F - Fast Food
I think fast food has had bad press.
I’m not talking about the stuff in McDonalds and Burger King – anyone who’s ever waited to be served in any of those places will know it’s anything but fast – no, I mean the stuff that‘s cooked by a human; a ‘short-order’ cook.
Done right, diner food is cooked, from decent ingredients, right in front of your eyes. You don’t find that in many places that don’t feature Japanese guys with huge knives and tanks of raw fish.
Short-order cooking involves recipes evolved by the preferences of millions of real people. In no other kind of cooking is the customer allowed to make dozens of decisions about their meal and then have it cooked and served in minutes while they watch.
And nowhere else is the audience so tough. A particularly raw form of consumer feedback affects your work when you stare across a hot grill into the eyes of a 250lb truck driver who’s appraising the omelette you just flipped.
The problem with chain burger bars is not the fat and hormone laden meat-pulp they serve to morons – people get what they deserve – it’s that, by making the cooking process idiot proof, they rob us of a generation of skilled short-order cooks.
The tired, overweight, fifty year old professional with fat burns up his forearms, who can keep 20 orders in his head and still manage a smile for the customers on a comedy wage and unlimited crap coffee has been supplanted by a pustular adolescent with an electronic timer and we are the poorer for it.