Good point. Like one of our boxed, or flex packaged foods, pemmican was made to travel and last. Tamales are a PITA with substantial time and effort. Perfect Sunday kind of effort.
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Excellent example there! I only put a couple drops of lemon juice on my raw oysters, and let the oysters do the rest.
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I think, if I even so much as had to look at The Cure when I was hung over , I would vomit copiously
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Frequent Japan traveler here.
I have had lots of very top shelf sushi, and I have never seen anything like those spicy dragon roll things there. If they exist, they are purely for tourists who are looking for them. I consider them to be either Chinese or Korean food. Definitely NOT Japanese. And double yuck on the fake wasabi. To quote the old soul tune, “ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby”.
This is not to say you shouldn’t enjoy a dragon roll. I just wouldn’t call it “sushi”.
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I direct your attention here:
The purist sticklers to rebels who don’t like labels spectrum is becoming more polarized on HO!
I’m all for trying a torched rainbow roll or a spicy green dragon roll, and I don’t really give a hoot whether someone else doesn’t consider it sushi. Doesn’t mean I won’t appreciate a $32 piece of nigiri sushi.
I also miss the Taco Bell Encherito (RIP). I don’t eat Taco Bell very often, but I enjoy it when I do. I’m not going to compare TB Gorditas to indie Menudo. That’s like comparing manzanas to naranjas.
I like cheap authentic tacos as well as cheap Taco Bell tacos. It’s not either/or for me.
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TBH I will never understand why one would prefer a lesser quality, mass produced dish over the better version. I’m far from a food snob, and perhaps longing for a McDonald’s or Taco Bell meal is mostly due to a nostalgia I don’t share, but we have an Oaxaca style taco place in town, and I would never ever eat Taco Bell over their fantastic street food tacos – which is certainly not gourmet food, but fantastic 
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Don’t think of it as “lesser” quality, just different. I am a cheese snob. I need my Di Palo’s fresh mozzarella, my Cato Corner Hooligan, my Valley Shepherd Prairie Breeze. And I also need my Kraft Deli Deluxe, because you can’t make a proper egg & cheese sandwich with any of the fancy cheeses.
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It wouldn’t be a rule without a few exceptions 
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Indeed.
If you look at @Phoenikia 's comment above, that’s more or less it. It’s not an either/or.
They are distinct things that are part of a larger category. A taco bell taco is not LESS THAN a good al pastor or carnitas taco from your favorite taqueria. It’s DIFFERENT. They are both called tacos, and they both use corn tortillas (of a sort) and that might be where the similarities end. And that seems fine.
A Chicago-style deep dish pizza is miles away from a Neapolitan marinara or margherita. LOTS of people strongly prefer one to the other. But “ugh, how can you eat cheese/tomato soup in a bread bowl” will not win you any friends. Nor will “how can you eat burnt cheese on bad focaccia?” win you admirers in Detroit.
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I have a fondness for Kraft mac from my single days (altho even back then I would doctor it up significantly), but I’d be hard-pressed to buy it again. OTOH, I’m not crazy about ‘fancier’ mac made from scratch either.
As for using 'murrcan cheese on a burger (or breakfast sammie, I suppose) is just natural, bc it is the perfect melty cheese for a simple dish. I don’t understand why people need to elevate a burger with all kinds of fancy cheeses, foie, or other stuff.
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I also make exceptions if you saw, they are just different from yours or others.
To me Taco Bell is tasteless, akin to baby food, and I pretty much feel the same way about McDonald’s, despite both places’ massive popularity. As someone who has a fairly limited calorie budget, I simply prefer to eat foods I actually LIKE.
Taste is subjective, and certainly no reason to lose friends over (at least not in my crowd).
Having said that, F Chicago-style pizza or Detroit-style pizza. It won’t cross my lips. That is different than saying
Let people enjoy what they like, discuss the differences, and don’t take it personally. It’s just food, FFS
I do something very similar with cucumbers.
- Japanese cucumbers
- Quartered, then “smashed”
- Marinate in rice wine vinegar, chopped and minced garlic, juice from grated ginger, sugar, salt and white pepper.
- Toss
- Refrigerate overnight
- Eat.
Not sure if that qualifies as “less is more” or “more is more” but it is definitely more delicious than just regular cukes.
Which is why I also prefer “pristine” fish as sashimi or nigiri over crunchy rolls with 3 different mayo sauces. I enjoy the simple, clean flavor of the star of the dish. Tons of sauces, tempura, etc. just cover up (presumably) mediocre fish 
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Exactly so! But that mediocre fish isn’t bad. It’s just… mediocre. And it’s cheaper than the really good fish. Cheaper by ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE than the BEST fish. You can get nigiri at those super-whatever roll places. And it’s… fine. It’s fish on rice. As long as it hasn’t gone off, you throw some soy sauce and “wasabi” on it and it’s lunch you don’t feel like you ate a grease bomb. Or you spring for super-whatever and get some avocado and a tempura shrimp in there and again, it’s tasty and not too expensive.
Cheap and flavorful are reliable selling points.
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That’s not always true.
For example, Sichuan boiled fish (Shui Zhu Yu, 水煮鱼) (pic below, not mine) is heavy on the sauces and spices and does not cover up the lack of quality of the fish. It’s just the quiddity of the cuisine and the dish.
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That is one of my favorite Sichuan dishes. Although choosing one would be like choosing a favorite dish. And who wants to do that?
Less is more - I almost always prefer the fruit, bare, to the fruit in a pie, cake, muffin, ice cream, or even jam. Not that I won’t eat those, but there is literally nothing a person can do, imo, that will improve upon a perfect nectarine or cherry or melon.
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On the Less side, I don’t like most sauces on BBQ. I prefer to taste the
More complex dry rubs, with lots of interacting herbs and spices.
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