I Guess Mukbang Is My Plan B

On viral videos and the bigness of the Internet

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It’s cliché at this point to say that the modern cultural landscape is fractured, but living through it can be extremely disorienting. What might first seem like a random viral video is actually a portal into a person or subculture that has hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. In that world, we need writers who can serve as real-time cultural anthropologists to keep us informed about all the wild and wonderful things humans are doing. 

This is why I so appreciated John Devore’s essay on mukbang, a genre of livestream or online video focused on watching people eat. Devore is an avid fan of the genre, and in his essay, he talks to sociologists, content creators, and fans to better understand how he could pivot from an underemployed writer to a mukbang star. Along the way, he uncovers some truths. The genre may have started in South Korea, but it’s spread around the world. It’s also no longer just about overeating junk food, though that’s still popular. It’s about the food, but it’s about more than that. 

Devore’s essay is funny and bracingly honest about the challenges of unemployment. It also gets at something important about culture. It’s easy, when we brush up against a fandom or subculture we’re unfamiliar with, to assume it’s weird and put it out of our mind. But Devore shows that the popular mukbang creators don’t just point a camera at themselves and eat. They are as thoughtful, strategic, and dedicated as any other artists. Even if their art form is eating an entire box of Jollibee chicken. 

Read: I Guess Mukbang Is My Plan B

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Aliza Abarbanel details the rise of terrines. The classic dish has a French soul but meets all the requirements of a modern food trend: economical yet fussy for chefs, endlessly adaptable, and can look great on Instagram. 

One of the most important things we can do for our planet is find more sustainable forms of food. With sushi, for example, the worldwide preference for fatty tuna has led to massive overfishing. Aliza talks with organizations in Japan promoting new species of fish to sushi chefs worldwide.

A lot of formal or fussy terms in food evolved from kitchen or bar shorthand (it all sounds fancier in French). Emma Janzen at Punch rounds up the new cocktail terms bubbling up across the country. Some will fizzle out, but some will just get absorbed into how we talk about drinks. Someday everyone will know what “spaggled” or “blip” means. But, a warning: do NOT, under any circumstances, use these terms with bartenders you don’t know. At best, you will look like a poseur. Just chuckle loudly or smile and nod if you hear them. They’ll notice. 

They say AI is coming for all forms of content, and that includes recipes. Verge reporter Emilia David dug into AI-generated recipes and found them, at best, fine. Putting aside the questions about copyright, the recipes themselves were best for things like pie crust, which doesn’t have many ingredients or variations in general. Also, they sometimes missed the mark completely. David wonders if AI recipes will ever take off, as half the value of a recipe is connecting with and trusting the person behind it. 

Some of the United States’ first chefs, the ones who trained in and brought over French technique, were the enslaved cooks of our founding fathers. The New York Times profiles Hercules Posey, George Washington’s personal chef. The story, by historian Ramin Ganeshram, does a great job of contrasting Posey’s dashing and flamboyant figure in 1700s Philadelphia with the reality of his life as a slave. This is a great read. 

Some New York restaurants have made their own popularity and exclusivity annoying. The food itself (and even the scene) just isn’t worth waiting outside for four hours or begging to get a reservation. Eater New York’s Robert Sietsema highlights great alternatives to some of the city’s obnoxiously hard-to-secure tables. 

Are you following the drama around Huy Fong? The inventor of sriracha has switched pepper suppliers, and now the old supplier has launched a competitor sauce. Luke Gralia at The Takeout taste-tests a few competing srirachas to see if the OG is still the best. 

Cook

It’s a tough time of year for cooking. We are all getting tired of winter greens and starches, but there aren’t really any spring vegetables yet. If you’re looking for a new twist on a weeknight classic, try this potato and greens soup with garlic butter. Any recipe that leaves you with extra garlic butter is 👍👍👍.

If you are stuck making dinner out of pantry staples, you can never go wrong with kimchi and ketchup fried rice.

Or, try caramelized fish sauce tuna. 

As a member of the TASTE family, I’m biased, but Zola Gregory is my favorite recipe developer right now. Her recipes are fancy-ish, approachable, and mostly vegetarian without making a big deal out of it. I made her kale, white bean, and mushroom pot pie for both Christmas dinner and a normal Tuesday. Her mushroom madame has become a regular in my weeknight rotation. 

I love Serious Eats, but I am not separating my yolks and whites to make a fried egg; I don’t care how flawless the results are. 

New collaborative newsletter Flaming Hydra features one of my favorites: the profane and funny Laurie Woolever. She’s contributing monthly travel essays and recipes. Her most recent, for sweet swiss chard pie, will dominate any dinner party for the next few months. The title will make you laugh out loud.

Watch, Stream, Listen

It’s been another big week for the TASTE podcast. 

British farmer and chef Julius Roberts stops by to talk with Aliza about his new cookbook The Farm Table, which chronicles his transition from London chef to Dorset small farmer. Listen. 

The man, the myth, the delightful human Phil Rosenthal stopped by to talk with Matt about how his improbable travel show has grown into a juggernaut. Also, listen until the end for Matt and Aliza previewing spring cookbook season. Listen.

In a two-segment episode, Matt interviews Crystal Wilkinson about her new book, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, a memoir of the kitchen and her maternal ancestors. Then he talks with journalist, food writer, and podcast host Howie Kahn about his career in food writing. It’s always fun to hear Matt get nerdy about New York restaurants. Listen. 

Out of context J. Gold of the week

Treehouse is perhaps the only local restaurant that currently serves the spicy food of Trinidad and Tobago and is a logical place to eat before a game at the Forum or on the way back from LAX. - Link