From our overstocked archives

Sam Smith, 2014 - As I was watching The Hundred Foot Journey, a mixture of charming acting and what Alonso Duralde called in the Wrap, a "slumgullion of food porn," I remembered standing in line with my sandwich and brownie at the Wild Oaks Bakery & Cafe in Brunswick, ME, as an extraordinarily picky customer ahead of me was directing precisely how much of what items should go into her salad.

It suddenly occurred to me that the foodie movement was not just another random change in our culture, but an unconscious replacement of our former power in politics and national policy with thrice daily decisions on such matters as choice of dressing, glutin composition, and the presence or absence of anchovies. We can no longer determine the character of our politics, so we try make to up for it by selecting the right cheese for our sandwich. 

And hardly anyone notices that  choosing between kale or spinach is far less than our founders dreamed we might do in our pursuit of happiness.