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View Poll Results: How high are your food standards? 1=low 5=high
5 7 25.00%
4 15 53.57%
3 3 10.71%
2 3 10.71%
1 0 0%
Voters: 28. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 11-09-2008, 10:19 AM
 
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Most everyone has "standards" that must be met before they buy or eat something. It may have to do w/diet, religion, ethics, regional foods, price, history, or even status. I believe that people can eat what they want, but the real "debate" comes when they reveal the reason why they eat/or don't eat something.

How high are your standards? Where do you "draw the line"? Are you of "the norm" in your area/"circle of friends"? Does it make you an "outcast"?

Just interested as I've learned that food can be about as important as religion, which has surprised me.

Everyone be nice, lets make the mods job easy.

Thanks
Capt.
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Old 11-09-2008, 10:36 AM
 
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That is a deceptively complex question, Cap'n. On the surface, it seems simple and straightforward, but there are layers of meaning that must be parsed when you start to think about it.

The most basic standard, of course, is whether or not the food is safe to eat, and even there, different people have differing notions of what constitutes safe. I know people who throw away any leftovers because they believe they risk food-poisoning if they keep something for even just one day in the fridge, and I know others who routinely hunt for the marked-down end-of-shelf-life foods to save money. Each thinks that the food they're eating is safe.

Going higher up the list, economic factors begin to play a major role. When my spouse and I were poor college kids, our only food standard was "which one is the cheapest?" Now that we're at a slightly more affluent level, we can afford to add things like whether or not the food is locally grown/produced, whether or not it is organic, whether or not it was harvested by workers who were being paid a living wage, etc, etc.

I guess I'd describe our family as having relatively high but not impossible standards. We far prefer meat from our local Farmers' Market vendor, but if we can't get a particular item from him, we'll buy it from the store. We prefer to eat locally grown produce, but there's not much that grows in Wisconsin in January, so in the winter, once we run out of what we froze or canned in the summer, we'll buy produce at the store. We love and appreciate good food, but I don't think we're elitists about it, though of course I'm sure that some would argue that point.
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Old 11-09-2008, 10:45 AM
 
Location: Victoria TX
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Yes, I agree. The question is vague and has too many variables. I will eat absolutely anything, and clean up my plate. Even in street stalls in Laos, or at McDonalds.. But it's pretty hard to get me to say "Wow, that was really good" in an American restaurant. I would estimate, roughly, that, in random American restaurants, I'd say the meal was "pretty darned good" about once out of 15 or 20. (Qualifier---I don't like cilantro)
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Old 11-09-2008, 10:45 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
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This is, as MidWesternBookworm stated, a complex question that isn't particularly suited to a poll.

We're pretty much in line with what Bookworm stated, except that we're in Texas so locally grown fresh produce is a bit easier to get longer in the year.

As for health standards, I've already stated elsewhere that some of the best food is found in dives that the health inspector would be afraid to enter. But I do try to make sure that the food that I serve is not only palatable but not likely to put anyone with a functioning immune system in the hospital, and having been a personal chef in a former life, I do know the basics of hygiene in food preparation.
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Old 11-09-2008, 10:47 AM
 
Location: SW Missouri
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The only real "standard" that I have is that the food taste good and be cooked well. Although that does not sound like a tall order, I cannot tell you how many times I have been sorely disappointed because the food I ordered in a restaurant was not cooked well enough to suit me. My standards on that are very, very strict. There are many foods that I absolutely love that I will never order in a restaurant because I know they will not cook them enough. So in that respect my standards are very high.

Conversely, I am not particular really about the kind of food that I eat. In fact, I really love junk food because it tastes good. In fact, I really do not eat much "good food" because I don't LIKE the way it tastes. Garlic for example gags me and most "upscale" or gourmet food seems to have a preponderance of garlic in it for some reason.

20yrsinBranson
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Old 11-09-2008, 10:54 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
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By "cooked well", I take it from the rest of your comment that you mean "well done", correct, rather than "cooked in a pleasing and tasteful manner"?

If that's the case, it may be that you are not finding that in restaurants because other customers don't want their food cooked to death!
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Old 11-09-2008, 11:01 AM
 
Location: SW Missouri
15,853 posts, read 35,018,123 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady View Post
By "cooked well", I take it from the rest of your comment that you mean "well done", correct, rather than "cooked in a pleasing and tasteful manner"?

If that's the case, it may be that you are not finding that in restaurants because other customers don't want their food cooked to death!
Yes, that is entirely possible. However, I do always REQUEST that the food be done very, very well, and a lot of the time there is no problem with that. Recently, I went to an "all you can eat" shrimp place. I love shrimp but not if it is not really cooked well. I asked the waitress to request that the shrimp be cooked longer (about 15 minutes) and they were happy to oblige me. Needless to say I will be going back frequently and recommending the restaurant to others.

Customer service is the key here, IMHO. You should cook food TO ORDER, not like an assemby line!

20yrsinBranson
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Old 11-09-2008, 11:08 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
20,958 posts, read 45,207,663 times
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15 minutes for shrimp?!?!?!?! Seems like it would be like rubber, at best. But tastes are subjective, it's true. My mother-in-law (who acknowledged herself that she was no cook) cooked roast beef until it was, literally, black and all but inedible. Consistently. Is it okay if I ask why you think shrimp needs to be cooked that long, when it's generally, in most dishes, done for 3 minutes at most to make sure that it's cooked all the way through?

As for assembly line cooking, if you're willing to pay the price for the restaurant to be able to afford to cook each and every serving to order, you can probably get it. Most good restaurants, while they're happy to oblige the occasional customer with out of the ordinary tastes, would go out of business within weeks, if not days, if their policy was that the customer was the chef and could provide their own recipes (which is pretty much what this is asking).
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Old 11-09-2008, 11:55 AM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,624,998 times
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My wife is a heart patient, and requires a very low salt diet. Steak sounds safe, right? We have been in restaurants that told us that their steaks are pre-salted. If steaks are presalted, I have very little confidence that anything else in any restaurant is anywhere near pristine before the cooks get their hands on it. When I order breakfast, sometimes I ask if their biscuits and gravy are scratch. No, the biscuits are at best from a prepackaged dough (full of chemicals) and the gravy from a pre-packaged Monsanto cocktail as well.. A commercial kitchen nowadays probably knows how to break an egg, but it's downhill from there to the glass of "orange flavored breakfast drink" and the square packets of Smuckers in the charming chrome rack, and they never have any strawberry.
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Old 11-09-2008, 02:03 PM
 
Location: SW Missouri
15,853 posts, read 35,018,123 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady View Post
15 minutes for shrimp?!?!?!?! Seems like it would be like rubber, at best. But tastes are subjective, it's true. My mother-in-law (who acknowledged herself that she was no cook) cooked roast beef until it was, literally, black and all but inedible. Consistently. Is it okay if I ask why you think shrimp needs to be cooked that long, when it's generally, in most dishes, done for 3 minutes at most to make sure that it's cooked all the way through?
And tastes do change. If you look at cookbooks from the 1960s that have a roast pictured, it is always VERY WELL DONE. Now days all photos of beef seem to be rare. Yeech

I love rubber shrimp and shoe leather steaks. LOL Does no good for me to order a filet, all I get from the kitchen is contempt. Also, it takes FOREVER to cook one of those thick little filets uber well done. LOL

20yrsinBranson
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