Stills from the reality show "Black and White Chef: Cooking Class Wars", picture: Internet resources
The reality show "Black and White Chef: The Class War" focuses on cooking and food culture from a unique perspective, and has sparked a discussion among food lovers: Where is the class divide in food?
In 2002, before mobile phones became cameras, France photographer Bettina Rheims came to Shanghai and used a traditional film camera to take photos of real women from all walks of life in Shanghai, from famous actress Zhou Xun to female government officials. She eagerly searched for the spirit of Shanghai women through her lens, and finally found that Shanghai was so fast-paced and developing so fast that her search and exploration became meaningless. Obviously, the Western perspective cannot define the essence of women in Shanghai, she said: Men have their say, but women have their way. In Bettina Rheims' lens, luxury brands from all over the world are already on the march, anxiously waiting at the gates of the city to enter this huge market.
At the same time, there are also various print media that are looking forward to a blowout in this market, of course, they are playing more of the role of the producer, guide and seller of advertising pages in the field of public opinion. At that time, one of the most popular sayings was that "editors with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan were guiding consumers with a monthly salary of 30,000 yuan on how to buy luxury goods." One of the most popular books cited by the media, or the theoretical textbook that the media has dubbed as a guide, is the "Theory of the Idle Class" written by the United States sociologist Tosdan Fembran in 1898. A hundred years ago, he proposed that the "leisure class" composed of the nouveau riche who had close dealings with enterprises in the upper class of United States at the end of the 19th century maintained and displayed their status by consuming the time required for non-subsistence and expensive goods, and at the same time broke away from labor relations and despised the productive contributions of ordinary laborers, and the consumption habits of this class would affect other strata of society, invisibly creating a social atmosphere of wasting time and money.
This theoretical book, introduced and published by the Commercial Press in 2002, shifted the focus of sociology from production to consumption for the first time. In 1999, the publisher Mr. Shi Tao introduced another best-selling book to China, which made more young people understand the consumption concept of the United States 80s, which is obviously more humorous than the theoretical knowledge of a hundred years ago. This is the United States writer Paul Forsel's 1983 book "Style: Social Hierarchy and Taste of Life", which was commented at the time as a sharp and brutal deep exploration of the class rigidity of a society that should have no concept of class.
Whether it is a critical theoretical establishment or a deep class exploration, in short, these two books and the subsequent concept of BOBO (Bohemian and Bourgeois) have become the theoretical basis for the burgeoning fashion media to escort luxury goods, and thus began a period of more than a decade of rapid material consumption. By the time Zhang Xiaolong handed over the writing tools of the WeChat public account to the creators who had just awakened from the shattered dreams of the news saints, the task of the media editor with a monthly income of 3,000 yuan as a luxury purchasing agent came to an end, and since then it has been handed over to the self-media Up owner who calculates the influence by the number of fans.
Since the hit of the American drama "Succession War", the concept of "old money" has surfaced, and the so-called "old money" can be localized after 40 years.
In short, before the broadcast of Netflix's "Black and White Chef: Cooking Class Wars", the so-called class concept of food did not seem to have been so clearly made into a variety show. Even food lovers who like to go to the Fly Restaurant like to emphasize that the people who come to eat at the Fly Restaurant are the bosses who drive Mercedes-Benz BMWs, in short, the happy memories of the rich and the people, as well as the beautiful legends of the bosses who are not amazing and mention a few bottles of Moutai or Kanti, have been permeated in the rolling reading volume of various self-media.
When Meituan announced that it had 7.7 million couriers across the country complete 58 million takeaway orders every day, people realized that in addition to the daily topics of concern controlled by Internet platforms, the food and beverage categories that people consume daily in the future will gradually be taken over by Internet platforms. Because through careful analysis of consumption data, large factories determine what urban consumers eat, when to eat, and how much money to spend, which is already under the control of algorithms.
"Black and White Chef" is definitely not a variety show suitable for watching late at night. If you want to talk about selling hatred and anxiety, self-media is learning from variety TV shows. At the beginning of the show, the audience was directly told that this is a culinary class war in the catering industry. A group of folk chefs choose 20 out of 80 chefs before competing against the white spoon chef who is standing on the second floor to watch the competition. The folk chefs in black don't even have their own names, they all appear with online names and flower names, and they can only announce their real names at the end of the show "Tear Man", or "Neapolitan Food Mafia" These are the best of them, and those white-clothed chefs on the second floor have long been famous figures in Michelin and various food endorsements, including Ahn Sung-jae, the only three-Michelin-starred chef in Korea born in 1982.
It's a very good food variety show, and it's more entertaining than the previous "The FINAL TABLE" (the FINAL TABLE). After all, the previous Table Challenge was to evaluate each team's competition for ingredients that have national significance, that is, represent each country's culinary culture, and it is more meaningful to compete on behalf of a country to cook haute cuisine than to focus on one country. After all, Korea started with "Squid Game", whether they are fitness or eating, they will now have a very entertaining variety show. This is also a very helpful program for the tourism industry, and at least 100 chefs on site represent the highest level in Korea. Some people joke that if there is a big explosion on the scene while the show is filming, it is estimated that Korea's restaurant industry should be stagnant for several years.
As for the local food program, since the advent of CCTV's life service TV program "At Your Service" in 1983, this should be the earliest kitchen cooking program on domestic TV screens. After various TV food competitions, there is still a feeling that a strong man comes out to fight in the ring. What impressed me the most was the country's first all-round chef competition reality show "Chef's Glory", which was broadcast on iQiyi's exclusive network, Dong Zhenxiang, Cai Hao, and Daniel Zhang served as culinary mentors, and 32 contestants with outstanding culinary skills joined the teams of the three top chefs through fighting and track breakthrough battles to fight. The reason why this is a rare good food variety show is because the reputation of the three culinary mentors in the domestic catering industry is not comparable to the reputation of the two Bai Chongyuan and Ahn Sung-jae in "Black and White Chef" seen today in the Korea catering industry.
