by Herbidacious » July 16th, 2019, 2:28 pm
Food in France strikes me as ultra conventional and conservative. It's either French, and pretty much a menu that you could recite without seeing, or it's not French. But, I may not be paying attention, as I can't eat any of it anyway.
The under 30s at work do seem to like junky food - I think the widespread appeal of this is very evident in 20 somethings in general when you look at the explosion of vegan food and the nature of what's being served up in pubs (I suspect most of the newly converted vegans are in their 20s.) It's more often than not veggie burgers, vegan nuggets and the like. Maybe the appeal is partly down to having bigger appetites and faster metabolisms at their age? And the cost, of course. I think all of them buy lunches from Leather Lane market near work (now mainly street food) quite regularly. Not sure if that counts as junk food. Some of it maybe, a lot of it not. They do talk about going out for proper meals, but budget is clearly a consideration. Cheapish good food is not that easy to get in London at least? A meal in a chain masquerading as a gastropub is often only so so, but more often than not will come to £40 for two people.
However I am not sure that this junk food obsession is new. I have never been a big junk food fan (I have never had a burger in a Macdonalds) but I think I am unusual among my contemporaries in this regard. My husband's default seems to be a burger or fish and chips (although he tries not to go for them, from a calorie point of view, and indeed can't go for the latter now he's gone vegetarian.) My tastes have also no doubt been shaped by the (lack of) availability of vegetarian options (and money) when I was in my 20s, and even 30s.
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer." Albert Camus