Notes on Modern Eating: Murder, Michelin, and Mental Static

I love Chinese food, and as a foodie, I have made my pilgrimage to both The French Laundry and Per Se (in its day). While I was duly impressed, other food professionals were not.

“There’s a story that Fuchsia Dunlop likes to tell about when she took a bunch of Sichuanese chefs to the French Laundry — the Thomas Keller institution, considered the best restaurant in America at the time — and the chefs left duly unimpressed.”

It is not about technique, because Keller is a master, but it is about the cultural context in which we eat. From the Substack, Chinese Food Demystified, Can Chinese chefs appreciate western food?

While on the subject of food, I was taken by a recent quote that pointed out that “all of our food begins with murder” – and yes, that includes you vegetarians out there pulling plants out by the roots. 

“Early one morning in late December, the sky was overcast on the waters off the coast of Dana Point, in Southern California’s Orange County, and still the scales of a thrashing six-pound bonito, reeled in by the chef Junya Yamasaki, shimmered brilliantly.”

Chef Yamasaki’s fish was not allowed to suffocate but was deliberately killed using a Japanese technique known as ike jime. Is it morally better? Its outward description suggests not. From the New Yorker, How to Kill a Fish

My wife and I, particularly my wife, spend far more time cooking than either of my children. When we spend time with my kids, delivery always seems to be on the menu.

“With food delivery, what began as a once-in-a-while pizza ordered by phone call, then turned into a pandemic necessity, now feels as automatic as checking the fridge. In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to the National Restaurant Association. My kitchen has basically become an unboxing station, in which I remove my food’s plastic slip dress. I then take out leaking pots of soy sauce, micro-ketchups, bright pink duck sauce, waxy paper napkins—it’s all depression confetti.”

From the Free Press, a millennial begs to stop the delivery madness: How DoorDash Gets You

And now for a moment of shameless self-publicity. I have written about food noise in the past. As the Scientific American writes:

“No one knows from whom or where the term food noise originated. But it has taken social media by storm in recent years, and there are now thousands of references to it in the lay press, including in Scientific American (Young), The New York Times (Blum), and Weight Watchers. … The concept grew out of anecdotal reports from patients that their total preoccupation with food lessened or even disappeared—'an uncanny mental silence regarding food’”

Here is the entire article, No Longer, Voice: A Closer Look at Food Noise. The self-publicity? I am among the cited authors.