Hugo Lindgren glosses Tyler Cowen's view on what makes for good cuisine: "The magic ingredient, he elaborates, is extreme income inequality, which ensures a large reservoir of cheap labor to grow and prepare the food, as well as a sufficient number of rich people who, being rich, must eat well."
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The Upside of Inequality
23 Jul 2007 05:31 pm
Comments (41)
Yes, but the Scandinavians, with their low levels of inequality, have shitty food. Mexico, with its high levels of inequality, has wonderful cuisine.
Also -- the U.S. has "atrocious cuisince"? Ha! This country has great cuisine, both high and low. It's no Italy, but it ain't bad.
er, "atrocious cuisine," that is.
Too Many is right. The only people who think we have terrible cuisine are rich snobs who abhor the idea that you should eat something that tastes good. We have food with poor nutrition, we do not have food that tastes bad. That's a distinction that should really be made, as our food is well liked the world over.
Italian food, it should be noted, is also very bad for you.
Equatorial proximity is the causal factor, not income inequality.
ponte has a point, too. People near the equator and in the Southern Hemisphere tend to be poor, and those countries also tend to have great food. Not sure what's causing what, but it's obviously easier to grow a lot of kick-ass stuff in those climates.
"we do not have food that tastes bad ... Italian food, it should be noted, is also very bad for you."
soullite, you are insane.
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"Equatorial proximity is the causal factor, not income inequality."
Equatorial proximity is indeed a crucial part of the equation, but a high income inequality country like the UK has worse food than countries at a similar latitudes like Northern France or Japan.
Equatorial proximity being equal, high income inequality produces worse cuisine.
There's great food in the U.S., yep, but is there an American cuisine? We've got some regional cuisines, and Americanized versions of other national cuisines. But what is American cuisine?
"Yes, but the Scandinavians, with their low levels of inequality, have shitty food. Mexico, with its high levels of inequality, has wonderful cuisine."
I've sampled Scandinavian food from Ikea to Aquavit and I say it's pretty good. I eat Mexican too, but Scandinavian is certainly healthier.
Although, in reality, there seems to be a convergence among international cuisines as they get 'refined' to American food-snob levels. Thus, there is more similarity between the food at, say, Rosa Mexicana and Aquavit than there is between the food at Ikea and Chipotle. Throw a dart at the menu at the white-tablecloth restaurants and there's a good chance it will land on a salmon fillet of some sort.
Good restaurants are where ya get food poisoning. I read about millionaires with the runs all the time.
Fast food or home cooking fer me.
To be a bit more subtle, I don't think it's coincidental that the Anglosphere has the worst cuisine amongst the developed world and the highest level of income inequality in the developed world.
I'm not saying that the latter necessarily causes the former, but I do think the two things are fundamental to the choices made by the culture.
Much better blog over here.
"There's great food in the U.S., yep, but is there an American cuisine? We've got some regional cuisines, and Americanized versions of other national cuisines. But what is American cuisine?"
That's the great thing about American cuisine -- it's a pastiche. We take a little of everything and make it our own. The humble cheeseburger, for example.
Big-assed midwestern steaks are American food. So is schmantzy California cuisine.
Ugh. The US and UK with their high levels of income inequality have atrocious cuisines. France and Italy with their low levels of income inequality have wonderful cuisines.
Local and regional cuisine is a product of long standing cultural traditions. Why would it be determined by current economic conditions? I think historical wealth inequality and/or the existence of dominant aristocracy may have something to do with it. You need enough surplus wealth to spend money developing food for its aesthetic value rather than mere subsistence.
BBQ
Chili
Cornbread
Pancakes
Grits
Turkey sandwiches
and
Apple fuckin Pie
American bread is really bad, though.
"Local and regional cuisine is a product of long standing cultural traditions. Why would it be determined by current economic conditions?"
See my 6:26pm comment for some clarification of the causation point...
I wonder if he has any historical evidence for this? I would tend to doubt it.
As a counterexample, one sees many types of "peasant" dishes that become part of the haute cuisine in other countries. French and Italian are particular examples of this phenomenon.
As another counterexample, one can eat amazing food off the streets and very cheaply in many Asian countries.
Re: People near the equator and in the Southern Hemisphere tend to be poor, and those countries also tend to have great food.
