A contrarian food-movement takedown

There's a new book out I'm intrigued by, even though what I know of it is that the NYT reviewer, Dwight Garner, hated it. Tyler Cowen, "a right-leaning economist and a contrarian foodie," prefers cheap, "ethnic" foods to either farmers' markets or haute cuisine, which does not, admittedly, make him unusual. (Stand-out line from the review: "I suspect Thucydides preferred the little joint on a side street to the place with the fountains where the waiters peeled customers’ grapes.") At the intersection of expressing a preference for honest, no-frills grub (see: the iconic Hoagie Haven, the bad-yet-good pizza-by-the-slice places in NY) and an adventurer's preference for off-the-beaten-path establishments lies the food philosophy of virtually every American male with a food philosophy. It's very Anthony Bourdain, very much a denial of vanity - the opposite of a salad with dressing on the side.

But it's an approach that makes sense. Very expensive food, almost no matter the cuisine, always tastes about the same, always has that glossy, cream-sauce quality. If you're more interested in the taste of food than in the dining experience, you probably do want to avoid tourist traps, high-end establishments, and fast-food chains, which are indeed three different worlds. If the result - amazing Vietnamese food tucked away in a strip mall, say - rings pretentious, or reads as "reverse snobbery," so be it. It's not, as Garner charges, incoherent.

(I must out-contrarian this discussion by noting that no-frills-ness can itself be a marketing tactic aimed at persuading customers that a place has really amazing food. This can be the case in "ethnic" places, but is really perfected in the establishments I refer to as hipsters-make-your-food. There, shabby decor and rude service are paired with prices that are not so much high as high for what's being served - the $10 slice of pizza, the $25 take on an Egg McMuffin. Because taste is subjective, because I am suggestible, food really does taste better in low-key surroundings.)

Garner's real problem with the book is that "Mr. Cowen comes perilously close to suggesting that we shouldn’t care about where and how our food is grown." If that's the case, depending how we're defining "we," I'm on Team Cowen, although I suspect Cowen would disagree with what I'm about to write. My own sense is, "we" as in consumers, grocery-shoppers, should absolutely not be charged with turning grocery shopping into a research project.

Yes, consumers should make informed choices when choosing between the produce aisles and the factory-processed-desserts section. But this ought to be at the nutritional level of vegetables vs. Twinkies, not an analysis of what it means that these tomatoes come from Mexico... while these others are from Canada... and it's unclear which were grown closer by... pr how much energy greenhouses use... or whether life better for a tomato-farmer in Mexico or Canada... or if we should even be eating tomatoes in November... etc. Such matters - and here, I shall out myself as a contrarian foodie but definitively not a right-wing economist - might be dealt with by the government, via subsidies or whatever behind-the-scenes decisions are made that determine what is or is not at the supermarket, and at what price.

But it is sacrilege, at this point, to say that you don't think individual consumers should ponder the ethics of their out-of-season asparagus. It is socially unacceptable, in certain circles, not to nod along enthusiastically to mentions of "local" or "organic." Contrarian sympathizers force the food movement to advocate for paths that really make sense, not to merely repeat conventional wisdom or adhere to trends. More useful to the Pollan cause, I'd think, than a book about how Michael Pollan is swell.