Postcard from New York - Food

I don't know if they are representative of Americans in general, but New Yorkers seem to have an odd relationship with their food, testing it more like fuel, or something to be suffered, than something to be savoured and enjoyed. While were were there there was a programme on the telly called 'Man vs food' where the premise is that the presenter travels around America taking part in the various eating challenges that exist there. Not of the 'how many hot dogs can you gulp in a minute' variety but rather the ones run by eating places where, if you eat the enormous sandwich, you get it and a ride to the hospital for free sort of thing. I can say that the American approach to food hinges on portion size. The first place we ate in, 'The Edison', apparently specialised in theatre dinners and I thought we would be OK for a quick meal. Not quite. Look, it might be fancy in NYC to cook proper chips instead of spindly French fries, but knocking up something that any self respecting pissed up Glasweigan could do in an instant on any night of the week and passing it off as a speciality is taking the piss. As were the tinned vegetables.


Americans seem to equate portion size with how good a meal is, rather than quality. A friend who spent some time in the city commented afterwards that they learned that the less that was on your plate, the better the food was going to be. My plate was piled high with turkey smothered in gravy. Even after going at it for half an hour I had barely made a dent. Partly because there was just so much of it, partly because it wasn't great. Obviously, I would be crap as the presenter of 'Man vs food' (which has in it's titles a graphic of a man punching a sandwich. Cute.). Unless, of course, 'Man vs food' is cleverly edited so that he always wins. Maybe I'm not the target viewer, but i don't see that the object of visiting a restaurant should be a struggle to clean your plate. What I would like to see is if the fat fuck exploded or destroyed his loo or something the next day, or a combination of the two. Death by exploding arse. That would make me watch, host mortality.

The odd thing is that you walk past loads of delis that are stuffed with exotic oils and decent looking food. I assume that, lacking a supermarket in the centre of this busy city and having seen no grocery delivery vans puttering around, New Yorkers do a daily rather than a weekly shop from their local grocer. In a space constrained city, this would also make sense as it means that you don't have that particular English affliction of a fridge and freezer full of food after the Saturday shop, and a fridge devoid of anything tasty by Friday.


One place we ended up eating in turned out to be one of a chain of organic restaurants. The decor is all stripped pine, school chairs and refractory tables where you may have to sit down side by side with a stranger. It's odd that the decor should reflect the food in a way that suggests that just because something is organic, its austere and almost a form of punishment. Obviously these people have never tried an organic bacon double cheeseburger.