I think income inequality may have something to do with it, at least in the distant past. People who are poor must get everything they can out of their food, so they tend to be really creative with it. Plus, they use lots of spices to extend its palatability.
Re: Italian food, it should be noted, is also very bad for you.
Any food is bad for you if you eat too much of it. The problem with American (etc and etc) food is not that it's inherently bad, but that we eat too much and don't exercize enough.
Re: But what is American cuisine?
Corn, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, beef and lots of dairy products.
Led wrote: Local and regional cuisine is a product of long standing cultural traditions. Why would it be determined by current economic conditions?
Did you know that Great Britain was a nation of coffee drinkers until a blight wiped out their suppliers in the West Indies?
There's great food in the U.S., yep, but is there an American cuisine? We've got some regional cuisines, and Americanized versions of other national cuisines. But what is American cuisine?
I'd say Spam.
Japan's cold but they have good food.
You all seem to be misreading Tyler's remarks. He's not talking about cuisine, he's talking about food. There's more income inequality in New York or San Francisco than in Chico California or Stockton. Are you staying that there's not better food in those two cities? Look at any wealthy area as opposed to a poor area of any country, better food.
I'm not sure that Haiti really does have much inequality in the first place. It's not egalitarian, to be sure, but I don't think that it's notable for great extremes of wealth and poverty in the manner of, say, South Africa or Brazil. From my understanding, it has poor people and a few people living in what approaches what we would call the middle-class, with very, very few rich people. There's inequality in Haiti, but most of that is desperately poor vs. somewhat middle class, not wealthy aristocrats vs. poor (leaving aside plunderers like the Duvaliers, who can't have created a whole cuisine by themselves).
There's the kernel of a worthwhile idea in there, but in the current form it is so drastically oversimplified that the only useful thing it potentially explains is why NYC has so much more plentiful good food than Paris at the $20-100 per person level but gradually loses out as prices get higher. (And this is due to the contingent fact of illegal immigration from Mexico, not the broader differences in income inequality from France to the US.) Aside from the number of predictions it gets completely wrong--Vietnam as it emerges from Communism is a particularly obvious one--I see no reason the fact of tremendous income inequality concentrated into some parts of e.g. Mexico or China should count towards the excellent peasant cuisine in regions that are culinarily and socially completely distinct.
So where does the logic go wrong? The first major problem is that it ignores the difference between great restaurant cuisines--which can only develop in the presence of a large population of well-off diners--and great home cuisines, which do just fine among populations that are uniformly somewhat poor. Very high levels of social inequality in turn breed an in-home "palace"-type cuisine, of which there are a number of strong examples, some in countries that do not have a strong home or bourgeois restaurant cuisine (e.g. Morocco), and some in countries that do (e.g. Thailand, China); but even in those places that do have both, it is not clear to me that the one necessarily owes much to the other.
(It should be said that the emergence of restaurant cuisine 100 years ago in France was definitely a melding of the peasant cuisine with the aristocratic cuisine; but my impression is that this is not the case for, for instance, the emergence of the great Sichuan restaurant cuisine in the 1930s. And btw: though there are certainly exceptions, Italian is primarily a home cuisine; the average full-service restaurant in Italy is crap.)
The other major fallacy is the notion that "rich people, being rich, must eat well": this is fantastically untrue, particularly as the rich tend to come from regions and cultures that are short on good ingredients and bereft of good cuisine. But all of that is changing as people and ingredients become more mobile (given enough cash), and as the younger rich are more likely to be exposed to excellent food from all cuisines and to demand it in turn. That's what interests me about Tyler's claim: it is clearly false historically, but may perhaps come true in the future. (I still doubt it, because my sense is that the best food will continue to come from restaurants rather than private chefs. Then again I've never actually had food from a top private chef, so maybe this already isn't true.)
On the other hand we can probably do better sticking to Bourdain's theory that it is prevailing levels of access to refrigeration which is most (inversely) correlated with excellent local food.
While bashing American cuisine is unjustified as a whole, it wasn't so long ago that the cuisine in American got more bland as you went up the income ladder. Before the 1970s and even the 1980s, poor Americans had all sorts of interesting ethnic and traditional cuisines that wealthier people at the time often refused to consume - they were seen as status signifiers of poverty. Rich Americans at that time preferred to eat generally very mediocre and bland "Continental cuisine" (the steaks were probably OK, but that's about it - there's a reason they drank so much back then).
