Who's excited about J K Rowling's new book?

[mona amon]

Why does it have to be Macburger vs Haute Cusine? What about a delicious home cooked meal, a fabulous fruitcake, a lovely stew made of all kinds of good things skillfully mixed up together?

Edit: Not much to the point, or maybe it is, but for those of you who enjoy a good send-up, here's one of the Da Vinci code. I chanced upon it this morning and it cracked me up. http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/2...inci-code.html

[Lokasenna]

I've only ever eaten their french fries, chicken mcnuggets, and hamburgers; and those were some of the finest examples of their kind. Admittedly, they aren't the most difficult culinary dishes to produce, but I have to wonder if they don't get more mileage, produce more pleasure, than some of the more finesse and work heavy dishes. I mean, just a regular apple or a pineapple is already pretty good. And sometimes people slave away being inventive, burning endless calories on something that in the end isn't as appetizing as a simple bologna sandwich. I'm not saying that's true of the finest restaurants, where the chefs are artists and know how to get the most flavor out of every apple and pineapple. What I'm saying is that McDonalds shouldn't be despised for being the best at making the most appetizing food that's also simple and cheap to make.

I feel like I may be pushing the analogy beyond breaking point, but here it goes...

The main issue for me with fastfood (and particularly that provided by McDonalds) has nothing to do with the taste, but the fact that they are supremely unhealthy. If you've never seen the documentary film Super Size Me, then I urge you to do so: it is a revelation. The reason I never eat fastfood is because of the sheer amount of damage it can do to you. There is something so insidious about it all: they cram their products full of fat and salt to make it as addictive as possible, but the actual nutritional content is so low that you might as well have eaten the cardboard packet it all comes in.

Now to bring this stilted, tottering analogy back to literature: just because something proves an addictive enjoyment to a very great many people does not mean it is either quality or, more importantly, healthy. 50 Shades of Grey is perhaps the best example of this at the moment: mind-bendingly popular, and yet a shockingly poorly written work of sinister drivel that glamourises violent and oppressive relationships, and overturns half a century of feminism. It is, in a very meaningful sense, poisonous. Now, 50 Shades is a very different beast from HP - I don't think anyone here would disagree that about their relative merits: 50 Shades is to Harry Potter what excrement is to cream. But nevertheless the point I am trying to make is that HP has something of McDonald's about it as well. It is fine taken as it is, but it should not be one's sole diet: the people who read HP and its analogues, but nothing else, will be as unhealthy as those who live on McDonalds alone.

[JBI]

Mortal You are so American in culinary habits.

In the past 5 or so years the burger in Canada has transitioned. We now demand a higher quality of meat, preferably organic, and we want fresher everything.

McDonald's is not the same, and in Canada it is not even cheap like it is in the states. In Russia I hear it is luxury food, and here in china people go on dates to McDonalds

That being said, it still is not part of culinary culture. McDonald's culture is of two kinds, quick and cheap, or alluring to children. Anything greasy is tasty as we have evolved to enjoy the taste of fats. Its part of human biology. That does not make it good though.

We are not reading all the time. Reading a good book aught to be regarded in the same vain as watching good films or going to good restaurants. If you need something quick, you could just as easily watch tv and not bother. Harry potter is that quick junk, but when you start calling it the real deal, you have a problem. Reading is the most affordable way to enjoy art, therefore I see no reason to need to read thevfastfood of literature.

[Emil Miller]

Mortal You are so American in culinary habits.

In the past 5 or so years the burger in Canada has transitioned. We now demand a higher quality of meat, preferably organic, and we want fresher everything.

McDonald's is not the same, and in Canada it is not even cheap like it is in the states. In Russia I hear it is luxury food, and here in china people go on dates to McDonalds

That being said, it still is not part of culinary culture. McDonald's culture is of two kinds, quick and cheap, or alluring to children. Anything greasy is tasty as we have evolved to enjoy the taste of fats. Its part of human biology. That does not make it good though.

We are not reading all the time. Reading a good book aught to be regarded in the same vain as watching good films or going to good restaurants. If you need something quick, you could just as easily watch tv and not bother. Harry potter is that quick junk, but when you start calling it the real deal, you have a problem. Reading is the most affordable way to enjoy art, therefore I see no reason to need to read thevfastfood of literature.

On one occasion I was in China and the people I was staying with suggested that I accompany their young son to a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet near to a supermarket where I wanted to buy some bottles French wine.
It was National Children's Day and the KFC shop was bulging with kids buying fried chicken. It seems that Colonel Sanders is almost as revered by children as Mao was by their elders; I even have a photo somewhere of a life size model of the colonel standing outside one of his establishments in Hangzhou.

[mortalterror]

I feel like I may be pushing the analogy beyond breaking point, but here it goes...

The main issue for me with fastfood (and particularly that provided by McDonalds) has nothing to do with the taste, but the fact that they are supremely unhealthy. If you've never seen the documentary film Super Size Me, then I urge you to do so: it is a revelation.

Ah, Super Size Me, just...good...science. Entertaining movie but about as full of facts as McDonalds food is full of nutrition.