With class contradictions as the selling point of ratings, mankind has finally experienced a hundred years of development, and everyone can sit down and talk about revolution while eating. When Viet Nam Comrade Ho Chi Minh went from the Soviet Union to Guangzhou to attend the Whampoa Military Academy training class a hundred years ago, where would the France have thought that a chef in an Asian colony could make such a big wave? Of course, there is also the Russia chef Prigozhin who started from selling hot dogs on the street, and then became a small circle of friends of the secretary of the St. Petersburg Municipal Party Committee, which quickly reflected the foresight of this chef, and later developed into a global layout until the disintegration of the air, it can be seen that he is definitely not a restaurant owner who likes to gamble small money with a group of chefs in the back kitchen. There is also Huang Kun, a Hong Kong real estate developer who has shown his prominence in the capital market, who smuggled from the mainland to Hong Kong at the age of 18, then worked as an apprentice chef in a hotel, started at the Hilton Hotel, and finally worked his way up from head chef to executive chef, then began to invest in real estate, and finally drowned in the turbulent waves of the financial market.
However, most of the folk Korea dishes in "Black and White Competition" are still too salty, at least several folk chefs eliminated in the first two episodes were eliminated because the dishes were too salty or too strong. Perhaps, the meal itself is a concentrated embodiment of class contradictions. If you eat so salty, or eat so many bowls of rice, how can you go up to the second floor for a big meal? In 2017, a magazine surveyed 1,500 United States about class and diet through a polling agency. Judging by how often they eat out, how often they eat sushi, and how often they eat French, Mexican, Italian, and Indian cuisine, one conclusion is that the culinary divide may not be the cause of class division in United States, but at least it is a very obvious symptom of class division.
While it's hard to distinguish between the effects of education and income on consumer tastes, as the wealthy tend to be more educated in the United States, even taking into account household income, a person's degree is one of the predictors of a significant influence in culinary preference statistics, perhaps as interesting as a five-star hotel's PR director who loves to eat Guilin rice noodles on the side of the road.
In short, the survey data reinforces the very clear idea that the educated class does not build class barriers through material consumption and wealth, but through practices that only those with rare information have access to. In other words, if you want to feel at home in an area where opportunities are abundant, you need to know the right ballet technique, use the right baby carrier, listen to the right podcast, plant tea, wine or a taste for yoga Pilates. Seeing this, I think of the difference between the angry red neck and the equally angry blue state intellectuals in the next month or so.
Of course, the class nature of Chinese taste that I can think of comes more from the understanding of spicy. Chili pepper was nowhere to be found hundreds of years ago, and it could not even be reflected in various magical costume TV series, because it entered the history of China until the Qing Dynasty officially became a condiment, but because of its strong and spicy taste, it is difficult to appear on the table of the upper class, and even in Chengdu, a major city of chili pepper today, high-end Sichuan cuisine has always been based on exquisite and delicate Shanghe Bang official cuisine, with a mild and fragrant taste. When the great leader said, "You can't be a revolutionary if you don't eat chili peppers", chili peppers are no longer food for the poor, but a symbol of the Chinese working class. Spicy has transitioned from a sense of taste to a sense of pain, and when people eat spicy together and can endure pain together, then they can be closer to each other. This may be the fact that chili peppers have transcended class attributes and become more social, and the same data provided by Meituan is that nearly 80% of restaurants in China will now serve spicy dishes.
It may once again arouse people's sensitivity to class attributes, which will come from the current prevalence of pre-made dishes. In the process of the steady development of science and technology, people enjoy more happiness from manual labor, after all, busy mothers do not have time to cook at home at night, and microwave ovens and refrigerators, as well as more processed foods stored in the refrigerator, make people no longer spend time in the kitchen, but the eating habits of eating together at home are still an important factor in maintaining the healthy development of the family.
Engels once described the dinner of the proletariat as follows: "Because they spend a lot of time outside to earn money, many young women in cities such as Manchester have never learned to cook. Sometimes their family life is very difficult and they are malnourished. Sometimes their husbands have to take on household chores. "Even if I open the circle of friends today and see those pictures of the proud family banquet, the most conspicuous position is the Spain ham and exquisite caviar, as well as various cheeses and fruits bought from high-end shopping malls such as city supermarkets. In short, our wants and wants are contradictory, we want to be healthy, and we want food to be delicious, cheap, and convenient, and all of these point in the opposite direction, at this time someone will talk to you about what is the class attribute of food, or suggest that he watch a TV show to eat!
Seeing the chefs cooking for 100 people in "Black and White Chef" reminded me of the Martell 300th Anniversary Dinner on August 27, 2015. The grand dinner set up a huge tent in the open space of the cruise terminal square of the Shanghai Port International Passenger Terminal, and invited 300 people to participate. The dinner was supervised by France celebrity chef Paul Pairet and his team in Shanghai, with on-site service provided by the Grand Hyatt's catering team. In order to achieve both color and flavor, an imperceptible flue was even built over the banquet, and a strong food smell was released through the flue at any time. Paul Pairet made lobster rolls, oyster scallops with lemon sorbet, truffle roasted bread, grapevine smoked chicken with eggplant, tomato and sesame seeds, and barbecue beef with risotto, all paired with different styles of Martell cognac. It's been almost ten years since a feast of this magnitude, and it's really an unforgettable night of the times.