Why Some Cuisines Are More Expensive Than Others
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Because of this formula, expensive restaurants are not necessarily more valuable or profitable - merely more prestigious. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about his father's restaurant businesses. He owned two restaurants - a prestigious steakhouse on a valuable lakefront, and a cheap fast food chain location. He made far more money slinging cheap burgers than he ever made on fancy steaks. Cheap ingredients, cheap labor, cheap location, very high volume!
With catering, you only have to pay for the staff you need, when you need them. You also often don't have to pay for the venue, or only have to pay for renting furniture etc.
Part of the profitability also comes from the fact that you're already paying for the kitchen, and often the venue (if it's hosted at the restaurant after hours), so you're essentially removed 30% of the cost.
In contrast, how big is the recently-French population in America really? And how many professional French cooks can one really find? Even if the demand for french food is much lower than the demand for Chinese food, the lack of supply alone will drive up the price.
Note also the second effect of the above. If someone wanted to open a Chinese restaurant, they can hire a affordable Chinese cook and market the restaurant as a mid-price restaurant. Or they can hire an expensive Chinese cook and market the restaurant as a high-end venue.
In contrast, if someone wanted to open a french restaurant, they don't have the option of hiring a cheap French cook. It's go big, or go home... which means that the pool of all French restaurants, is going to be heavily biased towards upscale, expensive restaurants.
If you simply take the average menu price of all zagat-rated French restaurants, and compare them to the average menu price of all zagat-rated Chinese restaurants, you're going to find a big difference in these average numbers, but a lot of it will simply be a result of the above price-bias. If you're trying to investigate people's demand/perception for a certain cuisine, the above results are going to be a highly distorted one.
American and European cooking schools are all modeled on Escoffier's techniques, as passed down through generations of chefs going back to those worked under him directly. It's not just about the cooking. It's the white tablecloths, the wine list, the dress code - it's about a restaurant experience that says as much about who the customer is and what their role in society is as it says about food.
Why require that gentlemen wear a jacket and a tie for dinner? Does it add to the cost of the food? No. It's about standards. If you offer a gentleman a tie so he may eat, you've said something about his station in life. That's why waiters at such fancy places seem like they're insulting you - they're actually insulting you! Because of this, the restaurants are expensive. Of course they're expensive. Not because the food is superior, but because the kind of people who would eat there expect it. At the best, putting prices on the menu is a faux pas. If you have to think about the cost, you don't belong.
It sounds like you're saying that the purpose of French restaurants is to signal your wealth/social class, and if you want good food that's worth what you're paying, you should go somewhere else.
I found this peculiar, given that the US has no fewer than four distinct regional "Mexican" cuisines, not found in Mexico. These are Tex-Mex, California Mexican food (e.g. the fabulous Mission burrito), New Mexican food, and American Mexican food (think chimichangas).
New Mexican cuisine is older than the US, and middle-white America has been eating tacos (with the crispy shell, itself a US development) for at least two generations. They're about as American as Chef Boyardee at this point.
Here in Silicon Valley, there might be Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, etc. restaurants that I'm unaware of, but even including the north bay, surely very few.
And in most of America, predictably there'd be none in most towns and cities (aside from New York, Miami, etc.).
Which is pretty different than Mexican, which is indeed widely embraced in one form or another.
P.S. I did just see a new Cuban restaurant in the south bay the other day; I'm not trying to say these things are never here.
P.P.S. a fifth regional American "Mexican" cuisine is, I'm told, found far from the coasts and from the southern U.S. border (possibly especially in the Midwest), "Mexican" almost entirely in name only, which may e.g. use ketchup as the only red sauce, and is often denied to be Mexican at all by fans of the other 4 kinds.
I hear that something similar is what is usually, if not universally, found in e.g. London as well.
Your point is well taken that most of the US is unfamiliar with any cuisine further away than Mexico (and GP is right most of the Mexican is heavily Americanized).
That's interesting. I would have guessed half that number -- although if you count each country in the central and south Americas, including island nations like Cuba, isn't that roughly just one restaurant per country?