The reason I never eat fastfood is because of the sheer amount of damage it can do to you. There is something so insidious about it all: they cram their products full of fat and salt to make it as addictive as possible, but the actual nutritional content is so low that you might as well have eaten the cardboard packet it all comes in.

If eating a hamburger makes you sick, then the problem is with your digestion not the hamburger. And it's not the same as easting cardboard. It has beef which is full of protein. Meat and bread are two of the major food groups and part of most healthy diets.

Now to bring this stilted, tottering analogy back to literature: just because something proves an addictive enjoyment to a very great many people does not mean it is either quality or, more importantly, healthy. 50 Shades of Grey is perhaps the best example of this at the moment: mind-bendingly popular, and yet a shockingly poorly written work of sinister drivel that glamourises violent and oppressive relationships, and overturns half a century of feminism. It is, in a very meaningful sense, poisonous. Now, 50 Shades is a very different beast from HP - I don't think anyone here would disagree that about their relative merits: 50 Shades is to Harry Potter what excrement is to cream. But nevertheless the point I am trying to make is that HP has something of McDonald's about it as well. It is fine taken as it is, but it should not be one's sole diet: the people who read HP and its analogues, but nothing else, will be as unhealthy as those who live on McDonalds alone.

Precisely, it's fine for a treat but should not be your primary diet. And all the hand wringers who demonize it are alarmists and neurotic righteous eaters influenced by current diet fads.

Mortal You are so American in culinary habits.

It would be more accurate to call me conservative. Many Americans are being suckered by weird new age eating fads as we speak.

In the past 5 or so years the burger in Canada has transitioned. We now demand a higher quality of meat, preferably organic, and we want fresher everything.

The organic food business is just another swindle.

http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/0...nal-varieties/

You aren't getting better anything. Those organic farms are just taking up space that more efficient modern operations should be using to feed the world and end famine.

McDonald's is not the same, and in Canada it is not even cheap like it is in the states. In Russia I hear it is luxury food, and here in china people go on dates to McDonalds

That being said, it still is not part of culinary culture. McDonald's culture is of two kinds, quick and cheap, or alluring to children. Anything greasy is tasty as we have evolved to enjoy the taste of fats. Its part of human biology. That does not make it good though.

Not necessarily the best but filling, tasty, affordable, and not harmful in small doses. Just like genre fiction.

We are not reading all the time. Reading a good book aught to be regarded in the same vain as watching good films or going to good restaurants. If you need something quick, you could just as easily watch tv and not bother. Harry potter is that quick junk, but when you start calling it the real deal, you have a problem. Reading is the most affordable way to enjoy art, therefore I see no reason to need to read thevfastfood of literature.

Reading is probably the cheapest way to experience high art; so there are no economic reasons to read Rowling instead of Homer. However, the harmful effects of Harry Potter and McDonalds are often overstated.

[Drkshadow03]

Ok, a couple of things. Not all hamburgers are equal. 5 Guy's Burgers are superior to McDonalds for example. The best burger I've ever eaten was at a diner on Long Island. Usually the best burgers can be found at independent restaurants. The same applies to the best food in most cases.

If the Emperor's New Clothes metaphor is tired, so is the fast food/genre literature metaphor. We've literally seen it in every single Harry Potter and Stephen King thread. This is especially true when it's taken in the direction Lokasenna did, which has also happened in other threads. Eating McDonalds will lead to heart attack and fat waists, reading HP or 50 Shades will not give you a heart attack. Presenting it as a health issue is ridiculous. Even the social health issue he brings up is fairly dubious. Anyone who has paid attention to the arguments of various political literary critics for example knows they often say the same thing about various established works on the canon. So a work might negatively set back social issues and be loaded with negative stereotypes or pernicious ideas, but it isn't clear this is a quality found solely in popular genre fiction.

[YesNo]

I can't eat McDonalds, and very rarely eat fast food. The thought of it usually makes me feel a bit queasy. I do love White Castle though, ironically.

To use your situation as an example, Mutatis-Mutandis, suppose you and Bloom are going for lunch. You find a place where there is a McDonald's right next to a White Castle.

Suppose Bloom says that White Castle food disgusts him and he loves McDonald's. He will eat there. You say that McDonald's food makes you sick and you will eat at White Castle.

So far that's fine. You both express your disagreements on what you prefer.

But suppose Bloom plays the authority card and says something like this: "You're wrong to eat at White Castle. I've eaten more meals than you have. I eat better than you do. I'm from Yale. Only people who simply will not consume superior fare eat at White Castle. You eat with me at McDonald's."

You might ask Bloom what his evidence is that McDonald's is better than White Castle. Since he feels he has to provide some sort of evidence, he tells you that they put more pickles on their burgers in McDonald's. You know that's pretty lame. Their burgers are bigger. You want to know what other evidence he has. He says, "You're wrong! I don't have time to give you a bite by bite list of reasons for my choice. You should be smart enough to do that yourself."

What do you do? Do you follow Bloom based on his authority and meager evidence into McDonald's (assume he will not pay for your meal) or do you follow your experience and go to White Castle?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I guess my first thought would be that's a stupid analogy. But that's just me.

