Is McDonald’s the Defining Food Image of Our Time?
Image credit: McDonald’s
Jamie Mah @grahammah
I recently read But What If We’re Wrong? by author Chuck Klosterman. In it, he pens a small essay titled, Which Rock Star Will Historians of the Future Remember? He argues that 300 years from now if asked to select what rock music came to represent our current time, historians would choose either Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, or The Beatles as exemplifying the genre.
His argument centers around the idea of what will be the enduring image of this form of music in 300 years. He shapes his narrative around this one paragraph, which I’d like to share with you.
“I imagine a college classroom in 300 years, in which a hip instructor is leading a tutorial filled with students. These students relate to rock music with no more fluency than they do the music of Mesopotamia: It’s a style they’ve learned to recognize, but just barely (and only because they’ve taken this specific class). Nobody in the room can name more than two rock songs, except the professor. He explains the sonic structure of rock, its origins, the way it served as cultural currency, and how it shaped and defined three generations of a global superpower. He shows the class a photo, or perhaps a hologram, of an artist who has been intentionally selected to epitomize the entire concept. For these future students, that singular image defines what rock was.”
Then he goes on to ask the following question:
So, what’s the image?
Now imagine if you took this idea and shaped the narrative around food culture instead of rock music, then asked yourself the same question: what would be the defining food image of our time in 300 years?
Do we even have an image?
As you contemplate this question, I’d like you to reflect on how our food culture has evolved over the last 40 or 50 years. What are some of its most iconic images? Do McDonald’s, the hamburger, or Coca-Cola first come to mind? Do any of those fit?
Much like Klosterman concludes that one defining image will eventually represent rock (he settles on it being Chuck Berry — his reasoning for that is fascinating and one you should read), I believe food from our time will naturally succumb to the same fate.
Now, think back to the year 1724. What do you know about this time? It was precisely 300 years ago and so long ago that what logically comes to mind is how little you know of that period. It's a sad reality to rationalize that what we know and love now will soon be forgotten by future generations. We remember vague details around historical context (i.e., place and time), but some iconic images and events define that context. It's why we remember Shakespeare, Plato, and Beethoven. Their mark in their historical era helps shape our perception of that time period. Shakespeare was around in the 1500s, but ask yourself this: what else do you know or identify from the 1500s except for him? Probably nothing. His image has now shaped that time frame. So, what will come to shape our current food culture?
1970 was the year the Beatles broke up, yet 54 years later, they're still almost as famous as they were then. Their songs are still played incessantly on the radio, and their influence in the music world is palpable. McDonald's is like the Beatles, but unlike the British quartet, they're still making hit after hit.
I am calling into question why McDonald's entered the salad game. That's like a drug addict becoming a vegan. What's the point?
McDonald's was started in 1940 by two endearing brothers as one lone restaurant. With the help of one shady businessman who would see the genius in the brothers' concept, by the early 1970s, McDonald's restaurants would soon be everywhere. As time passed, the vision and success of McDonald's took an inescapable hold on our appetites. Its cultural significance would lead to it becoming the defining food narrative of the 20th century. Pick a person anywhere on this planet, and chances are they've eaten at or know of McDonald's. McDonald's should be our clear image, the one that will come to represent our time.
But should it?
With our ability to navigate information, as our technology finds us new and better ways to live, the idea that only one unifying image will come to represent our food narrative in 300 years seems at odds with our everyday experience. What we know now versus what we learned in 1724 is vastly different. Our lives are better, and our knowledge has grown exponentially.
The above statement begs the question: because we know more now, will that mean we'll know more 300 years from now? Instead of a single unifying image representing our current food cultures, like Coca-Cola or McDonald's, will our ability to reflect on the past and its diversity of defining characteristics increase to such an extent that people 300 years from now will remember us with more clarity?
If this is the case, what would we want them to know and understand about our food culture in the future? McDonald's is currently our most obvious defining food image, but it doesn't have to be. If people in the future can understand us better, shouldn't we want them to remember what was considered the 'best'? Or, at the very least, that which was most representative of us? If this is the case, McDonald's shouldn't be our defining image. It should be something like coffee. But coffee isn't something we created; it's more like something we discovered, which causes me to think it doesn’t fit the criteria.
This then begs another question: what is our best food image?
Hold that thought.
The Beatles, Elvis, and Bod Dylan are perfect examples of three stylistically different forms of rock. They each showcase vast swaths of how big the narrative of rock can be. Food fits in this mold in very much the same way.
If you were to find a food parallel that fits in with each of the three musical acts I mentioned above, I believe McDonald’s showcases Bob Dylan in our food culture taste. Like Dylan, McDonald’s has been around for decades, and like him, they’ve changed considerably over the years (again, why salads?). One day he will die, while for now, McDonald’s looks like it will keep chugging along into eternity. Its iconic image and seemingly unstoppable business model will help cement its legacy and enduring remembrance. But then, if McDonald’s is Bob Dylan, what foods make up our Beatles and Elvis?
The two most obvious answers that come to mind are Coca-Cola and Ketchup. You could say the hamburger, but I’m choosing to lump it under the McDonald’s umbrella.
As two hugely defining foods of our time, they both encapsulate our collective desire and need for sugar. It is sugar that so resoundingly describes our food culture, and sugar should be our one authentic food-defining image.
But sugar isn’t so much a food as it’s more of a building block of the food we eat—an additive. Therefore, if sugar is at the root of our food culture, is it the best of who we are? Is sugar our best-defining image?
Regardless of how, sugar has been around way longer than the past 40–50 years, and something tells me it’s not going anywhere. Yet, unlike our past generations, our love of sugar now is undeniable; we love it more than anything. Thus, shouldn’t this mean that Coca-Cola, the protagonist in any future sugar movie, should be our one and most iconic image?
Coca-Cola reflects our love of sugar like no other food product. It’s been at the center of diabetes-related illness and rampant obesity. It’s supported by massive subsidies to its prime source of energy — corn — and it’s found in everything. It’s cheaper than a bottle of water; kids love it just as much as adults do. Our food is tied to our love of sweetness and convenience, as these two manifestations represent the defining food narrative of our time.
If you tried to give our time a food name representing what we lived for, Coca-Cola would be it. So Coca-Cola has to be our defining image, as Coca-Cola’s persona is the purest distillation of what we understand our food to be.
Therefore, something tells me that in 300 years the world will still be singing “I’d like to buy the world a coke”, only they’ll be wishing they knew what it meant.