This thread is turning into a variant of “_____” was better in the past. The nostalgia of how everything was better when you were younger.
I am in the camp of things get better with time. Cooking and dining is so much easier and better than it used to be. And the farther you go back in time, the more true that is.
I agree w/you, also a lot of this angst is cookware not being sold in brick and mortars much anymore, which is true for everything. I’m pretty sure most people on this board take pleasure in cooking, but we ain’t everybody.
Yeah. Some of my meals are fast, but some take some previous works. For example, I can make some very fast wonton noodle soup in 5 minute, but the wontons were prep ahead. The soup/broth was prep ahead. Same as many of my Japanese style meals too. Some of the ingredients are done ahead. So sometime some plannings or earlier works are needed.
I remember vividly back in college that I discussed with friend that cooking at home is faster than eating out. Eating out… I need to bike/drive to a place (back then we bicycle more than driving), get seated, wait for the food to come out…and then bike/drive back home. I think the two biggest challenges for home cooking are 1) “tiredness” mentioned in the poll and also 2) “plan ahead”. I need to plan ahead for what foods to buy, what foods are leaf at the refrigerator, when to start thawing food, marinate the food the night before… Thawing food takes no effect, but one need to think ahead. Doing take out and frozen meal significantly reduce these requirements.
Third… I suppose… if one is cooking for a family then another challenge is: how to ensure family members like the foods. Many people (children particle) love McDonald, frozen meals say Stouffer’s… so many parents find it easier just to do take-out or frozen meals instead of spending hours in something that their family members may dislike.
I have this debate with a colleague all the time. We both use cars as an example, and both of us are right about different aspects.
The “easier” part is hard to argue with; the “better” part, not so much. It’s not really a matter of nostalgia versus technophilia, either.
If appreciation and satisfaction rank highly within “better”, then IMO we haven’t seen a lot of betterment lately in most things cooking and dining.
I think our dining options are better, certainly more varied. I was on a taco thread, and it listed lots of old school taco places. IMO none holds a candle to our food truck scene. Ditto for the worlds of pizza and burgers. It was not that long ago that the idea of a thick, MR patty of freshly ground brisket and tenderloin on a butter griddled brioche bun, with aioli, roasted green chiles, pickled onions, and white cheddar would have been ground breaking. You can still find a well done patty on a grocery store bun with wilted lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of onion, and 1000 island, but mercifully it is not the norm it was only half a century ago. Italian dining now showcases multiple Italian cuisines and is no longer red sauce and garlic bread.
Eh, it depends where you are. 90% of smalltown America is worse off than before the Pandemic. And there are fewer haute and upscale places than before. Fast Food and bad chains continues their expansions.
But if you live someplace where food truck culture is vibrant, I can see how you might think things are better.
I think food trucks have invaded everywhere, and to our benefit.
Not just coastal elite enclaves.
The pandemic, at least here, seemed to inspire many to go into business and we have many more trucks and pods than previously. Not sure of your definition of small town USA.
Hardly. Why anyone assumes a food truck equates with better food is perplexing. More choices in more (selective) places, sure.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t say better.
You had me at “benefit”.
Could competition be something “to our benefit”?
One little question, and a long answer…
Yes, it could, but it wouldn’t be an intrinsic benefit. You would hope for the competition and evolution to be Darwinian–toward better food–but sadly that’s seldom the case, IMO.
IME, there was a lemming-like profusion of restaurants (in cities) pre-Pandemic, and overall it was a bad thing, because it drove many established places over the same cliff. Many who aspired to take their places also perished then, and many more later when Covid hit. At least in the big city I know, what was left of fine and sitdown places largely became unreliable flashes in the pan, with increasingly shorter half lives.
There may be more “choices”, but there is far less hospitality and conviviality.
To “wouldn’t be an intrinsic benefit,” I would insert “always.” In a city large enough to have layers of cuisine ranging from fine dining to frozen pizza at 7-11, there are strata that target diners seeking newer, different, and better things. In those niches competition often promotes new entrants who gleefully tackle those challenges. The humble taco was once the home of the homemade tortilla. Then it moved to hand made. Now it is handmade and home nixtamalized thanks to new entrants raising the bar. They have also moved mole from the deep brown sauce we have always known into green, orange, red, and yellow moles and moved the fillings from ground beef and shredded chicken to meats done al carbon to carnitas to duck and many other proteins and from thereto adventures in nopales, jicama, beets, and other vegetables. The need for serious cooks to keep up with evolving tastes is pretty intense here. Food centered conviviality is a widely shared consumer passion.
IMO, the sheer numerosity of taco trucks is not an intrinsic benefit, unless you’re starting with zero.
E.g., if you start with no accessible Nepalese stands/trucks, then I suppose getting one–of whatever quality–is a benefit. Actually, having too many of any flavor of truck could be considered a detriment.
You’re just being silly.
The marketplace will decide who stays and who goes away.
I think kaleo means common people do not know what they really need (vs what they want).
That being said… @kaleokahu what is wrong with taco truck (as opposed to the dirty water hot dog stands)? There are always cheap and fast food. It just comes in different forms.
Common people
don’t like tasty food?
Or…?
This thread certainly took a dark turn.
Kaleo can speak to what he meant.
But I can imagine the discussion can be common people may not advance culinary. McDonald and frozen dinners are certainly fast and profitable, but are they advancing culinary … maybe, maybe not.
I guess looping back to cookware (Bed Bath Beyond) is that the coffee pod machine is fast and popular, but they are not great for the art of coffee… I don’t know.
I think a large number of generic fast food places like McD, Wendy’s, BK, etc. has no intrinsic benefit other than convenience. I think having a lot of food trucks has a benefit. They are competing on the usual criteria such as quality, variety, convenience, and price or value. Given that a lot of trucks will quickly saturate the market, an individual truck owner and crew will try to gain an edge and build allegiance. A food truck has a hard time expanding its menu due to space constraints, and there are no real easy ways to be more convenient since food trucks tend to congregate at specific group sites. So it comes down to quality and pricing. Quality can take many forms including the quality of the ingredients, the quality of the cooking and serving, and the quality of the menu. Really good menu items that are not readily available elsewhere set a truck apart and help solidify a following. It was love at first bite when I had a bulgogi burger with an amazing sauce, caramelized kimchi, grilled onions, and a fried egg. It was love at first bite when I had a jalapeño Maine lobster roll. It was love at first bite when I had a duck enchilada with a green mole. The competitive world of food trucks made people explore and expand their cuisines. Meanwhile Big Macs, Whoppers, cheese singles, etc. change very little over many years.
