Fried chicken wings and thoughts on wine
Can you ebonic-fy a type of cuisine? I think the term might come across with greater racial undertones than I would like. Consider the similarities between English/Ebonics and Chinese/Americanized-Chinese food. In relative sense, you have something that's been around for hundreds of years like English or Chinese food. Compared to something that's more of a recent phenomenon (relatively speaking). With both mutations, there's a certain pride to the entity in itself, as there should be. Shame should not be cast upon a refinement of an original, simply because there's differences. Fluency and appreciation of both English and Ebonics is possible, as is the case with Chinese and Americanized-Chinese food. I've spoken about Fried Chicken with fried rice before, and I couldn't help myself when I walked by one earlier this week.
I started thinking about this after reading this freakonomics blog entry. It was a guest post by the author of Wine Trials 2010. He was talking about how wine is something that people have troubles assessing valuation. Food on the other hand, does provide valuation that's easier for people to assess. However, proper valuation mostly take place after consuming the dining experience. Of course chicken wings and fried rice appeal to me economically since it's only $5 dollars. Though not a dish with roots in China, the flavors of fried chicken with fried rice and hot sauce is authentic to the idea of delicious. The price is easy to appreciate and it makes the chicken easier to swallow until heartburn takes place.
There's no nuance in the fried rice, although I'm a poor critic to judge intricate details when it comes to taste. Everything does taste good to me. I realized lately that stress is a sauce almost as effective as hunger. This must be why ice cream is so delicious. Although I guess ice cream is consumed both in moments of happiness and those other moments.
It's easy to see that Americanized Chinese food is not the same as the authentic stuff. But it's still so good. Even as I profess love for it, in my heart, I see it as an inferior product. Intrinsically, there's not value on a dish except production cost and the price that the market can bare. Now, as it relates to wine, I do think people like me can't really figure out a difference in bottles of wine that's been brown bagged. Would I choose an 'inferior' product over a superior one? Choclates is a food I consume way more often than wine. And I consume the lower priced stuff for both types of food... so if I don't naturally have a preference for the nuaced and expensive chocolate, would I have one for expensive wine? If my love for fried chicken and fried rice is any indication, I hope that I can love both expensive and the cheap, and always maintain an appreciation for both.
@Max,
Sometimes I don't know what I mean either :)
Danny
March 2, 2010 10:32 am
Dude, so weird! I just read your March 2009 fried chicken post yesterday. Good follow-up! I like this line in particular: "stress is a sauce almost as effective as hunger." I don't really know what it means, but I know I like it (and I think I agree!).
Max
February 25, 2010 6:49 pm