Friday, March 14, 2003

AMERICA RULES! God Bless the U.S.A. and Her Junk Food Industry Wednesday on Pipeline, Doug wrote some pretty excellent stuff about candy.  I, too, am a candy lover, but I try to avoid piggybacking too much on what he wrote.  I was, nevertheless, inspired by his groundbreaking work to write a bit about American superiority. Military superiority?  Economic superiority?  No.  I'm talking about junk food superiority.  Natch. Let me be clear--when I am talking about junk food, I'm not talking here about fruit, or some deep fried Ethiopian meat snack (which I have had) or anything you drink out of a coconut.  By my standards, junk food must meet three criteria: 1.  It must be SALTY, SWEET, and/or EXCESSIVELY SOUR 2.  It must be bad for your health 3.  It must be wrapped in plastic This final thing is the most important.  All true junk food is wrapped in plastic.  Bags, containers, shrink wrap, whatever.  Plastic. I've eaten junk food in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Dubai, Nepal, and Tunisia.  And I've had a variety of other junk foods from Asian grocery stores or other ethnic stores.  People, at the risk of being a nationalist, the U.S.A. blows the competition away.  It's not even close. [Quick sidenote:  the one real exception to this is super-high quality chocolate, like Valhrona and all sorts of French stuff.  The U.S. doesn't do as well on this front.  But super high quality chocolate is questionably junk food--it's usually wrapped in paper, for one thing.] What, you think Thai food is good?  How about Thai junk food?  Want to try Mr. Squid?  Dried spice cuttlefish in a plastic can.  Ask Scott Jorgensen about Mr. Squid.  You like Mexican food?  I will admit that Mexicans do very well with their Doritos varieties--spicy chile flavors that it's hard to get in the states.  But after that, you're talking about tasteless Frito imitations and candy bars called things like "Mr. Big".  Several friends and I really did run into a candy bar in La Paz, Mexico called Mr. Big--it had a picture of Shaquille O'Neal on it, saying "Es mi favorito!" Tunisians rely upon potato chips of frightening textures and more frightening tastes--styrofoam is the closest approximation.  However, Snickers bars are sold here, so there you go. The fact is, that if it's wrapped in plastic, and it's bad for you, the US is kicking the rest of the world right in the ass.  No one can beat the Snickers, the Nacho Cheese Dorito (my good friend Brad S. Thompson once said that Nacho Cheese Doritos were one of the three greatest inventions in human history, presumably along with the light bulb and the computer), the Twinkie, the Tangy Taffy, the Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip, the Mr. Salty Pretzel, the circus peanut, the Chili-Cheese Fritos, the Sour Patch Kid, the Rolo, the Gummy Bear. USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!  USA! 3:21:50 PM    Let's hear it. []

I can't believe yesterday's basketball action.  Read a little bit about it on March Madness Hyperbole. 2:16:46 PM    Let's hear it. []