GuacGate

CultureFood & DrunkNewsPolitics

To think, we had our chance. A luscious one at that: green, fatty and garlicky smooth. Yet we didn’t let it sink in properly up here.

That heralding moment we called #GuacGate. The absurd #gate to end all #gates, it seemed to finally provoke laughs and calm South of the border, marking the death of the slowly decaying storm of …#gates over thirty or forty years.

Yet not only do Canadians make very poor guacamole, it seems, we completely fail to let go when it comes to our own “#gates.” On this one, we Canadians just can’t move on. Perhaps it’s the lack of godly, earthly, comforting avocadoes in our land.

The Trajectory of the #Gate

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It used to mean something, really. Both here at home and abroad. The ring of stature & sadness, or something just in between.

Even if one was not alive when it happened, even if still a child, the mere phrase “Watergate” would leave one curious, intimidated, even threatened. Remember it? A “gate” before peegate & hairgate, in other words before “#gate,” a Gate uttered in whispers, almost solemnly, by our elders.

One need only observe casual samples to see the slow decline of the #gate. Once lodged for matters of deep concern – corruption, foreign relations, world order – the phrase has evaporated into scandals of urine, doughnuts and teen idols.  Here’s a random selection, with my own legend for ease of reading.

  • 1980: #BillyGate (Scandal keywords: President Jimmy Carter, foreign relations, Khadafi)
  • 1985: #ContraGate (Scandal keywords: weapons, Iran, US)
  • 1987: #PonyGate (Scandal keywords: corruption, money, NCAA)
  • 1993: #TravelGate (Scandal keywords: White House, misuse of federal funds, Hillary bein’ sketchy)
  • 1993: #ZipperGate (Scandal keywords: White House, power, sex, Bill Clinton)
  • 2005: #TaxiGate (Scandal keywords: Scottish Parliament, misuse of public funds)
  • 2010: #GargleGate (Scandal keywords: Irish President, hangovers)
  • 2016: #DoughnutGate (Scandal keywords: Ariana Grande, licking unpurchased doughnuts, stating ‘I hate America. That’s disgusting.’)

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#GuacGate: The Final Straw (or Spoon)

Which leads us to #GuacGate, a bipartisan bill to end the #gates. If you recall, it blew up because people discovered this old New York Times recipe which called for peas in guacamole.

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In somewhat of a rare moment, the parties united, everyone laughed for awhile and most blessedly, most thought #gates could go nowhere further… they’d found their natural resting place.

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Only it turned out our Southern neighbours proved more capable of letting go, with things calming down on the #gate fronts.

Canadians & #GateGate

Don’t say Forget the Box didn’t warn the nation! Jason C. Mclean & Jerry Gabriel foretold (with doomsday glee) the end of the gate–called “#GateGate”–way back last year on our very own Forget the Box podcast. From here, they said, the only logical progression should be “#GateGate.”

Yet even though the US seemed to have gone in the direction, quieting down, Canadians dug in their heels.

There was #peegate (keywords: MP, coffee mug, relief), then #hairgate (keywords: Atwood, cached news, National Post).

Then finally, the day we were set to debate one of the most monumentally significant legal and medical bills in recent years. Which became…#elbowgate.

The thing is, there’s nothing left to be said about what happened, or what it “means,” as have so many others. So I’ll just beg this one thing: please let this be the gate to end all #gates. By that I don’t mean stop talking about things. Rather, just close the gate and move on once and for all.

AudioPodcast

Panelists Josh Davidson, Jerry Gabriel and Cem Ertekin discuss the Just for Laughs Ethnic Show and the meaning of “ethnic” comedy, the social media scandal surrounding peas in guacamole and the seeming about-face in Greece after the OXI victory. Plus the Community Calendar and a panel interview with JFL comedians.

