American Restaurants

Good description from Megan McArdle:

Aspen is a monumental shrine to wealth, clothed in the false modesty of a self-conscious homage to America's small town past. It is the Potemkin Village of the post-consumer culture. The place always puts me in mind of the "American" restaurants abroad--it looks like a diner, and the menu sounds like a diner, but when the food comes the chili cheesedog is made with bratwurst and limburger, and they've slathered your french fries with mayonnaise.

But the mountains are really beautiful.

Of course with "American" restaurants you never know. Back in 1997 at least, Buffalo Bill's in Prague was serviceable tex-mex at a time when the Czech Republic was not offering a ton of edible cuisine. Eleven years later I imagine things are very different, though.

Comments

Wait, Megan McArdle is lecturing us on what's authentically "american?" Why, is David Brooks taking the day off?

When an empty vessel like McCurdled writes about any place being "a monumental shrine to wealth," you can bet that she's either praising it, or in a bitchy mood because somebody there didn't accept her as their equal, despite her armload of (mostly useless) university degrees.

Posted by Jamey | July 6, 2008 10:24 AM

Matt - I have to say it at this point, since it's come up in multiple posts by now - you are a bit of a travel bigot. I'm always reading about how stuff abroad just isn't to your liking or is inferior to American stuff. I would have thought you'd be more worldly...

Posted by Boris | July 6, 2008 10:55 AM

Matt - No offense, but I'm a little wary of letting a lifelong native of the US Northeast judge whether a certain restaurant's Tex-Mex cuisine is "serviceable".

Posted by Blake | July 6, 2008 11:02 AM

Due to allergies and restrictions of Kashrus, I will never know the joy of a chili cheesedog (except made with tomato free chili and vegan fake cheese). But I imagine that a chili cheesedog made with bratwurst and limberger would be quite yummy.

And I don't get why David Brooks' "real Americans" (the kind of people his grandparents would have called "Goyim") don't put mayonaise on french fries. Mayo on french fries is far better than mayo on corned beef (although, in Europe, I did discover that mayo on hamburger is da bomb).

Posted by DAS | July 6, 2008 11:20 AM

I was told (when I was corrupted by the practice) that mayonaise on French fries was a Chicago thing. But I've almost never been back since I was born there.

I don't think comments on the strange way Europeans do "American" food are necessarily patronizing or hostile. We will never forget the remarkable Thanksgiving turkey dinner fixed by a quite good cook (or was he a chef?) for the staff and students at the school I was teaching at in Rome in 1979. Not American, but tasty, and the effort was appreciated.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | July 6, 2008 11:52 AM

Real Americans are fats slobs and need to stop eating so many chili cheese dogs and french fries.

Posted by blah | July 6, 2008 12:09 PM

Aspen is a monumental shrine to wealth, clothed in the false modesty of a self-conscious homage to America's small town past. It is the Potemkin Village of the post-consumer culture. The place always puts me in mind of the "American" restaurants abroad

I get her point--that Aspen is a tremendously wealthy place that retains the outward forms of a small middle-class town--but that paragraph contains the most pompously half-assed use of metaphors and comparison I've come across since I quit reading Tom Friedman.

She asks us to imagine a shrine which is clothed (clothes on architecture?) in modesty (what does modesty look like, exactly?) which is also a Potemkin Village ("Potemkin village" refers to facades with nothing behind them--is there nothing behind the facades of Aspen?) which for some reason reminds the writer of restaurants in Europe that don't serve food like the ones at home.

Posted by James Gary | July 6, 2008 12:11 PM

MeMeMegan clearly hasn't been to that many "American" restaurants abroad. Mild Tex-Mexish or faux-Southern with massive portions seem to be far more common than the diner aesthetic: you can't get the chilis, just as you can't usually get the diner fixtures & fittings, but you can pile the plates.

And yeah, she can't write for toffee.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 6, 2008 12:35 PM

Re: "strange interpretations of American food in foreign countries" -- nu? when Americans (including myself) make seared tuna with wasabi alioli, it's fancy fusion cuisine, when Chinese restaurants in America make "sweet and sour chicken" it's a legitimate adaptation to American tastes, but when furriners do these sorts of things with 'murkin food, it's wrong, wrong wrong? Talk about American exceptionalism run amok!

