European epicures had a similar reaction to American fast food when it started showing up after the war. McDonald's, et al, had distilled food down to it's most basic taste components (salty, umami, sweet, sour etc.) and rebuilt into assembly line products -burgers, pizza, fries and sandwiches.

The epicures found it ghastly and alien, a sort of... See more

If we romanticize the past, we may miss the fact that it is the modern, global, industrial economy (not the local resources of the wintry country around New York, Boston, or Chicago) that allows us to savor traditional, peasant, fresh, and natural foods.

That food should be fresh and natural has become an article of faith. It comes as something of a shock to realize that this is a latter-day creed. For our ancestors, natural was something quite nasty. Natural often tasted bad. Fresh meat was rank and tough; fresh milk warm and unmistakably a bodily excretion; fresh fruits (dates and grapes being... See more