Also, bottom line, I'm pretty sure that 20 is quite dwarfed by the number of Mexican restaurants in the Bay Area. Perhaps even if we only counted taquerias, which seem to pop up almost once per block in some areas.
Thanks for making an actual numeric estimate.
> I don't really think of the north bay (or the peninsula) as culinary destinations, but SF and the east bay are great for food.
Agreed, although note that some good restaurants (if not Michelin-starred) tend to be sparse, rather than nonexistent, in some of those more deprived cities.
And even Michelin stars can be found in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Woodside, Saratoga and Los Gatos, which surprises many people.
As an example of the sort of corn tortilla that I try to find, here is the place I order from in London when I do not have time to pull out the press and make my own: http://www.coolchile.co.uk/mexican-shop/corn-tortillas
There's a Peruvian sandwich place near me now. I wouldn't say it's high class, but the sandwiches are more expensive than many other places around here. I just assumed it was due to it being more expensive to import the food they need, but now this article makes me think of the cultural aspects of it too.
My dad likes to tell the story of his mother, who came from Durango, encountering the concept of "tacos" for the first time... in California. He's always had a hard time thinking of them as "Mexican food".
They're as Mexican as moles.
The fact that they're authentically Mexican won't change the fact my dad thinks of them as being less Mexican than tamales, or that 2-3 generations back their penetration was such that a farming community didn't even know the word.
Here in Minneapolis, the current trend is Southern food, often made by hipsters who grew up in Minnesota and have no real cultural ties to the South. For me, with my half-southern roots, it's kind of bizarre to see stuff like bologna sandwiches and collard greens popping up everywhere and commanding high prices. That's the stuff you got at church luncheons and roadside shacks in Kentucky.
I don't expect them to start serving burgoo made from red squirrels anytime soon.
In modern cuisine, if it's got avocados, it's Californian!
If you want to go much further back, you get Mexican food.
Avocados are definitely eaten in California, and they have been for as long as I remember, but I'm not under the impression that it defines California food. Occasionally, I'll get avocados in a sandwich, salad, or burrito, but that's about it. Maybe eating avocados was so foreign to the rest of the country that it became associated with California.
I guess if you don't live in other parts of the country, you don't have a sense of which foods are unique to your region and which foods are common throughout the country.
It's not hard to explain. They won't grow in the rest of the country. They do grow in Mexico; I understand NAFTA hit the California avocado business pretty hard.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/14/dining/field-g...
I'd also like to nominate creole/cajun as my favorite American cuisine, NC eastern-style bbq as my favorite bbq, and shrimp and grits (with runner-up chicken and waffles) as my favorite soul food.
Small overview: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/americas/20bolivia.h...
[1]: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/31/472453674/you...
Of course, last year and the year before the prices were historically low; I think I bought hard-shells once for $2.50 a pound.
[EDIT: The $40-ish/lb was for picked lobster meat.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lobster-not-lobster-subs...
Broths made with cartilage and bone are much more nutritious than muscle proteins. Humans have traditionally eaten as much of the animal as they could, for efficiency. Incorporating the types of amino acids in the rest of the animal in addition to the meat is more compatible with wellness.
Bone broth is a correction of a mistake, not a "craze".
Bone broth is a pain for restaurants to make. Doing it right takes very long cook times. It won't last as a trend, and people sure as heck aren't going to make it themselves, unless they're nerds (my daughter makes fish and duck bone broths at home, but she's a nerd - and half the time she cheats and pads it with hearts and livers to reduce the cooking time).
Nothing is more hipster than paying a high price for bologna sandwich.
BBQ is another southern classic. Whether it's Eastern NC style chopped pork with vinegar sauce, or Texas smoked brisket served dry, it's all good.
Chinese food in America much cheaper because the ingredients are much less costly and far less difficult to make. I don't think the value of Chinese food really has to do much with the Western perception of the Chinese economy or its people. That "Chinese" food is, in America, is designed to be tasty and relatively inexpensive. Authentic Chinese food isn't as appealing or palatable to most Americans.
If I go to a Japanese restaurant I can expect them to have udon or sushi and I know I can find those things at actual restaurants in Japan and Japanese people may criticize aspects of it, but will recognize the udon and sushi as a Japanese dish.
