• America does not have a good food culture

    The pro-US arguments boiled down almost entirely to pointing out that we have a huge diversity of restaurant choices. Which is a good argument, because that, at a descriptive and practical level, is the strength of US food culture1 — that you can, if you really want to, get a reasonably priced good meal of almost any cuisine in the world.

    ...[But] the reality of food in America, outside of a few high-status neighborhoods scattered around the US, is that most people don’t prioritize the varied experiences of eating at bespoke restaurants, and so the median food eaten in the US is not from some well reviewed Indonesian place on the Upper East Side, or from that really cool Bolivian place in Alexandria.

    It’s far more mundane than that, far more processed, and far less social. The far more common reality of food experience in America is someone eating drive-through alone in their car, or eating wings at the Applebee’s bar while watching the game with friends, or heating up leftovers in a microwave before work.

    It’s not all a hellscape of lonely meals of processed food, but relative to the rest of the world, it is.

    An Article by Chris Arnade walkingtheworld.substack.com
    • ⭐ Slow Software Robin Stewart

      The “slow food” movement encourages people to take the time to cook and savor meals made with love. It emphasizes care rather than the efficiency and utilitarianism of “fast food”.

      What does the software version of that look like?

      The typical software application is a product of a business trying to maximize profit and efficiency. There is a constant push to release new features and upgrades as quickly as possible, at the lowest cost possible. “Quality” is defined as the minimum possible bar that is still acceptable to paying customers. It is designed with the same priorities as “fast food”.

      Of course, “slow” in the software world usually refers to annoyingly unresponsive user experiences. But here I mean “slow” in the sense that the software itself was designed and built slowly and with care, the same way that a meal can be prepared and eaten slowly and with care. Such software is likely to actually be more responsive because its architecture has been more carefully honed.