Sept. 22 - Fast Foods across the Pacific

[clay dube]

As you know: The Economist magazine created its Big Mac Index in 1986 to help judge if a currency is over or under-valued. The thinking is that a Big Mac has the same ingridients from place to place, so that its price reflected the relative strength of a currency compared to the dollar or other standard. It's worth emphasizing that there are many critics of this measure, popular though it may be.
Go to: (choose the country/region to compare on the left) https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index

Here's what the Japanese Big Mac suggests in June 2021:

 

[clay dube]

Jennifer's introduced many great resources on fast food migrations. One of our students wrote this bit years ago about KFC, the birthday palace. https://china.usc.edu/kfc-birthday-palace  It is not as current as what is in today's lecture. For a bit more on the history of KFC in Japan, you might enjoy the 30 minute documentary made by John Nathan. It's available via YouTube. It shows employee training, etc. Again, rather dated, but captures the moment and -- reveals our American fascination with how others perceive or adapt things we find familar.

[Cervantes Lee]

Super love the ending for the grandpa used chopsticks to pick up the French fries. I remember I had similar experience going to McDonald's with my dad and grandma while I was around 12 years old in Taiwan (1987). That was a new "dining" experience. We even did our "elementary class graduation party" at McDonald's.  McDonald's is probably the first U.S. food experience for me as child. I keep the habit to visit all the McDonald's for every city I visited in the past 30 years. I like the services, trendy, cleanliness, technology, double drive-through lane, and standard quality food.

[Ellen Davis]

So many of my students have not been exposed to other cultures, ideas, and foods. The idea of traveling to Asia has not crossed their minds in many cases, as some have not even been 10 miles away to the ocean. Many of my students eat fast food or junk food as the mainstays of their diets. The few students who have had the opportunity to travel to Japan have mentioned that they ate American food only, and frequented traditional American restaurants (McDonald's, KFC, Shake Shack, etc.) while visiting. 

An entry point into expanding their horizons would be examining various fast food restaurant menus from different countries, and comparing them. It would be interesting for students to compare, for example, McDonald's menus from several different Asian countries.

I appreciated learning about Ramen shops this week. As a teen, I aspired to have a sushi party for my Sweet 16, back in a time when sushi, nevermind ramen, could not easily be acquired in the area in which I lived. Today, my family goes out of their way to get quality ramen (vegetarian broth and gluten-free noodles for some in my family). While in Japan, my husband and I walked for over an hour in Kyoto to find the highly renowned ramen shop that serves vegan, gluten-free milk ramen. 

[Amy Stamm]

Thanks, everyone, for your insights and stories last night. Bin He, thanks for sharing that KFC calculates the GDP in different towns/areas and adjusts their prices to fit. That’s such an interesting form of localization, along with adjusting their menu to respond to customer demand for things like the Sichuan beef wrap that you talked about. Cervantes, your knowledge of the fast food industry is so extensive. It’s so enlightening to hear your insights about marketing, restaurant presentation, statistics on sales, how the reputation of different brands has changed over time, etc. Catherine, it’s so sad to watch how social media is destroying girls’ body image in so many countries. I’m sure that the prolific plastic surgery industry in South Korea, the apps in China that let you adjust your facial features, and the K Pop and J Pop industries add to this sense of the standardization of narrower and narrower concepts of beauty. It makes me so sad to watch girls’ and women’s relationships to food and eating become increasingly mediated by punitive frameworks. Becky, I love your hack instant ramen assignment. I’m thinking of creating lessons built around jail recipes and having students investigate the origins of the snacks they are able to order through commissary. I wish I could have an active cooking class with them. Your students must love your classes. Ellen, thanks for sharing the link for Towzen. Clay, thanks for your suggestions for how to create assignments and for the reference to Francesca Bray’s book. Bill, thanks for explaining how to cure an egg and use it in ramen. I’m definitely following up on that. And Angela and Gabe, I’m so jealous of your eating life.

 

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