The few "authentic" Chinese places I've known to exist quickly shut down, often due to a lack of patrons. As you said - I don't think it is appealing or palatable for most Americans.
I've grown to hate Americanized Chinese food. The best thing to wake your average eater up to this disparity is proper dim sum in my opinion.
It never felt like these were hidden gems: we just went to Chinatown in NYC, for example. If you're particularly worried about authenticity, you can peek at the clientele and see what percent is Asian.
Is your wife Chinese American by any chance? Anecdotally I've found that Chinese Americans (and all other first gen Americans, e.g. Mexican Americans) are considerably pickier about their heritage food than immigrants. I'm a first gen myself, and saw it in my first gen friends growing up too -- it's a way to feel more attached to your cultural identity, one that you already feel a bit like an outsider in.
Neither of us is American but we've eaten Chinese food in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the UK, among other places.
Do you really think any other culture/country's food is 'authentic' in the US?
Do you somehow think "Outback Steakhouse" is anything like Australians eat?
Do you somehow think Thai restaurants are anywhere close to authentic anywhere but Thailand?
I've said it before: the only food that seems to be universal in what to expect, is Indian curries. Everything is adapted for local tastes and to use locally available ingredients.
At least two Chinese restaurants near me serve this, and it has become one of my favorite dishes. ;)
Then again I'll give almost anything a go.
Ebi-fry, tonkatsu, tempura, katsudon, karaage, chicken namban, kurokke and the list goes on are all common, authentic deep fried Japanese foods that are commonly consumed with mayonnaise.
Sure, it has to do with economics, but not so much taste being driven by what people eat in rich and militarily powerful countries, but the fact that rich and stable countries don't have huge numbers of people that are very skilled in their cuisine emigrating to the US and opening restaurants, saturating the market and driving market-clearing prices down. Whereas Mexico, for instance, does.
Mexican food isn't cheap in the US because people look down on Mexico, it's cheap because there are so many people making it, and so many that could be making it.
A real Chinese restaurant has round tables, so everyone is equidistant from the food and can share among each other. You don't 'plate' a dish. You cook everything and put it out there for everyone. Food is about the taste, the freshness and quality.
You go there for bonding with friends and family. You don't pay dutch. One person pays, and sometimes there's a fight on who pays.
Real Chinese food cannot be expensive, because Chinese people know how to cook and won't go out. So often my aunts, uncles, family friends balk at going out. They can cook just as good, and it's cheaper. I need to drag them out. If it's expensive they'd never go out. You'd end up with food that caters to western taste, because only they would pay for expensive Chinese food.
As Ive said elsewhere, the only food I've had in 4 countries that was even close to the same in all, is Indian food (i.e. curry + rice).
Every other type of food I've experienced, is influenced by the local tastes, and availability of products.
Round tables are for big parties. Restaurants in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc. have two person and four person tables as well. They also have shared food and non-shared food. It really depends on the restaurant type and the meal you're ordering as well as occasion. (Recall, some people eat lunch by themselves --most take it to go, some eat on premises.) You will see the round tables at "banquet" restaurants, many in hotels, but not all.
Restaurant food in China, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc. is not all that different from the ones you find in neighborhoods which cater to a ex-pat or first or second generation Asians. They both cook with packaged ingredients, it cuts costs, rather than from scratch as you might at home or _some_ street vendors (many street vendors are franchised).
Cheap places just have long foldable picnic style tables with benches where anyone can sit anywhere.
Because until very recently, it HAS been cheap and crappy food in America. "Chinese food" has traditionally meant the chop suey that you take out from Dragon Inn (and in many areas, it STILL means that).
I grew up with a severe dislike for Chinese food. It tasted like I was literally eating out of a garbage can. The first time I ate at a Chinese friend's place I was very leery, but it turned out of course that the Western idea and the Chinese idea of "Chinese food" could not be more divergent. Good food is good food, but Chinese cuisine has a long Western history to live down.
To this day I still cringe whenever someone suggests Chinese cuisine, because I never know which kind they have in mind.
a) don't lump the rest of the 'western' world in with America. "Chinese food" in Australia is of course not authentic, but by local tastes is usually delicious.
b) implying something has to "live down" implies that there is fault with the item itself. Good Chinese food (or even good chinese-inspired food, rather than authentic chinese) didn't force Americans to eat shit.
