10-11-2009

XXXL Food in New York

Yes I know that Manhattan is not a good representation of the USA but look at the food and look at the people: a lot of big portions and a lot of big people. The New York marathon gave me another opportunity to check again what’s happening over there.

Looking through a Dutch pair of glasses you see many surprising phenomena.

There is a lot of excellent food available in New York but look at the portions ! It’s all about portion size. You don’t get the impression that obesities has anything to do with the quality of the food. It’s all about quantity. Cups are bigger, sandwiches are bigger, steaks are bigger, pizza’s are bigger, everything is bigger. People love XXXL.
Vegetables seem to be completely absent. It’s just not part of the shopping list. It’s called the big apple but I haven’t seen anybody eating one.
Normal bread has been replaced by muffins, bagels, chocolate chip cookies, brownies.
Sweet has become extra sweet. Even Danone yoghurt tastes much sweeter than what you buy over here.
You don’t eat at home: you eat on the street. Wherever you are, there are always at least 5 shops within 100 meters where you can fill your stomach.
You are not in the game if you don’t carry a cup Starbucks coffee on the street.
If you have a big budget you can spend all your money in Wholefoods or Dean & Deluca. No normal brands over there, just very exclusive top of the market delicatessen. If you have a small budget you can go to the 1 dollar menu of McDonalds and have a 1 USD choice between burger, fish or salad.
If you are health conscious you can drown in eco and bio; if you are not you have to live with very greasy, fatty, cheesy looking pizza’s.

Food cultures around the world are so much more different than for instance entertainment, film, music or art. Why do we eat smoked pork sausage in the Netherlands and nowhere else. Why do we eat cream soup in Belgium and not over here ? Why was corn flakes never a big success in the Netherlands ?

We seem to have very conservative eating habits. That’s why we like conservative food. That’s why we like conservative food advertising which almost never wins a award in Cannes. We all have ten favourite dishes and we vary between those ten. And we like to eat like our mothers prepared it.

With so many Anglo American influences coming to us every day you realise again how much Dutch food and Dutch eating habits differ from what’s happening in this great icon of the western world: New York.