HOW MANY WAYS DO I DISLIKE FOOD SNOBS?

On a recent road trip, Laura "11-D" McKenna inadvertently answers that question.

As he started a nation-wide job hunt for a university position, a grad school friend once told me that he would never live in an area where he could not find arugula in the supermarket.

Arugula, that bitter sharp lettuce, was Lawrence’s shorthand method for narrowing down his options for jobs. Any position must be located in areas with a sophisticated culture, liberal politics, and hopping community life to keep him amused when not in the classroom. His arugula method ruled [out?] about 3/4rd of America at that time; he ultimately landed in London.

Today, Lawrence would need some other shortcut to find a sophisticated, educated, progressive community. Because food is the rare thing in our culture that has not been politicized. Pretty much anywhere in this country, you can find a bearded, tattooed hipster, who will make you a cocktail involving rosemary, smoke, and small batch vodka distilled just a mile away at a shiny distillery in a former paper mill. There’s shaved brussel sprouts salads in the heart of West Virginia, and burnt brisket ends in a converted garage in upstate New York. For me, the ubiquitousness of fine food is a sign of hope, a rare sign of agreement in our polarized society.

It's not Mrs McKenna that's being the food snob here, burnt brisket ends being something you could just as well wash down with a Pepsi or pair with a proper bourbon.  That is to say, there's more than one way to think about fine food, and at least she's not touting the headache in a glass that seems to be the thing in beer these days.  (The less we say about rocket here, the better.) Even though the curators at Monticello seem incapable of telling Thomas Jefferson's story in an honest yet complete way, good food is in the eyes, and bellies, of the beholder.

But food is different. That’s why when I saw three beefy, good old boys going into a local BBQ spot, I knew we found a good spot. They looked like guys that knew stuff about beer and ribs. They probably voted for Trump and weren’t vaccinated, but I didn’t care. We were in solidarity about lunch, and in these polarized times, that’s a blessing.

I'll be polite today and allow Virginians to have some understanding of beer.  At Cold Spring Shops, beer is properly dark and to Reinheitsgebot standards.