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What You Eat Represents Your Social Status š°
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Welcome to Secret Breakfast /Ā An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with ācucina poveraā and crybaby noodles, reflecting that what you eat does represent your social status
A fancy car makes any food fancier.
Hi there!
It wasnāt my intention, but this issue is heavily marked by the social origin of the food we eat.
In the wealthiest countries, itās frequent to see average or low-income people getting their calories from the lowest-quality food.
It has happened forever, and it fueled the creativity we love. But something seems new: nowadays those calories arenāt coming from cheap cuts of meat or stale bread, or slow braised roots and forgotten vegetables, but from the mass industrialized food. Or from the unhealthiest way of cooking and preserving the ingredients.
What happened? Because weāre all losing something in this.
Piero
Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV
ā„
THE BEST QUOTE
ā¦ Marlon James, itās not clear when he said that.
ā
THE MISSING INGREDIENT
CAN YOU COOK SOME CRYBABY NOODLES?
Youāre not a real cook until youāre close to a vicious chef telling you how shitty you are
Hunger is the freshest worst movie we had to see. Part classical kitchen movie, part Parasite-mojo, part Whiplash with charred Wagyu beef in the place of bleeding drumsticks.
You have this breath-taking Thai girl cooking Pad See Ew (ā recipe, Kenjiās recipe) and Rad Na (ā recipe) in her poor familyās restaurant, where people talk like: āLet me eat my food. I had a shitty dayā.
She wants to feel special, so she joins a famous chefās brigade, and she bruises her way up into the Bangkok restaurant scene. Thatās good because with this we also get a first kiss scene while she and a guy are marinating some A5 beef (this is probably what they call āf00d p0rnā, nowadays).
The movie is all about āFood=Loveā vs āFood=Powerā.
Chef Paul, her piece of s**t of a āmentorā, says things like:
Winners are always the ones who hunger the most.
or
What you eat represents your social status. It has nothing to do with love. The poor eat simply to satisfy their hunger. But when you have more than enough to eat... Your hunger doesn't end. You hunger for approval, for something special, for exclusive experiences.
or
I wanted to be the kind of chef that the rich bow down to, begging him to cook for them. I would make them hungry for me.
Her answer to this is the honest cooking that made her people happy at home, like the so-called Crybaby noodles, that she fires up in her powerful wok: fried baby shrimp, Thai sausage, turmeric yellow tofu (aka Pad Thai Yellow Tofu), large rice noodles, XO sauce (ā recipe), miso paste. Poor people stuff, in Chef Paulās words.
Well, you wonāt find the recipe anywhere else for a while.
Picture: Hunger/Netflix
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THE BOOK
Back to Italy
ā ā ā ā
I thought a lot before writing the next sentence: I donāt think that, in the coming months, youāll get a more useful cookbook than this. Giuliaās Cucina Povera is actually an authentic picture of the Italian classic cuisine that we - people in our 40s - remember from our grandmas or mothers (it sounds sexist, but I think you get me). Every dish here is a time machine bringing us back and telling us that there is no reason not to cook that way once or twice a week. No waste, seasonal vegetables, and a moderate amount of (good) meat can be game-changers in your lifestyle. Here you have about 100 recipes and I bet youāll love them all. Giuliaās newsletter and her online recipe archive are there to prove Iām right. As Wall Street Journalās Tucker Shaw wrote: āMs. Scarpaleggiaās āwaste-notā approach and pristine recipes lead to dynamite Italian flavorsā.
Cucina Povera by Giulia Scarpaleggia (photographs by Tommaso Galli)
ā Shortplot: šĀ šĀ š„Ā š„¬
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RANDOM ACTS OF HUNGER
This is the space where I share some food (un)related stuff of my week
āļøWhy do Italians say don't drink Cappuccino after 11 amĀ š§Here's What Condiment You Are Based On Your Zodiac SignĀ šŖ“This May Be Illegal: a Beginner's Guide to Making Weed ButterĀ š§The New 'Water Recipe' Trend Is a No For Me āļøRolex (an Egg Wrap, Not a Watch) Is the Breakfast to Change Your Mornings (ā recipe) šØ Strawberry Cheesecake Cottage Cheese Ice Cream and the other New Viral Ice Cream TrendsĀ šPerennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again š„Yotam Ottolenghiās Top 10 Ingredients, in One Dish. šŖ„How Long You Should Wait to Brush Your Teeth After Your Morning CoffeeĀ š®2-ingredient flax wraps (ā recipe)
āāā
FOOD FOR LATER
Is my phone listening to me? My story of the internet reading my mind
Merritt Tierce / Slate
āThe internet is not the tool. I am the tool. Somehow, I have been instrumentalized by the internet, which operates me through my phone. It often feels like the internet is reading my mindā. We all agree we have to read this, donāt we?
Why Is Ice Cream So Easy to Love?
Isabel Fattal / The Atlantic
The kidās favorite is a direct line to daydreams and memories.
ā¤ Last week's most clicked link was the one about The 5 Questions to Ask to Get a Better Restaurant Meal. And that's all for today.