Russia now has tremendous inequality, but the food in restaurants is still quite lousy.
Petey, Italian food is very bad for you. It's loaded with carbohydrates and it's extremely calorie intensive. I'm sorry, it tastes great, but it's going to fuck your body up.
What italian food are you talking about? Italy has all types of cuisine. Not all of it is carbohydrate and calorie intensive. A lot of it involves fresh fish, fresh vegetables, and light use of olive oil
Soullite -
i am not a robot is correct. Real Italian food (of whatever region) might not be the healthiest of all traditional diets, and you could improve on the health benefits of, say, real Chinese food (of whatever reason), but of course, real Italian and real Chinese (and real Whatever) food aren't eaten in the quantities per meal or per day that they are in the US, and of course, what you get in terms of Italian or Chinese in the US isn't the real thing. It's, IMO, great (tasting) - I'm perpetually embarrassed that I'd honestly rather eat what I understand to be completely ersatz Chinese food, like some hearty and fried General Tso's chicken (or whatever), than the real thing, but then American Chinese food was specifically engineered to cater to Western tastes - but it's not what they eat in Italy, or China, or Mexico, or wherever.
"the average full-service restaurant in Italy is crap."
I second that.
I have to say, except for General Tso's Chicken and similar things like Orange Chicken, just about anything "authentic" (if anything can be anywhere) in China tends to taste better and be healthier, especially south of Shanghai and the Yangzi in general, than Chinese food in the US.
"the average full-service restaurant in Italy is crap."
I disagree. it's crucial to exercise caution and find places where the locals eat.
I've lived and eaten in Italy and I'm a believer; Italian food is good, and good for you. Moreover, Italians seem to thrive on it. But I admit I am puzzled: Italians drink an awful lot, and they smoke, and they eat a lot of fast-food stand-up takeaway pizza. How come they are as healthy as they seem?
My best guess: it's the vegetables. Yes, there is a lot of pasta, though not nearly as much as an American would guess. But Italians seem to stoke away the veggies in quantities that would leave Americans gobsmacked. Moreover they are mostly a lot tastier than our US veggies--even those here in Calif, where they don't taste nearly as good as they should. This suggests high levels of good trace minerals etc. My guess is that the veggies in quantity are a pretty inpressive defense against the starch and the booze.
Cowen's thesis is all kinds of wrong. Other commenters have already cited enough counterexamples to puncture his empirical claim.
A few thoughts on an alternative theory:
1. Climate has got to play a role. Not necessarily equatorial proximity, but an auspicious climate for agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries.
2. Retardation of "efficient" (in the sense of maximally productive) food production. Some places achieve this by lack of access to markets (much of Africa), others by heavy subsidization of small scale farming (Italy, France), and a very few achieve it by design (suppliers to Alice Waters).
3. A self-conscious culinary tradition, transmitted either through family tradition, craft guilds, or formal institutions.
What strange, funny arguments. I go back to the France, Italy example. Arguably, the two best cuisines in the world. I've sampled amply of both in the home countries. Both France and Italy (especially France) have markedly lower levels of income inequality compared to much of the rest of the world. There's quite a long tradition and literature regarding these two at the very top of the world cuisine list. Case closed, sorry. The rest of the examples amount to bizarre excursions in sophistry. You have to compare on a world level, not simply within the borders of the United States. Disappointing news, I imagine, to the coy champions of vast wealth disparity among the MY readership.
Bah. The only "bad cuisine" I've ever come across is Irish and Finnish. America has great food, yes it has various cultural and regional traditions, but so does this country. Both English and Scottish food can be quite good, as Orwell attests, though neither country has the range and quality at the high end that America does.
This point about good cuisine coming from high income inequality is misleading. What comes of high income inequality is LABOR-INTENSIVE CUISINE, such as Mexican, where it takes a 'specialist' a long time to make a given unit of his/her specialty. Likewise Indian food.
