> These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
This seems weirdly condescending, especially since I think these two things are very related.
There are two types of $14 food truck grilled cheese in my experience:
The first type is usually found at farmer’s markets or free city events where the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
The second type is where there’s a captive audience, like a music festival or a brewery patio. This is no free market: you are hungry, and you’re about to be exploited.
I find American society increasingly reflected in the second type of $14 grilled cheese. Movie theaters, sporting events, music events, video games, tipping culture, hidden fees, etc. etc. Exploitative business practices to extract profit at the expense of the customer. It’s like walking around being shown the middle finger at all times. And people complain about the breakdown of the social contract…
> the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
Simple ingredients should be cheap. It’s fucking cheese and bread, stop trying to normalize $15 for it. The raw ingredients are milk and wheat, both of which are incredible cheap.
You’re disregarding training, labor, and the intangibles of culture and tradition. Those things should be cheaper, but in America we’ve basically all but destroyed bakery artisanship at the altar of capitalist efficiency, so its rarity has now made its products more expensive. Cheese is in a slightly better position, but only barely, and very regionally-dependent (Wisconsin and Oregon, for example).
So yeah, I don’t disagree, it should be about half the price if we had better artisan programs in the US. But I don’t think wonder bread and Kraft singles should set the bar for grilled cheese pricing.
I was going to say the same thing
the artisan grilled cheese is better than a hotdog that’s been overheated for six hours with a stale bun, and stale popcorn with fake flavoring