This blog began with a McMadness. Driven to the edge by The McDonald’s From Hell, we said we were mad and we weren’t going to take any more.
It’s an epidemic, really. The bad food, the bad attitude. Food has been hijacked by two factions in the Philippines: the hoity-toity graduates of culinary schools who imagine themselves the next Gordon Ramsay on the strength of a certificate of completion, as well as the mass producers of bad but affordable food (as opposed to bad but expensive).
We are a nation that has lost its way in morals, spirituality, and, yeah, cuisine. We like to emphasize style over substance, packaging over product. We should worry because this bias for glitz and glamor over any real progress and achievement is costing us much more than just good food.
A country’s cuisine is a manifestation of its soul. Food embodies the best a nation has to offer in resources, skills, and traditions. It is a product of a people’s aspirations and creativity. It tells others who we are and what we want to become. FOOD IS CULTURE.
If the predominant food culture is what we see today, pedestrian masquerading as refined, same old same old camouflaged as new, or S.S.D.D. (Same Shit, Different Day), you have to wonder what we have become. Pretentious, indifferent, frivolous and dismissive? Counterfeit and dishonest?
Maybe you think you deserve better.
Maybe it’s time to declare a personal war against people who serve us so poorly, insulting us every day with pious claims of fighting the good fight for liberty, equality, and a good meal for all, who think that if they SAY it often enough and loudly enough, that it will come true, or will at least be believed to be true. Hey, guys, we’ve read George Orwell, okay?
It’s time to vote with our pocketbooks, refusing to pay for mere lip service and shoddy merchandise, culinary and otherwise. At the very least, we may finally get a good meal next time we pay for one.
Food=Culture
October 11, 2011
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