restaurant depot sysco slop

The first time I ever had industrial frozen food slop was from school lunches in the early '80s. But even back then, the entire idea of the frozen meal had been around for about 30 years. The only difference between the '50s and '80s versions is that frozen TV dinners of the '50s came in an aluminum tray that was heated up in a conventional oven, and '80s versions used plastic or cardboard trays. That, of course, was to accommodate for a specific type of oven, the microwave. And while true microwaves were around since the introduction of the TV dinner, lower cost microwaves anybody could buy weren't available until the very late 1970s. However, truly rock bottom cheap microwaves weren't available until the 1980s. When that decade rolled around, sure, everybody got a microwave. Frozen meal companies adapted, made all their meals safe to heat in a microwave, and it's been that way ever since.

My tongue can very easily identify frozen slop that's been heated in a microwave. That "food", regardless of what it looks like, all tastes the same.

Before getting deeper into that, I'll describe something I've been doing for years.

At any grocery store, you'll find frozen mixed vegetables in a bag. Very common. It's usually green beans, carrots, corn and maybe peas. Every one of these bags has microwave instructions. Ignore that completely. Use a steamer pot set instead to cook that veg with. On the lower pot, put in 2 cups water, bring to boil. Dump the frozen veg in the metal basket. Stack the basket on top of the pot, steam for 10 minutes, done. I absolutely guarantee that veg will taste better. Instead of being wrecked by a microwave that turns the veg into tasteless mush, steaming it actually keeps the flavor and crispness. All you need to do after steaming is add a pat or two of unsalted butter and just a little salt. That's it. And it totally works.

The reason I'm telling you this is because yes, you totally can make frozen food actually taste right and feel good eating it, if prepared properly.

Well, that's not happening at restaurants these days, because all the food is prepared improperly. Everything is microwaved.

I used to think microwaving didn't affect things that much. Oh, how wrong I was, because it totally does. Any food or drink microwaved will be wrecked. For example, when I brew coffee with my coffee maker and make a mug of it, sometimes it will sit in the mug too long and go cold. It happens. When I reheat that in the microwave, yeah, it's hot again, but it does not taste the same. The microwave somehow takes away coffee flavor. I just muddle through and finish the mug whenever this happens. The point is that yes, I can taste the difference in the negative direction.

A similar thing happens for food. Microwaving turns food to mush and strips out the flavor, every time.

The first time my "this is frozen slop" detector went off in my brain was at Italian restaurants in the northeast. Every single one of them always had food that tasted the same. The salad always tasted the same. The meatballs always tasted the same. The sauce always tasted the same. The pasta always tasted the same. Even the frickin' bread always tasted the same.

Why? All of them used the same restaurant slop supplier, and the "cooks" microwaved whatever they could get away with.

The same exact thing happens with Chinese restaurants. It doesn't matter if you get your Chinese slop in Massachusetts, Florida, Texas or anywhere else in the US. That food will always taste exactly the same, because they all use the same restaurant suppliers.

What's different now?

Okay, so the everything-tastes-the-same crap with restaurants has been going on for probably around 30-ish years by this point, so what's different now compared to then?

It really all comes down to two things. Laziness and price.

There's always That Guy who can take a low-cost food and make it into something good. You may know one. It's some dude who can take a bottom tier piece of meat and make it taste like something a gourmet chef would craft. He knows exactly how long to cook the meat for, how long to let it rest, what seasonings to add, and so on. Through his wizardry, he gets a result that is simply amazing. You wouldn't think so from seeing him standing in front of an electric stove wearing no shirt and has on just jorts and flip flops, but he knows how to work with food.

No restaurant these days has That Guy. They're all gone.

Instead, whoever does the cooking is just some dope who goes to the freezer, gets whatever that needs to be made for the customer, EXACTLY follows the directions on the bag, microwaves the slop, and nothing more. No food crafting takes place whatsoever. It is all the same ultra generic slop, "cooked" the same way, every time. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Then comes price; this is the real reason why people are pissed off about microwaved restaurant food these days.

