Something I have been thinking about recently is the cost of eating in America versus other countries, and the cheap food that is available to Americans versus elsewhere. It seems for the most part that cheap food in America does not exist unless it is chain fast food. There are a few examples that refute this, like diners, but I think by and large there is not cheap well prepared food in America, and the trend has definitely been away from it. I think the focus in America is more on show-stopping food, less on functionality.
I think this stems from the fact that eating out in America is seen as more of an event rather than just being functional. You go to a restaurant for a date, or for a dinner with friends, more so than just to feed yourself. This culture influences what restaurants serve - they want it to be flashy and in turn it costs a lot of money. This is a self-fulfilling cycle where restaurants are too expensive to just eat at regularly, so they serve the clientele of celebrations and serve fancy food.
Regardless of this culture, I think there are things that America can do to improve the efficiency of its food production, making it cheaper. The main source I look to here for inspiration is Asia, and specifically wok cooking, but I am sure there are other examples elsewhere. A quote that really drives the Asian (or specifically in Hong Kong) focus on efficiency in cooking is in a video by Lucas Sin for Bon Appetit. He is talking to an owner of an outdoor seafood stall, and one of the takeaways is the way a restaurant makes more money in Hong Kong is by selling more dishes, not by charging more. This drive on selling more dishes forces restaurants to become more efficient, not become fancier, serving fancier dishes.
This drive is reflected in how the Asian restaurant kitchen is set up. Everything about it is optimized for efficiency. It is mise en place to an extreme, but also is reflected in cooking equipment. The wok is designed to cook food as fast as possible, utilizing extreme heat to cook food fast. Another example of the super efficient set up is the massive drains that are on the floor in most Japanese kitchens. Having this setup makes it much easier to clean, and also for draining water from food it is super easy, you just dump it on the ground. ChatGPT says it is called a nagashi, but I can't find anything else on it.
In terms of the actual food being prepared, there is also an emphasis on efficiency. The whole setup of cooking where carbs are mostly given in the form of white rice is extremely efficient. Out of all of the carbs that people eat, rice is probably the easiest to prepare. This allows the focus to be spent on the dishes supplementing the rice, and even with the focus on them, they are also optimized for efficiency. A lot of dishes can be thrown together in a wok in a short matter of minutes, allowing for a meal to be prepared extremely fast.
I think American kitchens could learn a lot from the efficiency of Asian kitchens, and there is definitely some alpha to capture with this. If an American kitchen is implemented much more efficiently, it can keep its costs down compared to competitors, and this can drive demand for it, even if the food isn't absolutely showstoppingly spectacular.
I think this could happen through increased thought into the design of menus, really thinking about how something could be produced with optimum efficiency, freeing up time (and therefore money!) I also think for cleaning practices, the nagashi/drain implemented in restaurant kitchens would be very useful.
Also in Asia there is more specialization in terms of what restaurants serve. Usually in Asia, restaurants will be much more focused on a specific dish or series of dishes. This allows the restaurant to really focus on the quality of the thing it is they produce, optimizing it for the best taste and easiest production. The abundance of selection in American restaurants causes production to get clogged up, and there to not be enough focus on a specific dish. I am not sure if this is just the American palate that desires choice, or if it just random that American restaurants serve so many things. It could stem from the fact that Americans will usually order individual entrees when they go out, rather than sharing stuff family style, and thus there needs to be more choices. The ordering of individual entrees does not make sense to me either, I find it a much more pleasurable experience to eat communally.
I know I kind of rambled a lot here, but I guess the main point I am trying to get across is how Asian cooking is much more efficient than American, which allows it to be so much cheaper, and also how hopefully American cooking could learn from this.
Some things that really developed my thinking here were watching videos of chefs cooking in Japan. This video exemplifies it. One dude able to cook and serve to everyone.
April 15, 2024