In an era of food prescriptivism, where everything must be healthy, varied, produced sustainably with the environment in mind, sugar-free, fat-free, with ingredients that are 'superfoods', cooked perfectly and presented like a Pollock painting, consumed in the family with big smiles while everyone shares pleasant conversation, the ideal proves unattainable.
We all know that this ideal of perfectionism regarding how we should eat generates guilt and anxiety. How do we respond to this? By rebelling through imperfect meals that are worthy of analysis.
For example, there is a fascination with making 'kitchen nightmares' or failed dishes visible. This way of showing the world photos of perfect food—with lighting, color composition, and the controlled shine of photography to make it appetizing—has a counterpart: we've all tried to make a recipe and it hasn't turned out quite right. There are websites, blogs, social media accounts, and even TV shows dedicated exclusively to meals that don't come out as expected and are approached with humor. Even one of the gurus of the 'perfect' lifestyle in the US, Martha Stewart, once caused a stir on social media for the terrible food shots she posted, which provoked everything but appetite. Even the best hunter misses the mark sometimes, and that's okay, because this demonstrates a circumstance of our daily life: most of us can't dedicate much time or effort to making our meals postcard-worthy, and this doesn't make us less appreciative of culinary art. In fact, regarding imperfect meals, many food critics admit they are more stimulated to write about a place where the kitchen failed than about a perfect place, since it's easier to be eloquent about what went wrong than about what was flawless.
Another way of responding to 'perfect meals' lies in our 'guilty pleasures.' Almost everyone has some food preference that falls outside the norms of what would be considered 'good eating.' From this trait, we obtain diverse preferences that go against the norm, from going out for a stuffed chili pizza to someone I met who loved to prepare chilaquiles not with tortillas, but with spicy corn snacks from a well-known brand. And you know what? Sometimes people need escape valves from all these prescriptions about what our diet should be.
There are other foods that remind us nostalgically of moments in our lives, and for that reason seem the best to us. What about drunk food? In Mexico City, there are taquerias known as 'drunk taquerias,' where people go for dinner after partying. If you go sober, the tacos are bad: tasteless, greasy, and with watery salsas. But some people like to consume them to remember their party days. Sometimes, imperfect meals remind us of where we come from. In Guadalajara, there are many immigrants from Sinaloa. A woman from Sinaloa told me she started selling tostilocos because nowhere in the Pearl of the West could they prepare them with the flavor of her homeland. Needless to say, while many find them tasty, others might consider them a snack aberration.
In this era of food prescriptivism, people manage, in a defiant way, to show that perfection is not always possible, and that enjoyment is also found in imperfection.
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.