Friday, May 21, 2010
Shocker: Foodies Like Doobies
Cannabis Culture David Downs — Fri, May 21, 2010 at 1:39 PM
This week, New York Times food writer Kim Severson outlines a dubious trend of what she dubs "haute stoner cuisine." In it, Anthony Bourdain notes, "Everybody smokes dope after work. ... People you would never imagine.” Shocker. Severson goes on to detail sweet, savory, and rich plates like cereal milk self-serve ice cream in Manhattan, Kogi Korean taco trucks in Los Angeles, and breakfast burrito pizza in Brooklyn. It's sort of interesting, but the macro-trend is more fascinating. "Stoner haute cuisine" may or may not exist, but the entire concept of the "stoner" as this junk food-eating wastrel is a vision with racial overtones because of its "lazy Mexican" origins. Case-in-point: the Spanish slang "marijuana" became cannabis' nom de guerre. The reality is there never was "stoner" food, any more than there is "alcoholic" food" or "junkie" food. Profit, policy, and power determine such societal generalizations. No shocker then that an emerging market of elite taste for the former immigrant's "ditch weed" reads like a trend, and can be sold as one too.
Comments (2)
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Downs' larger point is that our culture's view of stoners is generally negative, due to a confluence of media, culture and laws. He's simply pointing this out through the ridiculousness of NY Times article. Downs does come off a bit like a grad student, but his underlying observations are good. Smoke a joint and think about it.
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You come across like an uptight grad student who never gets out of the house. The notion that equating stoners with junk food has racial overtones is contrived and preposterous - I would venture that in most people's minds it conjures visions of college students (white? black? mexican? WHO F**KING CARES?) wolfing down junk food in front of the TV. What the NY Times article showed is the diversity among stoners' occupations and food tastes, and had NOTHING to do with race until you forced it in there. Political correctness and forced multiculturalism are tired. Write about something worthwhile.
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