[YesNo]

I guess my first thought would be that's a stupid analogy. But that's just me.

I don't think the analogy is all that bad.

Here is what Bloom writes about the alternatives he prefers to HP (http://www.fanpop.com/spots/harry-po...s-harold-bloom)

But I will keep in mind that a host are reading it who simply will not read superior fare, such as Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" or the "Alice" books of Lewis Carroll.

So McDonald's is Alice in Wonderland or The Wind in the Willows and White Castle is the HP series. Bloom's preferences were all written over 100 years ago. I suspect if HP were written 100 years ago and one of these were written today, he would be complaining about a different book and using the HP series as his superior fare that people should be reading instead.

[namenlose]

Bloom likes Philip Roth, Saramago, Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy and Don DeLillo. Underworld for instance was published in 1997, which is far from being one hundred years ago. It may not be a fantasy or children's book, but it is pretty recent. However, even in Carroll's time the Alice books were already recognized as great literature and were read and appreciated by authors as notorious as Oscar Wilde. Comparing The Importance of Being Earnest with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass, one may even find some similarities between the styles of both authors.

[tonywalt]

Although I do not eat at McDonalds, the emotive part of the issue arises from some people using it as an Anti American platform, which I do not agree with.

I am in Africa on business I will pick out some African owned and operated fast food chains.

South Africa - Chicken Licken and Nandos(which I have seen in Namibia and Botswana as well).

Nigeria - Mr. Biggs(sort of a burger place with "meat pies" (awful stinky place, and Mr. Biggs is bad too).


PS Get me the hell out of Lagos

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Although I do not eat at McDonalds, the emotive part of the issue arises from some people using it as an Anti American platform, which I do not agree with.

^ This.

Also, YesNo, you can take this as my concession. I'm not try to be disrespectful or anything, I just think we've said pretty much all that can be said for our respective sides in this little back and forth. I enjoyed it.

[Emil Miller]

Although I do not eat at McDonalds, the emotive part of the issue arises from some people using it as an Anti American platform, which I do not agree with.

I am in Africa on business I will pick out some African owned and operated fast food chains.

South Africa - Chicken Licken and Nandos(which I have seen in Namibia and Botswana as well).

Nigeria - Mr. Biggs(sort of a burger place with "meat pies" (awful stinky place, and Mr. Biggs is bad too).


PS Get me the hell out of Lagos

Ah yes. The joys of decolonisation.

[stlukesguild]

Mortal You are so American in culinary habits.

In the past 5 or so years the burger in Canada has transitioned. We now demand a higher quality of meat, preferably organic, and we want fresher everything.

Now JBI... please do not assume that Mortal is by any means representative of American culture and turn this into another US vs Canada diatribe. Anyone that cannot discern a distinct difference between McDonalds' burgers (or those of most fast food chains) and a burger from the average sit-down restaurant, the grill at home, or even the usual bar has no sense of taste whatsoever. I cannot ever recall having a desire to eat at McDonalds or a taste for a McDonalds meal. Its simply a necessary evil: I only have a limited amount of time for a meal and it's the most convenient place at the moment.

Honestly... I can only think of two places where the burgers were less appetizing than McDonalds. The first was in Hoboken, New Jersey... where I was working while living in NYC. I broke for lunch at a dive that featured Latin-American cuisine. I stupidly ordered a burger rather than getting what the locals got. It tasted as if it had been frozen since before I was born. From then on I got the daily special which was always some sort of stew with rice and beans. Cheap, hearty, and quite tasty... if nothing memorable. The other time was at a restaurant called Chuck's... and known by the locals as "Upchucks". It was the only place open at 3 AM and I was drunk... and the burger was still so bad that I couldn't eat more than a few bites.

[stlukesguild]

To use your situation as an example, Mutatis-Mutandis, suppose you and Bloom are going for lunch. You find a place where there is a McDonald's right next to a White Castle.

Suppose Bloom says that White Castle food disgusts him and he loves McDonald's. He will eat there. You say that McDonald's food makes you sick and you will eat at White Castle.

So far that's fine. You both express your disagreements on what you prefer.

But suppose Bloom plays the authority card and says something like this: "You're wrong to eat at White Castle. I've eaten more meals than you have. I eat better than you do. I'm from Yale. Only people who simply will not consume superior fare eat at White Castle. You eat with me at McDonald's."

You analogy is not at all related to the debate over reading the Harry Potter novels vs reading some far better literature. Rather, what you are suggesting is akin to a fantasy in which Bloom says, "Mutatis, why are you wasting your time reading that Harry Potter crap when you could be reading Dan Brown or the Twilight series?" Obviously, such is not going to happen. If we expound on your analogy, Bloom is more likely to say, "Mutatis, do you really like this fast food crap?* There's a lovely little Chinese restaurant around the corner that isn't really well-known, but they serve the most delicious dim-sum. I also know this great little Italian bistro, and if you have the time I assure you the most exquisite dining experience."

(*And Bloom will not need to expound on a point by point analysis of why he thinks fast food is crap because he recognizes that his audience... Mutatis... is fully aware that fast food is crap)