A Dangerous Practice In Food Journalism

Last night Donald Trump entered the republican convention arena to the song It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World by James Brown. Hulk Hogan also ripped his shirt off.

Pundits and apologists will suggest that this is actually a smart troll, that if you listen to the lyrics, the message of the song is that it might be a man’s world, but it’s “nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl”.

The republicans love women!

James Brown and the republican party are only using this song to signal their real intent. The line about women is a “trump” l’oeil to hide their actual nefariousness.

This is James Brown for god’s sake, king of sexual chocolate. Brown beat his wife. The build to that line about women in the song is basically men build everything and men are great. The woman, or maybe more importantly the use of the diminutive “girl” is the real indicator. Girls are an accessory. They only exist in this world for Matt Gaetz’s pleasure.

If elected, Trump, as he has already done, will continue to come for women’s rights. Roe is gone. The 19^th amendment is next

You might laugh, but they all told us in that moment. And no one cares. The press focuses on Joe’s age-appropriate fog, one that the ever-meandering Trump himself possesses too.

The press rarely focuses on the fact that Trump is a convicted felon and known rapist, and arguably should not be eligible to participate in the democratic process, especially one he has repeatedly tried to circumvent. It feels like journalists would prefer a predator in The White House than a doddering great grandfather.

That’s because predation sells media. Aggrandizement and entertainment puffs up the likes, clicks, and views which generates revenue for media outlets. It makes us feel something. Grandpas dispensing Werther’s do not.

We do this all the time in food journalism too.  This week Eater Austin ran the following headline:

“The Michelin Guide Is Coming to Texas for the First Time

The coveted dining guide is finally happening in the Lone Star state for 2024”

The first problem here is the use of the word “coveted”. By choosing that word, they’re giving power and prestige to something that probably should be questioned.

On the surface that descriptor “coveted” may be correct. When I wrote this piece about the Michelin star being an asterisk worth questioning and this piece about how they overlook female chefs, a chef told me, “Yeah, that’s all true, but I still want a star.” That’s because, at least for now, a star means revenue. Survival of the business is more important than whether you had to pay psychically, socially, or literally to get it.

Paying is what’s happening in Texas.  According to the Dallas Morning News, “This partnership with Michelin — one of the biggest in the United States — was made with six groups: the visitors’ bureaus in Texas’ five biggest cities, plus Travel Texas, a state-funded entity located within the office of the governor’s economic development and tourism office. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.”

While terms of the deal were not disclosed we know Colorado paid $700,000 for Michelin’s gaze. Many countries in Asia shelled out millions.

In other words Michelin is not coming out of its own accord like they once did in Paris and San Francisco and New York. No, this new wave in Texas is part of their pay-for-play scheme as recommended by a consulting firm.

Michelin takes millions of dollars from local governments and chambers of commerce to go to secondary regions they might not otherwise go to due to a lack of density in restaurants and or star-worthy offerings. 

A friend of mine in one of the pay-for-play cities who was involved in a restaurant receiving a Michelin star said that many of the stars awarded in his city were not up to the actual standard for independent cities. But, like I’ve said in the past. If someone pays you millions of dollars, you gotta give the people what they want, or the lucre stops flowing.

Pay for play is fine if it’s disclosed prominently and consumers can take that into consideration when evaluating the awards. But, that’s the problem with the Eater Austin piece. Their tone suggests that Texas should be proud of the gaze of graft.

The writer says, “Michelin deeming Texas as an internationally worthy dining destination is a big deal for the state.” They add, “Nevertheless, the arrival of Michelin in Texas brings the state and Austin into the same high-caliber dining conversations as other major states and cities around the country and the world.”

Are you in the same caliber if Michelin didn’t choose to visit you before you threw them a pile a money?

The Eater piece does acknowledge that “The addition of a new Michelin region typically happens because local tourism boards pay Michelin to come, whether it’s through paying to promote the guides or help pay for the inspectors. It’s for that reason that Boston doesn’t have a Michelin Guide.”

But, the writer does not directly make the pay for play connection the Dallas Morning News does. Instead they forward propaganda from Michelin like this quote:

“Texas is a perfect fit for the Michelin Guide, based on the experiences of our anonymous inspectors.”

That would suggest Michelin evaluated Texas independently when in in fact they are only evaluating it because they were paid to.

Even though the Dallas Morning News reported the partnership clearly, they don’t seem to care either, running the headline:

“5 Texas cities secure Michelin Guide, a ‘huge’ moment for restaurants”.

The writer in this article calls Michelin the “Olympics of food, where only the best and brightest restaurants in the world get a medal.”

If it’s the Olympics, then it’s the ancient one where women and people of color were not allowed to compete.

Michelin has awarded stars to taco stands in Mexico and street food stalls in Asia, but mostly only pre-fixe restaurants in America and Europe. If it is the Olympics, then it is an Olympics which changes its standard situationally, making it not a competition at all, but a youth soccer association diluted by universal participation trophies.

But, why would anyone want such a tarnished standard, something they know in their heart they earned not for their actual work, but due to questionable circumstance? It is because articles like the one in Eater and The Dallas Morning News tell us what we should think. Collectively as they gush, the tide of desire overtakes the restaurant community until it can’t help itself.

The good news I guess is that it’s just food. Although, as journalism during the pandemic pause highlighted, the restaurant industry took advantage of the poor, women, people of color, and even white men. Mental wellness and the ability to make a living wage were suffering. So even with “just food”, how we cover it matters.

If this seems small, pearl-clutching, or not worth a collective protest, remember Trump was once just a man with a funny haircut firing people on TV. He was once a guy getting awards from his own club. But, the interesting thing that we’re learning now is given enough unmitigated press adulation, real or not, you can channel Mar-A-Lago’s man’s-man’s-man-of-the year award into an opportunity to destroy democracy.