Host: Jason C. McLean
Producer: Hannah Besseau

 

Panelists

Josh Davidson: FTB food contributor (read his column on #GuacGate)

Cem Ertekin: FTB news editor

Jerry Gabriel: FTB contributor

Listen to the full panel interview on “ethnic” comedy by Cem Ertekin featuring Gina Yashere, Ahmed Ahmed, Dan Naturman and Ronnie Chieng

FTB PODCAST #8: Ethic Comedy at JFL, #GuacGate with Peas and Greece by Forget The Box on Mixcloud

Host: Jason C. McLean
Producer Hannah Besseau

Microphone image: Ernest Duffoo / Flickr Creative Commons

CultureFood & Drunk

Have “foodies” lost the plot? It would seem at face value the answer is yes.

That is, if we judge based on public response to an innocuous New York Times guacamole recipe posted earlier this week.

This reposted recipe (it was posted on the site in 2013), was not only utterly unshocking, it was merely one of over 17,000 such NYT recipes innocently living in their Cooking section.

Yet here’s what happened.

And this.

And, hilariously (personal favourite) this.

And frighteningly, even crap like this:

And then this.

Good lord, even this.

I’d stand to wager that there are probably more guacamole recipe variations than almost anything other on the Internet. No, I didn’t bother to check that claim, because, frankly, those would be precious moments of my life lost. And that’s kind of the point: the vicious backlash and endless media attention means that someone has clearly lost the plot.

The question (if you’ve actually read this far) is: who?

To me the biggest is question is why, with access to the finest food writers and chefs in the country (and arguably world), NYT would even bother to (re)-promote such a page. If humous is the go-to lazy person potluck snack, guacamole is easily the second most overmade, over-fusioned, generally, over-dinner-partied dish in the US & Canada.

Now, perhaps that‘s a statement about foodies (run out of ideas much?).

Though to me, the real fallout of #GuacGate is threefold. Each point is depressing enough to make me want to drown my sorrows in a gallon of habanero-laced peadip.

1. Social media is a scourge upon humanity. “Foodies” really never existed anyway.

While most news articles seemed to label this a “foodie” fight, closer analysis reveals that most commentators are the type who comment on everything. Quickly. Without looking. On Twitter.

Even closer analysis reveals that most who lept into the (nonexistant) fracas felt compelled to call themselves “foodies” in their Twitter bios. Yet closer closer analysis reveals that, wait, 99.9 % of people on Twitter are “foodies'” according to their Twitter bios. Odd exceptions include the bios of those who, you know, actually cook, serve, grow, or research food for a living.

So if social media has made us immune to the impact of profanity, foodie is officially the new f-word.

2. #GuacamoleGate is snapshot of our modern “news” landscape.

A quick perusal of the #GG headlines shows: a) it was a slow news day, b) lots of pun-obsessed editors still have (ostensibly) paying jobs, c) news outlets have become a caricature of ideologies. Witness:

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obama-etc

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3. Two decades of creative brilliance is worth less than a sloppy repost

It’s struck me that the one person least discussed in all of this #GG madness is its very auteur, the one and only Jean-Georges Vongerichten. If and when he’s mentioned, it’s in the last graph of these stories, though often not at all. Tweets? Forget it! Which, you know, wouldn’t be a big deal if he wasn’t the single most significant, if not revolutionary, chef in the world’s restaurant capital for nearly two decades.

So, I suppose, we love to scream at each other more than even look at recipe, much less try it, much less learn about its very source. Via a quick media monitoring search, I discovered that two days of guacamole shattered decades worth of Vongerichten media mentions.

Personally, I’m happy for him: he’s long escaped overseas, where it must be said, most Twitterers and newspapers seemed to resist the hashtag allure of GuacGate. I’m just sad for the generation who will now forever grow up knowing this legendary human as Guy Who Tried To Make Pea Guacomole And Failed.

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At this point, I’m tempted to go revert back to my turn of the century ways, and an old proclivity to over-make an equally great party dip, then new to Westerners: hummous. Unlike guac, it’s always been open to change.