The ball is in play about 10 minutes in a college or professional football game. Food and drink, on the other hand, are in play for about an hour of commercial time in a nationally televised game and pretty much all day for the hardcore viewers and the tailgating set. The national college champion may be Alabama, the Super Bowl champion will be known February 4th, but the grand champion is food and drink by a margin of a pizza and a plate of wings.
The food spread beats the point spread every time. Locally owned city magazines like this one, 42 years old this year, were on to this way before the mass media started doing “36 Hours in Memphis” and “Five Best Bets” features heavy on hot restaurants, pubs, and chefs sprinkled with a dash of museums and natural attractions for flavoring. Mainly, it seems, what we do when we travel is eat and drink four times a day. And even if we don’t, at least we watch, we read, we check it out, and we discuss.
The knowledgeable foodie is now indispensable, and the best can become stars. Gender, age, and ethnicity are no barrier. Food is the new football, only better, uniting us as we stuff our mouths instead of dividing us as we run them. There is a place in the kitchen for the urbane gastronome, the pig-out dude, the babe, the hunk, the tatted-up ex-con, the fussy perfectionist, the hammy host, the comically incompetent, the endearingly scatter-brained, the thrilling competition while racing against the clock, the pornographic detail of the close-up shot of the creation handled, decorated, bathed, and plated.
Food is the equalizer. A city such as Memphis, bypassed so often in other ways, can get a place at the table with hotties like Nashville, Austin, Charleston, and Portland so long as there is food on it.
If you have lived here for a while, as I have since 1982, few things capture the essence of a place and the changes in our hometown over time than the what, where, and how of its food.
A white-tablecloth restaurant used to be named for its owner, like Anderton’s or Jim’s Place East. Today it’s more likely to be known by its chef (often the owner, too) like Kelly English or Erling Jensen who gets the attention.
Memphis in May, starting in 1977, had a pretty good run as a celebration of foreign countries — quick, name the honoree last year or this year — but what saved its bacon and guaranteed its survival was an international corporate-sponsored barbecue contest on the river.
Some peg the decline of the shopping mall to the decline of the department store on account of online shopping. I prefer to look at it through the decline of the food court. Same goes for the airport.
Food fads come and go. I fell hard for those Blue Apron meal kits delivered to my door but, like most customers, tired of it after a few months. On the other hand, a dissertation could be written (and may have been already) about the enduring popularity of the Starbucks at McLean and Union Avenue.
Food is also the unequalizer. You could read scholarly books and articles about food deserts in the inner city, the link between junk food and diabetes, and how neighborhoods die and get reenergized. Or you could keep it simple and just visit Overton Square and Lamar Avenue to see evidence of the extremes with your own eyes or, alternatively, with your appetite, choosing between the $12 farm-to-table burger in the Square or the $3.75 special with two cheeseburgers, fries, and a drink down the street at Burger King.
We routinely add 15 percent to the bill at restaurants where servers tell us their names and “take care of us” by bringing us a plate and refilling the water glass. But the cashier at Kroger or Cash Saver who wears a name tag and smiles and rings up the bill and bags the stuff gets $7.25 an hour and sometimes gets a thank-you.
My gut feeling is that this is neither good nor fair.
