary of culinary delight. Get fucked. Why can't you pay a fair price for something that should be standardized as "fair for others to consume".

McDonald's food is by no means cheap (for that you look to ethnic foods) and what you're paying for is certainly not quality but rather, the means for them to skull fuck you through marketing. We don't need to get into the gory with that one because no one is fooled and we know crack-cocaine when we see it. I'm talking about when the other night I stepped into (we'll hide the name for the time being) Pizza Joint X and ordered two, no nonsense, pepperoni slices and scarfed them down round-side first, point-side last, I thought to myself, "This ain't bad, because if the crust is already this good, the rest must be rockin'." And it was. For a mere three and a half dockets I had a decent amount of toppings, gooey cheese, average sauce, and good crust. It wasn't no potato crust, with homemade pesto, topped with feta, artichokes, and smoked salmon joint (made by yours truly) but it was three fucking fifty. Both parties walked away feeling like they didn't get ripped off. Is that really too much to ask?


Cheap food doesn't necessarily have to be shit innit? On the other hand places like Fresh are making a killing off of a trend they can't even claim as their own. They're just capitalizing on the ignorant masses scared into thinking that if they stopped eating a certain thing they'll be able to squeeze into their stretchy yoga pants or maybe their fake'n bake won't look as fluorescent if everything they consumed was CERTIFIED ORGANIC. At least McDonald's created their own image and put in the effort to make up fun-loving cartoon characters. The owners of Fresh should be shot for putting together the words "miso" and "gravy" together. Anyone with any real knowledge knows there isn't even three (cost) dollars worth of food in those fifteen dollar plates of piss-poorly prepared "ethnically influenced" dishes.

The problem, as well, is that food can be subjective on top of economics and you can't tell a dog who's eating shit, that he's eating shit. Someone who is raised on toonie Tuesdays isn't going to have as much of a discerning palette and therefore retain the idea of value = quantity. It's helpless but to each their own. But for some who can actually cook (and cook well) for themselves won't necessarily like things done the same way. Bacon can be done crispy or stringy and sometimes it's hard to discern subjective critics apart from personal preferences. It's not always so clear cut. One way of getting past it is asking the magic Rao question. Deviations from personal preferences don't necessarily ruin the experience but would rather be further enhanced by modifying certain attributes of the approach thus the enjoyment is still present. Other times you're just fucked in the head like everyone else. The acquisition of attaining the "full enjoyment" of a product doesn't require a fundamental change of the original structure, therefore it is clear to discern the level of quality also intentions.

So eating a pizza crust first lets me cuts through the bullshit (MOST of the time) and figure out their intentions. Any takers?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

let me see if I understand you:

enjoyment is relative to cost. enjoyment is relative to quality. enjoyment has nothing to do with marketing or "organic" or "miso gravy".

but isn't enjoyment based in perspective? what if i'm office-type who cares more about stretchy pants than my stretched bank account?

don't i enjoy my fifteen dollar fresh "bullshit" more than a four dollar slice of chubs-express pizza?

i get what you're saying about getting one's money's worth (the eating the pizza backwards thing i totally agree with on principle, but funny enough i almost never eat it that way, but i always eat the crust). i also get what ur saying about over priced food when it probably isn't healthier or tastier.

but the idea that someone who has been successfully duped into thinking it is healthier and/or is tastier doesn't enjoy it more is crap. of course they enjoy it more, cause it's all in their head anyway.

lexo said...

You definitely have a point Evan.

Perspective certainly weighs in as a cause of enjoyment. But the enjoyment I was more trying to get at was the relative value vs. cost. If I KNOW the junk food (ie chubby's-express pizza) was made well (relieving it of the junk category) and priced accordingly, I may not be as flabbergasted.

Fresh is perpetuating this ridiculous notion that to eat healthy (and trendy) you need to go spend a ludicrous amount of money.