Hannah Jones/Winonan

Lately, my food has been sending me mixed messages.

I’m a college student, and we’re in a recession, and these two factors together make me somewhat of a connoisseur of convenience food, fast food and basically anything that comes in a plastic container and costs less than three dollars.

Early on, I came to terms with the kind of menu I faced while on a budget. Low funds for food meant, in general, the food of the masses: floppy beef hamburgers, hard-shell tacos with a few shreds of flaccid lettuce and a few flecks of lukewarm, mushy tomato, macaroni and cheese vibrant enough to inspire a crayon color, you know the story.

College food, as a genre, is cheap food, and generally unexciting food.

Or, so I thought.

America’s cheap food has been going through a strange trend lately, especially taking the recession into account. It would seem as though somewhere along the line, even populist culture has developed a gourmet’s palate.

You see it at McDonald’s: designer coffee drinks, right there on the menu next to the McChickens, for a fraction of the price offered for their Starbuck’s counterparts.

You see it at Taco Bell: behold the burrito bowl, a brightly-colored tub of market-fresh ingredients like avocado and grilled steak—a sit-down restaurant special offered to all those who decide to think outside the bun on a Tuesday night.

Even macaroni and cheese is getting an upgrade: Noodles and Company’s “truffle mac” is everyone’s favorite noodles and cheese sauce with a ritzy breadcrumb topping and a smattering of rich, earthy mushrooms mixed in.

Macchiato?Steak? Truffles? These are foods that belong on a stiff, open-up menu that you read while sipping a glass of Chanel Blanc and listening to a tuxedo-wearing waiter named Garcon drone on about the “subtleties” of the swordfish reduction—also in stock for the evening.

America is simultaneously tightening its belt and putting on its best tie and tails for dinner.

And just look at our flavor options nowadays. Pomegranate. Dulce de Leche. Red Velvet. While this richly-named dessert was once considered a fancy delicacy for special occasions, you can now find red velvet in a Duncan Hines box—or a Yoplait yogurt cup—or a Pop Tart.

What would be next? “Running late, so I guess I’d better heat up a Pop Tart; do I want ‘Crème Brulee,’ or ‘Chocolate Soufflé’ today?”

It’s not that I mind. I’m actually thrilled every time I walk into Walmart and find a goat cheese and spinach artisan pizza in the frozen food aisle. I’m just confused about the whole thing.

For a nation supposedly conscious of our wallets and watching what we spend, we seem to know a lot about all these black-tie foods. Where do we get the knowledge? Where do we get the cravings?

I personally blame Food Network. Every time I watch Iron Chef, I suffer the delusion that I’m a culinary genius for about thirty minutes afterward, during which time I decide making a mini pot pie out of Grands biscuit dough and leftover soup is a good idea.

Our televisions give us a window into a culture that is full of exotic ingredients, outlandish combinations and gourmet presentations that leave us hungry for a taste of the good life.

When suddenly a fast food chain can offer us that taste—or something like it—for about a dollar, we feel as though we’ve gotten the best of both worlds.
Still, maybe something else is compelling us to favor strange, fancy yogurt flavors and puttanesca sauce for our microwave spaghetti.

Maybe our culture, as a whole, is frustrated with years of plain hamburgers and 90-cent tacos. Maybe branching out and trying these eccentric foods is our way of breaking out of a nationwide rut, and breaking out of a tight economic situation.

Maybe, for us college students, it’s a way of breaking out of our small college town and breaking into something a bit more cosmopolitan; something that tastes like quinoa or raspberry cheesecake.

If we can’t get out into the world just yet, maybe we can just carve up a piece of it and put it on our plates.

Gourmet culture may come and go with the times. But, in the meantime, there are new colors, countries, confections and concoctions to savor, and we can do it for under a dollar.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the yogurt aisle—deciding.

Contact Hannah at [email protected]