Memoir of my fast food desires.

As much as I like the Food Network show, Unwrapped, it saddens me because it glorifies mass production, which I just realized. In the past I've watched it and for some reason enjoyed it and yet felt uneasy, but couldn't put my finger on why. Now I realize that is the reason why.

The episode I'm watching now is "Happy Birthday," talking about Dominos, Swiss Colony cakes, and M&Ms as examples of mass-produced birthday treats.While there are some benefits to mass-production, I kind of miss my mom baking me a birthday cake for my birthday. Even though Wegman's mass-produces great cakes, and I mean GREAT, it is impersonal.

Cake "baked" in a sheet at Swiss Colony.

 

The cake is then "cut" by a high-powered water blast. Yum.

But coming back to the Unwrapped episode --Dominos and many pizza chains in 2013 glorify the personalization of every pizza in their advertising. While this episode of Unwrapped was created in 2010, I find it hard to believe that they have truly changed their ways. In a nutshell, the advertising is meant to mislead the consumer to believe they are getting back to their roots --a three-shop local franchise in Ypsilanti, MI area-- with meticulously preparing every pizza for their consumer. This cannot be the case today. I'm sure they still ship frozen dough balls across the country (courtesy of Unwrapped unwrapping their process) instead of preparing the dough in-store.

This all shows how advertising is used to sugar-coat reality, and in this case, mass production. Shows like Unwrapped, which has been running since 2001, glorify mass production. Even though cooking shows that make up a majority of Food Network's focus on small batches and home cooking, Unwrapped wouldn't still be popular if there wasn't an audience for people wanting to watch that grotesque, empirical process of making popular foods.

Maybe I should ask for a homemade cake for my birthday this year. Though admittedly, that raspberry-filled chocolate cake from Wegman's is also tempting. Why do I feel this is better than homemade? Media may play a role in my perceptions. Years of exposure to Unwrapped and ads that focus on speed of pizza delivery as a kid (though they are now changing their tune to compete with the "Buy Local" bandwagon) may influence me to see someone else making food fast to be supreme over a beef dinner at my grandparents' house. If you have to pay for it, it must be better.

As a kid, I didn't eat out as often as I used to think. Due to certain circumstances, my mom would make a home-cooked dinner every weekday night at my grandparents' house and that would be my fare after school. It was truly a family-around-the-dinner-table setting and even though the veggies were often canned, the potatoes were mashed fresh and the meat was grilled or baked that day.

Though admittedly (and embarrassingly), I used to always look forward to Saturday when my mom, aunt, and I would get to go out to eat for lunch at the Olive Garden. I looked forward to it and even would dress up to go out to eat at this chain restaurant. It's strange to think back on how excited I used to get for someone else making food we had to pay for, plus Toni, the waitress we would usually have.

As bad as it sounds, now I crave "gourmet" fast food over home-cooked food even though a majority of my life consisted of home-cooking. As I sit here, I'm debating about leaving the house to go buy a hoagie somewhere (even though I had Subway yesterday). Could this be because of advertising? I wouldn't doubt it. Perhaps it started as a kid when I would get excited to go out to eat and be thankful for every Burger King cheeseburger I got when my mom didn't feel like cooking.

Advertising, man.