Current Peeled Snacks president and founder-for-life Noha Waibsnaider has recently picked up a copy of Eric Schlosser's seminal book Fast Food Nation, and she's steadily toiling through it. I had picked it up about the time of its debut and, as an anti-fast-food crusader, I lapped up its tidbits hungrily.  Now, however, what with the impending release of Richard Linklater's filmic fictionalization of the book, it's time to pay it a little bit more attention.

Two confessions: I DO eat fast food, only in the particular forms of Subway sandwiches and/or Baja Fresh burritos.  As I admitted in an earlier entry, I have within the past couple of months eaten a McDonalds hamburger, and while I'm not proud of the fact, the subsequent stomach rumblings and such were sufficient penance to prevent that from happening again for a VERY long while.

Second, I'm a rather orthodox Linklater fan, having seen all of his films but one (last summer's Bad News Bears, I'll check it out some day) and relished both his personal pieces (Slacker, Before Sunset/Sunrise) and his Hollywood hat-tips (School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, and the failed Newton Boys).

So that said, understand that I'm not going to be the most objective critic of the film when it comes out.  I may suffer from a bit of a "it's not as good as the book" complex, though that may be less like thanks to the novel touch of turning non-fiction into fiction.  I'll certainly be a convert to whom the preaching is directed, though most of the audience is likely to be in a similar position.  I somehow find it unlikely that the film will do gang-buster business in the director's home state of Texas, currently the fattest state in our fattest of nations.

But, alas, Schlosser's book, for those unfamiliar or not recently acquainted, begins with several words about the origins of the fast food giants, and in particular their giant creators- the Ray Krocs, the Carl Karchers, the Colonel Sanders.  Schlosser details their tales through a surprisingly flattering lens, and gives them all credit for being passionate, creative, progressive entrepreneurs.  Schlosser's writing in these sections portrays a changing America (thanks in large part to the Highway system being put in place), and a bunch of guys trying to change business accordingly.

Well that doesn't sound so unreasonable, does it?  Frankly, I feel substantial affinity to the spirit of those gents, as I suppose our Supreme Leader, Ms. Waibsnaider, is likewise feeling as she reads.  We here are, after all, doing our best to adapt to changing eating habits and agricultural practices, and crafting our product accordingly.  For us these are spirited times requiring adaptability, entrepreneurialism, and LOTS of hard work.  I suppose Pete Harman, the guy who made KFC what it is, felt similarly.

I'm going to have to touch on this a few times over the next few weeks as we build up to the movie.  It's worth paying the topic attention, not just because the film might rock, but because of the cultural force that fast-food has become in our culture, and what Peeled Snacks is trying to do about it.

A Poem...

in 1848 there was gold found in them California hills,

Gold rushing down like pennies from heaven,

really expensive pennies.

Folks set their eyes on them shiny nuggets and saddled up.

Some made it, trotting all the way from Boston to San Fran.

Some didn't make it, and founded Fargo instead.

Everyone wants gold, everyone hopes to find it

in whatever hills they confuse for California

But everyone sure would find gold a hekuva lot faster

If those wide open highways went everywhere.

None of them 1848ers made it to Cali in 48,

So they all became 49ers, and now we got yon football team.

But how'd it look today if gold was found in, say, Maine,

and all people'd have to do was jump on 95,

and head north for a few hours?

Sure, the traffic might delay the gold rush of September 06

to October, or so,

but those roads'd get people there, quick as quitters,

and line the pockets of today's prospectors

with shiny shine, with igneous pearls.