People are very willing to accept microwaved slop when it's cheap, as there is no expectation whatsoever for the food to be any good at all. The general opinion is, "As long as it's cheap, hot, edible, and doesn't make me retch, I'm good."

People are very unwilling to accept high-priced microwaved slop.

Imagine going to a restaurant where the bare minimum price for one entree is $30. Now imagine that for two people and we're up to $60. Oh, hang on, you forgot the drinks. That's at least $5 per person or $15 minimum per person if it's booze. But we'll say you skipped the booze and got two $5 drinks. Now we're up to $70. Did you want dessert for two people? Add another $30 and now it's $100. Think you're done? Nope, you forgot the "required" 20% tip. You just spent $120...

...for food that was nothing but microwaved slop you could have made at home, and drinks that are available at any gas station.

If that same two-person meal was something more reasonable, like, say, $50 out the door, that wouldn't grate you nearly as much.

Or, if the food was absolutely amazing, spending $120 wouldn't have nearly the same sting, because hey, what you ate was awesome. Except it wasn't. You got microwaved garbage and paid 3 figures for it. Oh, and that dessert wasn't made by the restaurant. Probably something from Costco with a 500% markup.

Are there signs that restaurants will die out completely?

Mostly, and I've already seen their replacements. You have also seen them, and I'll say more about that in a minute.

I don't see a bright future for traditional freestanding sit-down restaurants. All the food is ridiculously overpriced microwaved slop that all tastes the same, people are getting wise to this, and they're simply going to stop buying.

There's a running joke where it's said only restaurants who can work some magic with Sysco foods will be able to thrive. I think that's true. Since all the food is the same, it's the cooks that make the difference. However, if a restaurant doesn't have That Guy like I described a little bit ago, then it's doomed to fail. It doesn't matter how much effort a restaurant puts into design or atmosphere or ambiance or whatever. If the food is nothing but microwaved garbage with no thought put into it whatsoever, that business won't last.

Two things have already happened that are replacing restaurants. Drink businesses and sit-down areas in supermarkets.

For drinks, there are three things going on. Coffees, teas and sodas. You've seen the coffee places, so no explanation needed there. A lot of tea places have sprouted up in the past few years and continue to. The soda shop is a weird one, because it sounds like a business that absolutely should not work, but is actually doing well. An example of that is Swig. It would not surprise me at all if more Swig-like soda shops start happening in the next few years. It is much cheaper to run a drink shop compared to a sit-down restaurant, and it also stands a much better chance of being actually profitable. Also, what's sold doesn't hit the wallets of customers anywhere near as bad as a restaurant does these days. Sounds like a winning combo all around, because it is.

For food, I've been seeing more supermarkets offering two additional things. A place where you can order meals, and a sit-down dining area. Some of these grocery stores will actually bring the food to your table once ready.

How fancy or not-fancy the dining area is directly depends on the supermarket. I've seen some that are just a few small tables and chairs in a semi-open area, others that are sectioned off with half-walls, and one time I saw one that was a straight up full restaurant with live entertainment, all inside the store. Quite impressive. Yeah, it was one of those highfalutin upscale "organic" style grocery stores, but still, real money was spent on that, and it appeared to be doing good business.

If the traditional sit-down restaurants go away, you've got the coffee/tea/soda shops, and more supermarkets are setting up shop for dining with more on the way.

This is not one of those things where when the economy gets better, people will start going out to eat more again, and sit-down restaurants will be saved. How do I know this? People who have money now are oh-so done with the high-priced microwaved slop and are just sick of it. Literally.

But maybe I'm wrong, and the restaurant business has a chance of surviving. Maybe they'll find ways to turn things around. Maybe some will find That Guy and actually start cooking food properly. And maybe the prices for entrees at restaurants will stop being so insane.

Until that happens, which I doubt, I'm a-okay having a sit-down meal at a grocery store, especially considering how good some of them are.

permalink