You get one life, live it up (bad food)4.30.02

If you were to grade the daily life experience, it would probably get about a C. The average day spent running higgledy-piggledy worrying about bills and working for someone else probably deserves a lower grade than that, but frankly, who wants to admit that their life gets less than a dead average?
Of course, this all depends on the paradigm from which you operate. Keeping your head above water and sustaining one's existence as well as that of one's offspring could be considered an A+, but this is not "Up With People." Life is graded on a curve. Surviving gets a C. Living well gets extra credit.
When I give out a high grade for a life experience, there has to be a good reason. If I give a meal an A, for instance, it will be because that food and drink could not be reasonably surpassed on any subjectively rational scale ... period.
I won't give an A because I am no longer hungry or because the quantities were such as to nearly cause distention.
There is something to be said about never experiencing the better things in life, though. Once you have had a real bagel from a kosher bakery made by people who answer to a higher power, those soft dinner roll concoctions you get in some bakeries just make you angry.
Once you've had genuine New York cheesecake so rich and dense it offends our Lord with it decadence, Jell-O instant cheesecake just feels morally wrong.
As Americans, we have a strange tendency to eat all kinds of garbage. Fast food, preservatives, insane levels of sodium, fruit in heavy syrup, watered-down coffee, microwaved anything and everything.
It's like we have no idea what good is. Our pioneer forebears were happy to surive on anything and they passed that on to us. Forget about good FOR us, that went out the window so long ago it can't be measured without carbon dating.
No, for the sake of this discussion, good food can be drenched in butter or, as the French call it, "cuisine." Nothing wrong with good pork fat, red meat, bacon, heavy cream. These are the foundations of high-quality fare.
We aren't really consuming those things, either are we? Not the good varieties in any case. We defend our lousy lifestyle choices as if we were living il dulce vita though. It's one thing to kill yourself eating really good food, next to going out in flagrante dilecto, I can't think of a better way to go, but shoveling rendered swill down our gullets and chasing it with various colors of corn syrup in carbonated water is just cheap. If you're gonna die from clogged arteries, at least clog them with quality.
But gravy from a can? Breaded, deep-fried cheese? Canned vegetables?
I'm sorry if it offends, but there is no good reason in this day and age for anyone to eat a green bean from a can, even in the dead of winter, even in the comfort of one's home, let alone in a restaurant.
There are greenhouses, hydroponics, truck farms and frozen to consider first. Grow your own in a closet if need be but do not waste one more day eating green beans from a can. You deserve better than that. Convicted criminals deserve better than that.
Restaurants should do better in any case, otherwise the only reason to eat out is a misplaced sense of pity. Feel your own plight, people, that's what I say. Tell your local eatery to do better or you'll stay home next Friday and eat canned veggies at cost.
Since we are all so used to low standards, it is possible many of us just don't know what to avoid any more, so here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if you are eating in a lousy restaurant.
Is there more leather on your eggs than on your shoes?
Do you feel lucky when your dinner salad has a tomato on it?
Did the waitress punish you for asking what kind of salad dressings they had by drowning your icerberg lettuce in Dorothy Lynch? That was no accident.
Is the only reason your medium steak isn't bleeding all over your plate because it's still frozen in the middle?
Is the menu you're reading AT LEAST 20-years old?
Does your cook wear sweatpants?
Do you think to yourself, "well, at least there's a lot of it?"
Ever get the feeling the special is just an excuse to serve the same thing every Tuesday?
Does a sign on the wall state proudly "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason?"
When you ask the waitress if the pasta is al dente, does she say "I think he doesn't work here any more."
Are the lumps in your instant potatoes put there to fool you into thinking they are "old-fashioned?"
Can you see the bottom of your coffee cup when it's full?
Can anything on your sandwich be described as "reconsituted?"
If your answer to two or more of the above questions is "yes," then chances are you can do better. Life is too short to eat garbage, so treat yourself right and if you have to stay home to do that then so be it.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.