The problem is that much of the early Chinese food cooked in America was by miners/railroad workers who had few other job opportunities. It was not until the late 1960s and 70s when actual chefs came to the States[0].
I'm also bitter because I grew up in a household where anything that was even remotely different from the same bland 4-5 dishes we ate every single day was considered strange and exotic by the rest of my family. I would love to hang out with certain relatives and be able to suggest Indian or Thai food without getting a reaction like I want them to construct an interdimensional portal so we could go eat food from an alternate universe where everything's made out of pure thought and energy.
There is a restaurant that I like to get my culture's home cooking. Nothing fancy, just home cooking. You do not even know it is a restaurant since there is no storefront except for a social club awning. I could never remember the exact street it is on, so when looking for the address one day, I came across reviews for the restaurant. First of all I was shocked that "outsiders" went to eat there. Good for them. But the reviews by these foodies went on into detail about every aspect of the food. It is home cooking! I felt like the food was an animal in a zoo and people were paying to see these strange creatures. They were there not for the environment, the culture, or even the food. They were there to see how these other people eat. I am sorry if American food is bland, but do not treat cultures like animals in a zoo.
I think everyone should pick apart everyone else's culture if they feel like it. If you want a sacred space, don't welcome the general public. You're welcome to treasure the things you want to, of course! But it seems rather surly to pick on people who like to nerd out on food.
Of course on another level, if your culture is picking on foody's culture, so be it! It all gets pretty meta...
There are many Italian restaurant chains, but few French restaurant chains.
Anecdotally here in DC Germanic restaurants are almost all Biergarten type places that emulate 'street' food, and there isn't any fine dining to bring up the averages. I imagine that's true in most of the US.
Fun outliers I can think of are Filipino and Laotian, which are both fairly expensive vs the country prestige, but of course there's a tiny sample size.
That being said, lechon, oxtail stew and sinigang are awesome, but not what most Filipino people eat on a regular basis.
Unappetising to western tastes, I think is what you meant.
> sausage made of who knows what
That's what a sausage is, unless you make it at home.
> roast/fried pig feet/ears
I've come to enjoy roasted pigs tail (technically its the tailbone from the carcass, rather than the actual curly part of the tail) and its fucking amazing.
If I had to pick one thing Filipinos loved most, it would definitely be fried chicken. They also seem to have a soft spot for spaghetti with an extremely sweet tomato sauce.
Filipino, on the other hand, is almost nonexistent. We just don't have a significant community here to support it.
Meanwhile, when I cook my staples are tacos, chili, coconut curry, and chicken salad.
Nonetheless, it's an interesting observation. I wonder what will take the place of cheap Chinese, if those prices rise? Most other Asian cuisine is on the higher end and rising.
Anyway, I'm vegetarian (vegan lately), so I'm always comparing vegetarian options across the board (and another reason I like Asian restaurants more than most other options; there's always more items on the menu that I'd eat). It seems like vegetarian options are usually cheaper than those containing meat, at Chinese restaurants. The same is not always true at a lot of other kinds of restaurant; for example, a burger place will usually charge more for a veggie burger, a pizza place will charge more for vegan cheese (if they even offer it), etc.
One of the biggest differences here, but not mentioned, is Parisian as well and "Peking" cuisine is "imperial" or dynastic. Many other cuisines have more rustic heritage, i.e. "peasant" food. Yes, ultimately Parisian and "Peking" cooking can trace back to peasant origins, but many were refined in imperial palaces --thus the prestige. Mexican, British, Russian food is quite squarely in the "peasant" bracket.
I found the discussion of Italian vs French food especially interesting since what we think of as "French" cuisine was brought from Italy to France in the early 17th century by Marie de Medici who considered France an uncultured place compared to her native Tuscany.
But yes, the price of good pizza is nuts in the States. I'm in Berlin right now and a damn good pizza at Il Casolare is a humble 10€, whereas in San Francisco, it'd easily cost at least $20 (and you'd have to stomach a pretentious story as well).