My preference is a Big Mac, chocolate shake andfries. I just love that, but I don't eat it veryoften. There's only two time when I eat fast food:when I travel in this country and when I do fieldwork in Hong Kong, because the reason I got intoMcDonald's is because the families that I know goto McDonald's because that's where the kids wantto go. The kids--I'm talking about little kidsabout four to 12, control the family and tell thefamily where they want to go. So I go with myfamily friends and we end up at McDonald's. I eata lot of fast foods in China and Hong Kong and Iend up going to McDonald's and there I eat fishsandwiches, which I think are OK>
McDonalds's V. Burger King?
Oh, I don't know. I like certain things ineach. I have to confess I love McDonald's fries,but everybody loves McDonald's fries. They'reunparalleled! But I make a point of eating in allthe other places to keep up. I'm interested indoing a project on not just McDonald's in EastAsia, but the entire fast food system, in Europeand Russia, too. I'm going as a visiting professorthis spring to the University of Paris and Iintend to take that as an opportunity not just tohave some great French food in restaurants, but tocheck out the indigenous fast food rivals toMcDonald's. I want to see what the French aredoing to compete.
There are competitors almost everywhere in theworld. I've become interested in local competitorsto these transnational firms. There are a lot inChina, many in Hong Kong. Now I want to go toEurope to do some work.
Do you indigenous restaurants try to do whatMcDonald's and Burger king do, or do they try andcook their country's food, fast?
The point is that there has always been fastfood in China. You could find it on the street.You could stop and someone would whip something upquick, so that's been there for hundreds of years.
What distinguishes the fast food chains is thatthey put them off street into a nice airconditioned, well lit environment. They bringstreet foods, domesticate them and sanitize themand put them on sale behind a counter: that's whatI am calling fast food chains. In Hong Kong, thereare four or five different places that have takenChinese style fast food right off the street andput them on the menu. McDonald's doesn't really dothat, but there are places in Hong Kong that do.Some of the stuff's not bad. Some of it's prettygrim. I've tried all of them. I've put my stomachon the line for many years.
Tell me about your favorite adventure or meal.
There’s nothing better than really, really goodcountry Chinese food. I don't mean fancyrestaurants, but if you go out to the Chinesecountryside. I was in the province of Jiang-Xi acouple years ago over reading period, doing somefield work. Isolated, beautiful hillsidecountryside area and they didn't have a great dealof variety but what they had was so out of sight,it was just impossible to rival. They had--theonly time I ever had this--mountain catfish. Theyalso had the best, most fabulous bean curd I’veever had in my life, because the water they had inthis area was crystal clear beyond belief. The keyto good bean curd is having fresh wonderful water.I couldn't believe it. They had a hot pot withmountain catfish and this fresh bean curd thrownin with a bunch of ginger and a few other things.I've never ever had anything just so...sofabulous. And it was just out in the countryside,in little joints along the side of the road cookedby ordinary people.
That's the kind of food I look for when I do myfield work. To them its just ordinary stuff . Itreminds me of what I grew up with in Iowa. Myfather had his summers free, so what we did washave the biggest garden in the planet, and I wasthe laborer. We had heavenly sweet corn, andvarious kinds of beans and things like that--justordinary food we took for granted. I look back atthat as literally food from the goods.
You can't find it, there's no way: it's gonenow. That was what I was experiencing in China.Everywhere I go in China I've found examples ofthis. Not in the high fancy expensive restaurants,but out in the countryside. That’s