W7 Secret Secrets Are No Fun

            I would like to start off by wondering what makes a “secret” recipe.  Are the ingredients secret?  Or, is it only the amounts of ingredients that makes a recipe unknown to others?  I suppose some secret recipes can simply use methods that the cook wants to keep under wraps.  Either way, secret recipes dominate American society.  I’ve often wondered what the “23 flavors” are in a Dr. Pepper, or the 11 herbs and spices that Colonial Sanders used to make his world famous original recipe.  These are multi million dollar businesses that thrive on the fact that no one can replicate their recipes, and therefore the company will have little or no competition.  Sometimes, others can come close to copying the secret recipe, such as off brand versions of Dr. Pepper, like Mr. Pibb or the delightfully generic Dr. Thunder sold at Wal Mart.  However, all of these taste slightly different than the original.

            I understand the appeal of keeping a recipe secret on a major corporate scale, but what about locally?  Jackie O’s in Athens does not disclose the brewing method for their Raze Wheat Beer.  This is likely not due to any corporate monopoly on the recipe, but because they wish for their beer to be unique.  Their sweet, grapefruit juice colored brew certainly is unique in Athens, Ohio, and they likely keep the recipe away from major brewing companies for that reason.

            If Dr. Pepper and KFC are hiding their recipe from competitors, and Jackie O’s is keeping its brewing method away from other local breweries, just who is my mother hiding her maple chicken recipe from?  Maple chicken, as odd as it sounds, is what I ask for each time I go home to Cleveland for the weekend and my mom wants to make a special dish.  It consists of a chicken breast covered in pretzels, and an unknown sauce which includes maple syrup.  She will not tell me exactly what is in the sauce, or how much of the mystery ingredients to include.  I sometimes wonder if she fears that the list of ingredients may sound less appetizing on paper, so it is better if I just shut up and eat the delicious dish.  I wonder if she fears that if I knew what was in the sauce the maple chicken wouldn’t be my favorite home cooked meal anymore.  Either way I have always been curious, and wanted to solve this mystery.  And to be honest, no matter what is in that sauce, I could never be grossed out by my mom’s maple chicken recipe, it’s that good.

W4 On the Road, No Time to Eat

America is most definitely a “fast food nation.”  Downtown locations are on every block in major cities, and small towns are cluttered with them.  Even in a city as small as Athens, there are easily more than ten fast food “restaurants” in a two or so mile radius.  Something unique about American fast food is the road aspect of it.  Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives likes to claim the locally owned holes in the wall that he goes to as road trip food, but I believe that fast food is much more synonymous with road trips.

            Each and every time my family goes on vacation to somewhere in the States, we drive the entire way, stopping only for food, gas, and six hours of sleep.  I have driven (or rode in the car, depending on my age) as far as South Dakota, Florida, Maine, Texas, among countless others; the farthest being a thirty two hour car ride to southwestern Colorado.  On interstate trips like these, fast food is crucial.  My favorite fast food story would simply be eating a greasy cheeseburger in the backseat, trying not to spill it all over the two weeks worth of luggage sitting next to me.  When trying to drive over thirty hours in the car, there was no time to stop at a local dive bar for lunch.

            Fast food, however, is something totally different overseas.  In other developed countries, it hasn’t quite caught on yet.  In Europe for example, people don’t put nearly the emphasis on McDonald’s as they do here in the States.  One reason for an under appreciation of fast food in Europe is likely the lack of the “eating food quickly” concept in their culture.  In Italy, for example, mealtime is a family ritual, which often takes up a couple of hours, nothing to be disgraced by a five minute feast of fatty meat and cheese.  The lifestyle is also totally different in places such as France.  The workday is structured as to leave time in the day for a lengthy meal.  Many employers shut down the business for three to four hours during midday to go and have a huge meal, and take a nap.  There is no “don’t have time to eat” rush feeling when the work day is so relaxed.  For whatever reason, fast food remains and in my opinion will continue to remain an American phenomenon.  While I believe the future of fast food will be healthier, due to growing trends, the concept of the five minute meal will always remain uniquely American.