I don't buy income inequality having much to do with anything--or at least not as much as access to ingredients (based on growing seasons, favored crops, favored food animals etc) and cultural traditions, but what seems odd to me is all the people talking about France, Italy, China etc. in the present, when most of the recipes and food traditions were developed in the past, when the political and economic scenes in those countries were very different. 200-500 years ago, when a lot of these traditions were being formed, France was a monarchy, Italy wasn't even a country, and China had an emperor. And let's not forget too that even the food traditions of France, Italy, and China are hardly uniform. We see them as uniform from afar, but there are significant differences in regional cooking that tend to get muddled as those cuisines are exported.
As for who messed up our food, though, I'd have to nominate the Germans. I think they (in earlier forms) brought the "unhealthy and bland" stuff to England. Then if you combine English influence in the U.S. with the direct immigration of quite a number of actual Germans to the U.S., that's a lot of sausage and cabbage. It's taken us time (and the immigration and/or forced enslavement of people with tastier food) to get past that.
Beyond that, or perhaps as a part of that, is it true that people outside the coasts and major cities don't eat vegetables?
"and of course, what you get in terms of Italian or Chinese in the US isn't the real thing."
Maybe that's true for Chinese, but if it's true for Italian in your town, then you should move. I've never lived anywhere that didn't have at least one semi-authentic Italian joint (although "East Coast style" Italian-American food and Olive Garden-style Italian-American food are both more common than the real thing).
Of course, the best Italian restaurants I've been to in the U.S. would rate about "average" in Rome. Whoever said most restaurants in Italy aren't that great is going to wrong places. Dude, you have to stay away from the places with English menus.
Quarterican, if you significantly alter the ingredients of just about any dish you can make it healthy, but we're not talking about severely altered foods, or even Americanized ones. Americanization of foods almost always makes those meals worse for you, as we favor very sweet and fatty cuisine. Americans didn't add the pasta, and that's one of the worst elements of Italian food. Add to that the rich sauces, made even richer by Americanization, and you have a recipe for weight gain. That's not to say there aren't healthy dishes, plenty of chicken dishes can be served with light sauces and bedded with spinach rather than pasta, but most people aren't going to do that all the time.
And no, American Italian food isn't completely Italian, but you have plenty of access to real Italian food if you care to look for it. You don't even have to spend a lot of money in most places on the eastern seaboard. also, even the Americanized italian food is not really altered in a way that's comparable to the way we alter Chinese or Mexican foods. We generally just enrich the ingredients and use the sauces more heavily, where as in Italy they'd be used more sparingly and their food is a bit bland to an American palate.
Soullite, you seem to be on a real anti-carbohydrate kick. And Italian sauces are highly variable. Some are very rich, sone really aren't -- at least, when deployed in the proper quantities.
The Italian diet, as actually eaten in Italy, is known to be reasonably healthy, certainly better than the typical American diet.
As previously stated, soullite, you are insane.
You seem to think Italians eat blander food than American do (!), and that Italians eat less healthy food than Americans do.
You're entitled to your own beliefs, but not your own facts.
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It seems you are on a low-carb diet for some health reason or some irrational reason. I'm not your doctor, so I won't advise you to behave otherwise. But I will say that if you'd followed a more Mediterranean diet to begin with, you wouldn't need to be following such an unpleasant path now.
JMS,
You make some good points. After posting, I thought of the whole question of the evolution of different national cuisines over the past few centuries or more into the forms that we (more or less) know them today and the obviously very different political and socio-economic realities that existed in those countries/geographic areas as the cuisines were forming. To speak of French food, which I know better, I'm not sure that what we recognize today as "French food"--in its distinctiveness--is particularly ancient in its formation--coming into "its own", I believe, in the 19th century (this knowledge is a little fuzzy and I would need to doublecheck it). Still, a different era with different realities. But if we're going to raise that criterion of cultural-historical evolution, it needs to be applied across the board to all the examples we're looking at. It seems like we're assuming a certain contemporaneous reality, here. You're right about regional differentiation. With French food it's even more complicated because you see less archetypal dishes than in Italian food (outside of bread, wine and the major cheeses), French food having more to do with ingredients and the eye for quality in preparation and cooking. It's an art.
Comments closed August 06, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Ugh. The US and UK with their high levels of income inequality have atrocious cuisines. France and Italy with their low levels of income inequality have wonderful cuisines.
Posted by Petey | July 23, 2007 5:46 PM