But yes. Along the lines of Gene O'Grady's story, one of the best "Thanksgiving turkeys" I had was made by an Indian flatmate of mine: to make the stuffing he made korma and then just added some unseasoned bread cubes to it.

As to the subject of the post: what James Gary said. BTW -- pseudonymous in nc ... it doesn't matter that "she can't write for toffee", she's cute and says exactly the sort of "libertarian" things certain people want to hear. So she'll do well in life ...

Posted by DAS | July 6, 2008 1:47 PM

I realize your paycheck partly depends on touting Douhat and McArdle, but there's simply nothing to see here. Move along.

Posted by HeavyJ | July 6, 2008 2:02 PM

Excellent take by Megan. Thanks for the link.

Prague in 1997 had great food, but you had to adjust to the local pig-knuckle, sauerkraut, and beer esthetic. The difference between the dollar and the crown made experimentation easier then than now.

Posted by robert powell | July 6, 2008 2:06 PM

She's right about Aspen. I've seen Vale, Colorado - same thing. They're not a real town in any sense of the words. They're literally "tourist traps."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 6, 2008 5:46 PM

Maybe you two East Coast snobs could pick up a book and read a little about the history of the West and the history of Colorado before dismissing it with a wave of your hands.

Get over yourselves. Seriously, there's a whole world outside of Manhattan and Washington D.C., take a little time to learn something next time.

Posted by Steve Balboni | July 6, 2008 6:27 PM

Czech Republic in '97? I visited then. Here was a delicious word: pastries. "But that's not a real cuisine!" you may argue, and I will retort: paaaaastries.

Also it doesn't take an East Coast snob to knock Aspen. All it takes is a lifelong resident of Colorado, like over half my family. Seriously, it's fuckin' Aspen, like, the last place on earth you want to make your proud anti-elitist stand.

Posted by brandon | July 6, 2008 6:58 PM

Czech Republic in '97? I visited then. Here was a delicious word: pastries. "But that's not a real cuisine!" you may argue, and I will retort: paaaaastries.'

Here freaking here! Was totally thinking the same damn thing. Was there in '95. Was this great shop off of Wencelas (sp?) square. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

Posted by MarcInSeattle | July 6, 2008 7:17 PM

Bon Appetit for years has had a column at the rear of the magazine devoted to interviewing a celebrity for their food insights. My favorite celebrity: Aaron Neville. Bon Appetit asked him about his favorite foods, and it turned out that he basically just ate a lot of peanut butter. It isn't all about the food.

A coney island consisting of Limburger and a bratwurst is a ludicrous affectation and a silly reach for mere novelty.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 6, 2008 9:01 PM

Two points:

1. "Potemkin Villages" were fakes which disguised the poverty of rural Russia. Sort of movie-sets before there were movies. The term has been generalized to mean any false-front disguise of unsatisfactory conditions. Just because you don't like the glitz of places like Aspen or Jackson, Wyoming doesn't mean they are Potemkin Villages.

2. Back in the 1970's I had the best damn American hamburger ever at a restaurant in Vienna, Austria named "The Chattanooga". I wonder if it's still there.

Posted by Bob Weber | July 6, 2008 9:41 PM

I thought the Czech food in Prague was great in 1998, but I didn't try any of the tex-mex.

Posted by Owen | July 6, 2008 11:43 PM

The Czech-dining experience is pretty "red state" in content and outward form. Meat, potatoes, gravy, beer, cigarettes, surly service, cooked by blue collar white people. That's alright by me but I haven't met a coastal American cultural liberal (or west European equiv.) yet who hasn't turned up his or her nose at it. They must be out there but who is surprised Matt isn't one of them? The NYT had a fantastically snotty article about some new god-awful expensive pretentious places in Prague, claiming that there was finally edible food here. Whatever.

Posted by ERM | July 7, 2008 4:29 AM