A Plea For Menu Modernism Analysis

Modern Culinary Practice’s Influence on Americans As we look around us each day, food’s impact becomes obviously evident. There are restaurants, particularly fast food restaurants, everywhere we look, and we even see food trailers as we take a walk around the city or a park. Americans are dependent on the concept of instant access to food. The writings of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Rachel Laudan’s “A Plea for Culinary Modernism” make the influence of this so-called necessity apparent. Both authors discuss the “fast food debate”, however, each chooses two different concepts to focus on; Schlosser takes an approach to warn his readers of the secretive preparation of fast food, while Laudan praises this newfound creativity in the way food is
It saddens me to say that I agree with Schlosser’s assumption, “the Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross” (“Schlosser 5”). We have become so aware of the Golden Arches of McDonald’s that it is almost second nature to us to get excited when they are in view, making us stop for the processed food. Aside from the McDonald’s business, Schlosser exposes the truth about what is found in the kitchen of fast food restaurants, and how the employees are overworked and underpaid. He suggests that there are usually rats and cockroaches found in most fast food restaurants. As for the overworked and underpaid workers, conditions, mostly in the production factories are horrid. Take, for instance, the meat packing industry. Anyone who has read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle will know that those who work in the company often cut their fingers off, making the body part go into the meat. Is the production process stopped to get the finger out? It is sickening to say it is not. Also in the meat industry, E.coli is sometimes found in hamburger meat (Schlosser 9). With the discussion of E.coli in hamburgers, Schlosser provides a