Food and the World

Depending on where you are in the United States (or world) there are generally two types of people (or areas)--the sauce people and the meat people. My friend from west Texas has lamented that the BBQ focus in central Texas is on the meat as opposed to the sauce like in his native Lubbock area.

This "theorem" can be expanded more generally to what I'll call "accoutrement" people (the sauce and toppings people) & the basics people. Simply put is it the ice cream you enjoy or is it the sprinkles on top?

As usual this whole line of thought was spurred by an innocent remark from Morgane at dinner on Saturday night in reference to "Le Burger" I was going to order. She intimated that it was going to be really good because of the French cheese on it. I replied somewhat in jest that where I come from the meat makes the burger not the cheese. In America when we order steak we order specific cuts. In France its just steak but that steak comes with a wide variety of sauces! We have to know what we are eating, how it was raised (Kobe beef, free range, grain fed, etc).

This predilection for accoutrements carries over into the salad arena as well. When we have a salad at home we pull out the tube of ranch or Italian dressing. Here salad isn't salad unless you have the sauce. Any old Hidden Valley will not suffice. The sauce is created from scratch.

Morgane thinks that the majority of the world is accoutrement driven. Throwing out a wide swathe of examples: Indian, Thai, Mexican etc. This is most definitely true but it also occurred to me that the sauce divide falls across economic lines. If you are poor you most likely aren't eating meat at all. If you are surviving off of a staple crop like rice and eating it daily, it honestly needs to be kicked up a notch to remain interesting. Taking that a step further-how much of the prevalence of spices in the "developing world" is aimed at diverting your attention away from your hunger?

Conversely, the ability (or leisure) to focus on the meat is a statement on where the U.S. (recession or not) is in comparison with the world. We are among the few nations whose populous can afford to care about this stuff.