PIKUNIKU

When food becomes a commodity and object for speculation — via @bitcaves

What’s French for sandwich? by Joseph Schumpeter for The Economist

“After closing down its French stores ten years ago, Marks & Spencer (M&S), a British knickers-to-sandwiches retailer, has made le come-back in Paris. It’s brand-new 1,400 square meter store is located at 100 Avenue des Champs-Elysées, the city’s prime retail location…”

— Prime retail location? Was in Paris for the last three winter solstices and Champs-Elysées is lower-than prime (not sub-prime, but not prime).
— The Sephora is huge, feels very discount retailer and reeks terribly from their “average-Sephora-smell”. The Louis Vuitton store is always a mess; and mostly €400 trinkets are sold with hoards of people pushing around just to window shop. And, the “Christmas” decorations are sadly pathetic and reminiscent of those 70’s lights they have on Yonge Street in Toronto. The Champs Élysées lights are hung in trees, and have a sad and rainy effect.
— Only “prime” thing still worth visiting there is Ladurée for their macarons. As for the other 99% of shops = crap.

“What has got into the French? Surely, in the land of fine dining, where a sit-down lunch is a mark of a high life in the slow lane, nobody would settle for two triangles of sliced English bread? In fact, eating habits are changing. Last year, the French nibbled their way through two billion sandwiches…”

— Since when did French eating habits change just now? Le Courrier International, had an entire issue “La folie cuisine” devoted to new, 21st century eating habits in France: A ten-year paradox emerges because there are two opposing trends going on. First, an increase in “two triangles of sliced” bread and fast food consumption. Second, an increase in “fine dining” and expensive “terroire” dining (not “molecular” dining). The paradox: more cheap stuff, more expensive stuff. Nothing much in the middle.
— There are economic factors at play: the middle-class has disappeared (and is struggling so much, the country is providing micro-credits to its citizens, like they do in poor countries). And so the eating habits and restaurants of the middle are changing as well = they’re disappearing. Now, we have an increase of wealthy in France—the country is 8th worldwide in terms of millionaires—an increase of 11.2% from the previous year. Increasingly young French have education and work experience but no jobs, and on average unemployment is increasing with 4.2 million requests for work.

The Economist is usually not “so bad” but sometimes it really just sucks!

Bleach and salad dressing. Nice!

shortformblog:

Activist investor Carl Icahn develops strange taste for bleach

Well, as long as he doesn’t drink it. You use Clorox, right? You use it to spray stuff? To disinfect surfaces? To bleach your clothes? Well, Carl Icahn, who doesn’t exactly carry the best reputation for company turnarounds but was a real-life influence for Gordon Gekko (seriously — read up on Trans World Airlines and consider how much it compares to the plot of the original “Wall Street”), recently put up an insane, unsolicited buyout offer for the cleaning-supply country, which (think about this next time you eat a salad) also makes Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing. Slowly but surely, Icahn became the company’s largest shareholder, and now he’s gunning for a whitewash. We could keep going with these bleach jokes all day, so don’t tempt us. source

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(Source: shortformblog)

Stephen Colbert talks about the coco-conundrum…

Necklace design for bread protest in Lahore, Pakistan, photo by Ali/Getty.

Poster design for bread protest in Amman, Jordan, photo by Reuters.

“Bread or Revolution,” by Paul Jackson.

BEAUTIFUL BUSINESS PASTA

America and China make beautiful business pasta together. They also make beautifully designed photo opportunities together. Most diplomatic photo opportunities involve flags and hand shaking, but here at Pikuniku we’ve been obsessed with how food and dinners are used too.

     Making pasta, in this example, is akin to breaking bread. To break bread, as a cultural expression, means many things. In Christian ideology, breaking bread is a symbol for peace, partnership and sharing to give thanks (when Jesus shared bread and wine with his disciples during The Last Supper). Sounds nice, cute and friendly doesn’t it? And so, this is typically how Westerners understand images of food sharing or making in the media.

     In diplomatic circles—in international political-economic circles—breaking bread means the same. Or so it seems. One could argue breaking bread is more akin to the social interaction of exchange, like the exchange of money, wealth and assets. It occurred to us that photographs meant to express sharing and gratitude, are more likely to be symbols for some sort of financial exchange. Ka-ching! is how the photograph really reads. The question then is, ka-ching for whom?

—MC

Vietnam’s future hangs in balance

Vietnam has long been hailed as the next Asian Economic Tiger, a country that could one day join the ranks of South Korea and Japan. But investors and financial analysts are increasingly lowering expectations saying the communist government is not addressing the many economic troubles. Communist Party leaders are set to vote on several leadership positions during a five-yearly congress this week, decisions crucial to save Vietnam from what some say could be a year of economic calamity.

From: AlJazeeraEnglish | January 16, 2011 | Al Jazeera’s Steve Chao reports from Hanoi.