How The Internet Made All Food Taste The Same

Interesting read from David Chang at SXSW

There are many things the internet can be blamed for, from revenge porn to Grumpy Cat, but celebrity chef David Chang has added a new item to the list.

“Everything tastes the same,” he says, “and it’s the internet’s fault.”

Chang, whose culinary empire has grown over a decade from one noodle bar, Momofuku, to a group including more than 10 restaurants, a cookbook and a quarterly magazine, Lucky Peach, argues that the much-vaunted democratisation of information has had a pernicious effect on variation in food.

http://mg.co.za/article/2015-03-19-all- ... e-the-same

Dave148 wrote:Interesting read from David Chang at SXSW

There are many things the internet can be blamed for, from revenge porn to Grumpy Cat, but celebrity chef David Chang has added a new item to the list.

“Everything tastes the same,” he says, “and it’s the internet’s fault.”

Chang, whose culinary empire has grown over a decade from one noodle bar, Momofuku, to a group including more than 10 restaurants, a cookbook and a quarterly magazine, Lucky Peach, argues that the much-vaunted democratisation of information has had a pernicious effect on variation in food.

http://mg.co.za/article/2015-03-19-all- ... e-the-same

Sounds like palate fatigue to me.

=R=

I don't want to read the article, but if somebody can give a one- or two-sentence explanation of how the much-vaunted democratization of information is supposed to have had a pernicious effect on variation in food, I'm all ears.

trying to read the article…it's weird to me when Asians drop the F-Bomb all over articles

If I read it right, I think the idea is there are hundreds, if not more, ways to make great ramen. But on the internet, there might be only ten or so sites that discuss the subtleties of making good ramen. So as ramen becomes more popular, and more chefs want to make it, they'll turn to the internet, and will base their creations on only those few ideas already posted online, as opposed to many other, possibly better creations that don't happen to be posted online.

Whether the assertion is true or not, it at least makes sense. Thanks, Tom.

I can see what he's saying: I went to Chicago Gourmet a few years ago, and most of the dishes served were umami bombs: braised short ribs or pork belly with mushrooms, red wine sauce -- heavy, serious food. Palate cleansers like Edzo's shake or LSC's 3-chile chicken were few and far between.

JoelF wrote:Palate cleansers like Edzo's shake or LSC's 3-chile chicken were few and far between.

Post-GNR announcement banner quote!

I like Chang. I like Momofuku. I like his cookbook. I love Lucky Peach.

Here's where the logic all breaks down to me:

David Chang wrote:I don’t want to go to every city and taste the same fucking thing.

Mail & Guardian wrote:The restaurant, announced this week, will focus exclusively on spicy fried chicken sandwiches.

I completely disagree with him. I feel the internet has vastly freed me up to try different types of cooking, dishes, and ingredients. I see the same thing with friends and family members.

For starters, I don't believe there was a golden age of experimentation before the internet. Growing up my parents had a pretty impressive library of cookbooks, and were very adventurous cooks. Most of their friends were the same. That said, as a high school student in the 80's I could frequently tell the specific recipe used when we went to friend's houses for dinner, i.e. "this is the Julia Child Boeuf Bourguinon", "this is the Joyce Chen Beef and Broccoli", "this is the Silver Palate Chicken Marbella", and so on. Even people with a large collection of cookbooks would be hard pressed to find more than a dozen recipes for most dishes.

For me the internet changed all of that. If I'm making a dish I can read dozens of different recipes from all over the world, and even use Google translate to read recipes in foreign languages. During the World Cup last summer I made dinner based on the teams playing that day. While many were straight forward (Spain, Germany, England) I also made traditional meals from Croatia, Uruguay, Iran, Costa Rica, Algeria, Ecuador, and others. I never would have tried to do that without the internet. I learned a lot about cooking from doing that, and much of what I learned from that experience now shows up in my daily cooking.

I think he misses what's going on if he believes people follow a small set of recipes online. I'm sure some people do follow directions to the letter, but they probably did the same thing with cookbooks before the internet, and I doubt they had ten ramen cookbooks in their library.

Jefe wrote:I like Chang. I like Momofuku. I like his cookbook. I love Lucky Peach.

Here's where the logic all breaks down to me:

David Chang wrote:I don’t want to go to every city and taste the same fucking thing.

Mail & Guardian wrote:The restaurant, announced this week, will focus exclusively on spicy fried chicken sandwiches.

haha

Attrill wrote:I completely disagree with him. I feel the internet has vastly freed me up to try different types of cooking, dishes, and ingredients. I see the same thing with friends and family members.

and this

I think what may be getting lost -- and it's not the internet, it's Food TV, franchising brands, and celebrity chefs, etc. -- is the uniqueness of place: Oh, you've got to go to Luling for the real barbecue, or to Maine for the lobster rolls, or you can only get a real cheesesteak in Philly.

It used to be a secret, where the best stuff was. Now everybody knows, and it's copied everywhere (and everybody knows what happens when you make a copy of a copy).

But the guy who got his big break bringing good ramen in NYC is probably not the person to be complaining.

NYC had good ramen before Chang. He introduced hipster derivative internet sensation good ramen, which makes his criticism as fucking irritating as it is (unselfawaredly) ironic.

I can respect Chang as a cook and restaurateur, but he seems to go out of his way to drum up headlines by saying something outrageous. The crux of his argument seems to be a combination of "Things were different back in the day" and "It's popular, so now it sucks".

Independent George wrote: a combination of "Things were different back in the day" and "It's popular, so now it sucks".

I can sympathize w/ Change for becoming jaded. I have the same problem with certain musical acts. It's not so much that now they suck, it's just that "back in the day" they were unique and under appreciated (deserving of wider recognition). Now the ideas have become mainstream and the band is so popular I have to shell out big bucks for tickets (or reservations, even!). They don't need my support anymore so I move on.


______________________

We've been on the road to homogeneous hell for decades. I remember the enthusiasm I once had for travel in the US, where each town had different stores and restaurants and a unique character. While there are still unique qualities to various locales, they've also started to adopt a sameness that's disheartening. Same malls, same fast-food, and even similar one-off restaurants where chefs want to bring a big-city experience to their locale. As inevitable as it is, it makes travel a lot less fun.

And don't get me started on Subway and KFC in medieval European towns....

"LIKE" ^^^^^

Geo

nr706 wrote:If I read it right, I think the idea is there are hundreds, if not more, ways to make great ramen. But on the internet, there might be only ten or so sites that discuss the subtleties of making good ramen. So as ramen becomes more popular, and more chefs want to make it, they'll turn to the internet, and will base their creations on only those few ideas already posted online, as opposed to many other, possibly better creations that don't happen to be posted online.

I read his point as being that when a restaurant seeks to produce a product, that they tend to follow in the footsteps of other restaurants that they find on the internet, rather than trying to invent a new and unique version of their own. He is lamenting the fact that there is no experimentation when a restaurant, in a rush to be successful, resorts to just copying what other successful restaurants are doing.