This made me giggle. “Organic as fuck,” eh?
Author: Julia Childless
Shut Up, Street Art?
So cupcakes are up there with bacon as the hip-o-riffic food trend, right? Right? So to make them even HIPPER, you put BANKSY ART on them! Because there’s nothing like taking street art off the street and putting it in your belly.
I should have some deep commentary on the way every street vendor in London seemed to be selling photos of Banksy prints, but it’s early and I haven’t eaten yet. And these cupcakes are making me hungry…
Be an Informed Consumer of Rhetoric, Too
All social movements need a variety of voices, but I argue that food reform requires this diversity even more urgently because it is so universal in its reach. And if we can reach all those voices, then think of all the activists we will have as allies—feminists, anti-racists, interfaith leaders, and so on—interested and involved because food justice speaks to the needs of their communities and their call for action (activists: this is on you too—get on board!). As consumers of this kind of liberal rhetoric, we need to demand that the powers and big hitters in the food world diversify their representations. The food movement can only grow more powerful for it.
We’ve been criticized a bit for being mean lately, which, I mean—I guess the blog is called Shut Up Foodies, but I think that what we’re more interested in is holding up a mirror to the food movement. OK, that sounds arrogant and half the time we are just having some fun. But in reading this piece at Racialicious, this is what I chose to reblog: not a call for the food movement to stop doing what it’s doing, but a call for it to make sure that it’s truly accessible to everyone. That it doesn’t fall into precious lectures about personal responsibility and becomes a true social movement.
But I’m just a hippie pinko commie at heart, after all.
What Would Be In a Toobin Burger?
Mac attack!
(via myeviltwin)
Wait, WHAT? There was a Cheeseburger stabbing? I had to know more.
So I googled.
And I found this: Legal Aspects of the Toledo Cheeseburger Stabbing. Which includes this:
Even were the authorities disinclined towards leniency, though, the settled law is on his side. In 1973, writing for the majority in Momma v. Boy, Thurgood Marshall famously stated, “It is the Court’s considered opinion that these unfortunate events could have been mitigated or avoided entirely by Plaintiff through the simple expedient of the bitch bringing [Defendant] a damn burger.”
Somehow, my life is complete.
Shut Up Vegans
From a friend, who sent it to me with the comment “Sometimes I don’t miss Portland at all.”
No, really, that is ALL a discussion of whether requiring someone to be vegan to work at a vegan restaurant is discriminatory. My absolute favorite is “when there are plenty of vegans who would have their life enriched by working for an all-vegan business, why give the position to someone who simply needed a job?”
Be vegan, don’t be vegan, I support your diet choices, my friends, even if like me you eat honey-roasted peanuts and Pepsi for dinner.
But this reminds me of my annoyance with most so-called “radical” spaces—they become ways for people to purify their lives and feel superior to/exclude others rather than to make actual change in the world.
New Food Pyramid
via amandaw
Interesting visual here that rather points out the problems with “eat right!” as a political doctrine (the original poster noted that “instrumental food” is the ability to choose your food for a specific outcome, like special diets, etc).
For much of the world, just having enough food is hard. Having reliable, ongoing access to food is a privilege; having novel food and specifically-chosen-for-health-benefits (let alone environmental, anticapitalist, etc.) is even more of one.
Coq au WHAT?
From Fancy Fast Food, this little gem:
Cheerwine is a popular soft drink in the south that is more “cheer” than “wine” (and more “cherry” than “cheer”), but we’re going to pretend it’s that Pinot — it looks like that when you pour it into fancy stemware anyway.
What better way to pair a Carolina dish with Carolina Cheerwine than to fuse them together in a mock recipe for Coq Au Vin — that French dish where chicken is braised in red wine? And so, we present the Fancy Fast Food recipe for “Coq Au CheerVin” (pronounced kohk oh sheer vaehn’ if you want to sound all Frenchy):
My mind is sorta blown. You see, dear readers, I lived for a while in South Carolina, and I know people who drank Cheerwine. And it terrified me. And the idea of using it as a cooking ingredient—especially to make fast food taste better—well, I’m just. Yeah.
But strangely drawn to it. Like the day we had the Double Down in the office. Part of me wants it. The very, very bad part.
Some Pig
SUN 9–MAY 13 PIG WEEK
East Village rathskeller Jimmy’s No. 43 turns its attention to the other white meat during this porkcentric week. The proceedings begin on Sun 9 with a pig-butchering demo and pork lunch, led by the Piggery. Visit jimmysno43.com, or click here for details on related events. Jimmy’s No. 43, 43 E 7th St between Second and Third Aves (212-982-3006). Pig-butchering demo: 1–4pm, $20.
The best food events in NYC – Time Out New York
shut up bacon? pig-butchering demo? my head hurts…
Food-Industrial Complex
The second lens is how, since the 1970s, wages adjusted for inflation have stagnated, and starting about the same time—not coincidentally—the USDA switches policies and starts encouraging farmers to grow as much food as possible and you get this long period of declining food prices; you get this steady drop in food expenditures as a percentage of income. I don’t think you can run an economy with structurally stagnated wages without food being really cheap.
Really, really great interview at the Columbia Journalism review with Tom Philpott of Grist, pointing out the class issues in food politics.
Freedom Fried
Today I am praising [KFC] for raising breast cancer awareness by selling pink buckets of chicken. For every bucket sold, KFC donates 50 cents to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an organization that raises awareness for breast cancer. Now some are saying this endorsement sends a mixed message, like Barbara Brenner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action, who argues, ‘They are raising for women’s health by selling a product that’s bad for health…it’s hypocrisy.’ No, madam, it’s hypoCRISPY. Besides, there’s an easy way to solve this dilemma. Yes, fried food may clog your arteries, so after you buy the chicken, everyone should also buy Campbell’s soup, whose AdDress Your Heart campaign raises money to fight heart disease. Of course, canned soup also has high levels of sodium, which can lead to kidney disease. That’s why you should load up on Coca-Cola, corporate partner of the National Kidney Foundation. Now sugary soft drinks can contribute to diabetes, so we all need to buy a Ford, global partner of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. And don’t worry that the trucks and SUVs hurt the environment, just buy a carton of Marlboro because Marlboro is a major partner of Keep America Beautiful. Of course, smoking causes cancer, so you want to fight back by buying a bucket of KFC. World saved.
Stephen Colbert, on KFC’s pink buckets of chicken (via brynnherman) (via izzibits) (via babyjane) (via crustyriotgrrl) (via loveandzombies)
Sometimes I love Stephen Colbert.