The knowledge of food
BUG GUTS & BEAUTY
By Orpheus Allison
Cuisine de la rue! Street food! Traveling around, this is the type of food that can get people talking. Noodles in China, melon on sticks, and of course that one-of-a-kind, Pork Parfait from The Rib Truck. Street food is to be celebrated for its exuberance. It is not just some cheap burgers and limp hot dogs with some warm relish and horrible mustard. This is where the genius of people steps into the center ring.
As the vendors will tell it, this is the cauldron for ideas. New things to tempt the taste buds and carefully separate the customer from his cash. Long before we had McDonald’s and KFC there were the street vendors who tried all sorts of treats. There were pasties, roasted spuds, and chestnuts to be sampled. Carts went up and down the streets with hawkers selling what they could. There are still vestiges of this at the fair though in recent years the mediocrity of the offerings leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Now the mantra is to eat healthy. No more the bacon wrapped double cheeseburger or the deep fried chicken tenders. What is a hungry guy supposed to do? There is not enough cardboard to fill up the typical stomach. This is where educating the cooks would be of benefit. There are a number of quick dishes that could be sold in the same venue as burgers and chicken. Have you tried fried noodles? How about fresh dumplings and salad rolls for tempting the eyes and the tastebuds? Without a program of food education how can innovation take place?
It is expensive to bring a new food to market. There is the cost of designing it to be attractive. For street food, how can it be packaged so that people will eat it? Have you ever tried to hold soup in your hands? It is possible to fill a bread loaf with soup. Turn that idea into cold, hard cash. Make it simple enough that the hapless neophyte can make it in five minutes or less. Taste buds drag their owners across the street for a sample.
Coffee did this. Remember the old percolator? Camp coffee made by filling a pot with grounds, boiling it, and then consuming it black? Now you are lucky if the coffee bean does not talk back to you. The secret to all this success is not the product. Tea swigging Brits can tell you about that. The secret comes from a knowledge of food.
How does a food work? What makes it so good? How much is enough? And how can it be healthy? These are questions that a food preparation program could answer. There are very few such programs in the schools at all levels. Instead we are given flat ground beef, rubber chicken, and bottles of antacid. Screams from the hospital staff as they try to avert heart attacks, strokes, gas, and obesity. What is needed is a place where one can learn how not to burn the water. Where local meat and vegetables are enjoyed. And where innovation is celebrated for building jobs and health.
It would be nice if the dietitians and nutritionists located their offices in the grocery stores rather than banal boxes in the hospital. It would be nice if the local educational programs incorporated healthy eating concepts with training for the snowshoe marathon. It would be nice if local businesses could have a resource to try something new.
In the possible future it might happen.Until then it’s best to go for the deep fried, double dipped, chocolate covered, coconut butterball with extra butter. Pass the cream.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in the County. He began his journalism career at WAGM television later working in many different areas of the US. After twenty years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea. Graduating from UMPI he earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina.
