We’re Doing Fast Food All Wrong
Imagine that we are visiting an outdoor market in Lebanon, Israel, or Turkey. As we stroll through, all our senses are engaged. Bright red of perfectly round tomatoes, and deep purple of eggplants. Colorful peppers, carrots, and greens in all shades. The aroma is the sweetness of melons, the brine of cured olives, and the spice of cardamom. The market is alive with the sound of merchants singing of their radishes, and of customers haggling over the price. It is lively, warm, and real.
We come across a small restaurant nestled among all the activity. We take a seat at the counter overlooking the simple kitchen that is brimming with fresh produce from the market. The food is elemental, satisfying, and insanely flavorful. And the whole transformation from produce to meal is there for us to take in.
We’re doing it all wrong.
Walking through the market — the Shouk, as it is known in my native Israel — did more than awake my senses. It awoke me to the fact that we’ve been doing fast food all wrong. We made grabbing-a-bite an activity so time efficient and predictable that we give it little thought. We gave up nourishment in favor of plugging hunger.
To boot, we managed to divide our food into food that is good (as in flavorful and filling), and food that is good for us (as in lettuce & quinoa). It does not have to be this way.
To me, the Shouk maintains something that we have lost. It connects us to our food — and to each other — in a way we no longer do, but we crave.
The Shouk also reminds us that the plant world is bountiful and oh so very sexy. Veggies, fruit, legumes, grains, seeds, nuts, spices… they elevate our energy, and make our taste buds work overtime.
Can we make fast food that is nourishing and deeply flavorful at the same time? Can we make quick dining fun again? Walking through the Shouk, I realized that someone should.
So I did the only reasonable thing. I quit my job.
Befitting the entrepreneur that I now was, I also grew my hair long and bought a motorcycle. And then, over too many espressos, I set out to build a restaurant concept that would make us rethink what and how we eat.
So join me as I embark on this journey to bring the food and energy of the Middle Eastern market to a street corner near you. I’ll be posting frequently to share my experiences building a menu, sourcing unique ingredients, designing the restaurant, and navigating the crazy world that is the food business.
Introducing… Shouk.
