Fast food is an art. Quote me correctly. I say nothing of the preparation of fast food because I have no experience. I leave that to the experts to debate; I refer to the eating of fast food, something I can humbly lay claim to having experience in. I base this statement on the discovery that (most) fast food is not actually nice in itself. Let's not be snobby. I'm not saying fast food can't taste good; what I mean to say is that fast food's deliciousness is highly volatile and depends on several factors which play an irreplaceable role in making fast food the global phenomenon it is today. First of all: one must never, on any account, allow fast food to become cold. This probably the most effective technique that fast food franchises have of ensuring their customers don't get so comfortable they stay on and on. Hot fries, especially hot cheesy fries, are a shout of joy to the heart. Cold fries, on the other hand, remind one that life is transient and the delights of the flesh sordid and superficial at last. One gets disillusioned as one picks dispiritedly at the tomato sauce with a limp, soggy fry, wondering dismally why did I choose fast food? Why not a healthier meal choice? Why is world peace impossible? Secondly: value for money. Fast food's greatest appeals are its promise of affordable instant gratification. If you feel disappointed by a fast food meal, your disappointment is considerably diminished by the comforting knowledge that it didn't extend to your wallet, at least. On the other hand, words fail to describe the outrage, self-reproach, and wild groaning regret when one has trustingly paid for fast food at non-fast food prices. I'm talking about you, you fancy special burger sets which invariably let me down. Fast food which wasn't even good for me and didn't even taste good and for which I actually naively paid an exorbitant price for! The horror! Thirdly: do not pay any attention to the pictures on the billboards which are but optimistic to say the least. Lettuce is never green and frilly. By the time it has gone through the processing of a fast food franchise its soul is gone and it has become a moist, grayish shower cap for the patty. Most of all, the meat never shows between the buns. Like a teenager embarrassed about a bad acne breakout it hides inside, reluctant to acknowledge its existence unless you peer past the buns and the cloudy smears of ketchup and barbeque sauce like an anxious pearl diver. Nothing like the inch-thick band of colour that separates the buns so clearly on the poster. The myth began since as little children you were indoctrinated to draw stylized hamburgers with impossibly generous meat patties made from Goliath's cows. Fast food is one of our daily reminders that we live in a globalized first world society where we can afford to pay for something as simple as soft drinks we can already buy on our own, and two pieces of bread with meat in between. And fried potatoes. (Have you ever tried making your own fries? Of course, compared to plunking down a few dollars and spacing out at a counter for a few minutes, it seems like a lot of work; but surprisingly, it's not hard to make great-tasting fries. We are basically paying for not having to stand in front of the deep fryer, not for some top secret recipe-- which I don't think is news to anyone.) Having said that, there's a certain attraction about ice-cold coke served in the standard fast food cup with the straw you can squash between your teeth and make funny sounds with. Somehow coke in the bottle doesn't taste the same. It has to be full of ice, so you're paying more for ice than coke, with that flimsy plastic lid you can tear when you get bored. What secret ingredient is it that makes us suck it up placidly like lambs, I wonder? Now excuse me while I go get some cheesy fries--hot ones, mind you. |
the process of appreciating life
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