Brave New World: Shake Shack

This past Sunday I was fortunate enough to spend a day with my friends and we went to NYC with no plan at all other than to get on the train and see the big beautiful apple. On this journey however we ended up at the Shake Shack near Madison Square. It was a nice setting: a big grey building with grey contemporary lettering nearly hidden in camoflouge against the natural darkenss of the parks trees, birds chirping and watching overhead, and of course a serpent - like line that wrapped around the sand of the parks bottom.

I had heard so much about the Shake Shack: from my cousin who took the Path in from Jersey City just to get a cheeseburger and a shake, and from various colleagues who say rationalize their long travelled trips to get a burger and fries. So as I waited in line, I mused. I though how ridiculous is it to stand in line for over an hour in a park for a Shack-cago dog and a Rootbeer Float? I'm in NYC, the big apple, a culinary capital, with thousands, maybe millions, of eateries, many with no lines, many more with better food.... HOW INSANE is it that I'm standing in this line waiting....?!? similar to standing in line at church trying to get the body of Christ on Christmas day or Easter. It was ridiculous. But I thought to myself, if the food is amazing, it would all be worth it, and if all these people are here waiting - its got to be good right? And how come so many people know about this place and its this small?

First of all, its everybodys delight to know about a secret hole in the wall place that only a few people know about so that they can discover and then pass that secret on to the world. They want to be the gatekeepers of the worlds great things. By simply being able to tell their friends about a great place to eat, they themselves will look like the knowledgeable foodie and go to guy on all things hip. So thats why we try places that we hear about. We want to know about a secret place that sells the forbidden fruit, and we want to be the ones that tell everyone. That's why all of us stood in line on that Sunday, midafternoon, on a perfect, cloudless day. I waited over an hour for a hotdog and float when on any other occassion I would never even wait five minutes at a restaurant, thinking to my snobby self that I can spend my good hard earned money somewhere else... somewhere that doesn't make their guests wait. And in the end... I was ... not sad... but not delighted either. If anything The Shake Shake woke me up.

The Shake Shack spoke to me that Sunday. It said tell us why you are stupid! Please tell us why. I knew it was stupid to be there in that line and I still did it, reassuring myself along the way. It reminded me of a book I read in high school.... A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1931), where in part of the book Huxley describes the mass of people standing up and sitting down during some kind of ceremony, over and over again, mindless.... That was us - the mindless mass of species waiting in a park for the same thing... all because something or someone had told us that that it was somehow better. Many of us were tricked to go there.... "go try it out at least if you're ever in the city." You think to yourself you come all the way to the city and you don't know that much, so you should go to that place that your buddies have been telling you about.... if you don't go, you're missing out.

I went. Wasn't that great. I missed out on something better.

When did we become such food snobs? Why do we really take advice from people not qualified to give it and why do we think that certain foods are better than others? I told my friend Phyllis that hot dogs were N.G. - NO GOOD. Society has told me to hate hot dogs because they are made from leftover meat. I mean look at it, it doesn't look natural, how can it be okay for you? But i've been doing research since I ate my hot dog at the shake shack... hot dogs are made of good quality meats AND some are made of not so good meat... you have to know what you are buying. The best I have seen is Hebrew National all beef franks, no fillers, no preservatives and nothing but the best cuts of meat, 100% beef. I don't know what was in the hot dog I ate at the Shake Shack but at least i'll know to be on the look out for better hot dogs if I can now.

To answer the question of snobbery.... we are snobs because we want the best. Nothing wrong with that. We just have to be a little more careful on who and where we get our information from.