Day 10 - During Which I Get Back In The Kitchen

There's a reason why McDonald's is so popular. Oh, I know what you're thinking, "Dave, McDonald's is really bad for you!" Yea, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about. I'm talking about popularity, like back in high school where there was that one girl, and that one guy, who were adored by all. Yea, it turned out that they were total douche bags, and likely are working at McDonald's serving up fries these days, but still, back then, everyone loved them.

McDonald's is pretty much the same thing, but it remains popular. Why? I mean after all, their products pretty much suck, and everyone knows it, right?

Well, that's why they're so popular. Because their product sucks, and everyone knows it. I mean EVERYONE.

Now normally that would lead to a company loosing market share, but it works for McDonald's because they have such brand recognition and everyone has eaten their product at some point in time, and likely still does. Listen here: people lie about McDonald's. They will tell you they don't eat there, but literally everyone does.

I do this exercise with my students where I ask them how many have eaten McDonald's in the last month and out of a room of 40 students, maybe 5 will raise their hands. So then I say, "Let's do this like in the third grade. Everyone put their heads down on the desk, don't look, and you don't even have to raise your hand way up. Just make a slight gesture such that I can notice it. Now, how many people have eaten at McDonald's in the last month?" This time there will only be about 2 or 3 who don't raise their hands. (Those people are vegetarians.) This is what's called Social Conformity Bias. That's when people tell you they do one thing, but really do another, because they're embarrassed about what they actually do. If you think it's not a real thing, you only have to look at Brexit, the FARC vote, or the recent U.S. election of the World's largest Cheeto. People will lie to you about things they're ashamed of, and from what I've seen, almost everyone is ashamed of eating at McDonald's.

So why do they do?

Well, the reason is simple: the burger sucks. It's bad. You know it's bad, but you also know exactly how bad it is. It's all about expectations, and when you're hungry you don't care nearly as much that it is bad, so much as that it is not worse than you expect it to be. McDonald's serves up pure, unadulterated, disappointment, and in doing so, they never fail to meet, or exceed, expectations. Seriously, if you go to McDonald's, and order a burger, and it's not bad, you'll be surprised, and feel like they did a great job. They set the bar so low, that they can't fail to meet it. That is an amazing business model.

Also, it's cheap. REALLY cheap. A Bacon Cheddar McChicken gives you 480 calories/$1. That's some serious bang for your buck.

Anyway, why am I writing about McDonald's? To illustrate the problem with salads. They're stupidly expensive. Those Subway salads I ate, are pretty much just a pile of chopped iceberg lettuce with some spinach, and a few other things, and they run me about $7.50 each.

For Salad #10, I decided to do it up and make a really delicious salad. Let's take a look at the elements:




What we've got there is charred Belgian endive, roasted cauliflower, miso broth, aged gruyere, blistered tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, toasted pistachios, and caramelized onion. How much did that all cost? $38.50! Now, in fairness, I have left over pistachios and miso, so let's just remove those two wholesale from the equation... $22.50.

With that food I was able to serve my wife and myself, one salad each, and I had left over mushrooms, gruyere, and endive, which I turned into a snack later. That's it. Two salads, and snack. $22.50!

Oh, I can hear you ranting now, "But Dave, you picked really expensive ingredients." Yea, I know, but come on, $10/each for a salad? That's fucking ridiculous, and even if I did choose fancy ingredients which cost more, let's be honest and at least admit that $10 for a salad is fucking insanity.

Do you have any idea how much food I can produce with $22.50? Oh My God!!! Rice and beans just to start with. Fuck! I could feed my family for a week on $22.50, so I'm comfortable with the fact that I spent a lot on expensive ingredients, but damn!

This is what the finished product looked like:



By the way, it was really good, but I swear if there was one thing I didn't think of when I committed to eating salads for a year, it was cost. I figured I'd be saving money, and I know I can, but the haters are ravage me if I do.

See, if I crank out cheap ass iceberg salads I'll get, "Iceberg doesn't have any nutritional value," but if I role with expensive lettuces, like Belgian endive, I'll get crap for that too. I think I'm just gonna have to move on from the haters and do my own thing... And it's going to need to be cheaper.

So, the next time I get in the kitchen, you're gonna be looking at something along the lines of a roasted root vegetable salad... A rice and beans salad, Louisiana style, with andouille sausage just to really mess with your brain. Curried kale salad with purple cauliflower steak. Ancient grain "risotto" salad with marinated tofu. Seriously, I'll do it.

Which one of those ideas would you like to see? Tell me in the comments section here on the blog, and I'll add it to the roster. Let's get weird.