I had a Taco Bell chalupa for lunch today. And it was beautiful.
Yes, I know I risk becoming someone who just writes ridiculous stuff about food. But please, let me explain:
America's vast excesses are usually mocked. The sprawling suburbs. The ubiquitous Wal-Marts. The fried Twinkies. People tell us that Americans are destroying the world with our uncultured culture of unsustainable consumption.
Maybe that's true.
But in all of America's absurdities, there's a terrifying beauty.
Take the chalupa, for example.
In Mexico, there is something called a chalupa. The Taco Bell chalupa is not that thing. The Taco Bell chalupa is a deep fried taco drenched in some kind of fatty sauce. But, of course, none of the tacos served at Taco Bell -- including the chalupa -- resemble a Mexican taco. The chalupa is an advanced food product scientifically developed in a corporate laboratory to appeal to your body's survival mechanisms. Nothing about it is natural. Which makes it amazing.
It's fattening. It's salty. It's a freaking chalupa. Your primal nature craves it.
On one hand, things like the chalupa will probably kill us all. But on the other hand, it's a miracle of the capitalist system.
It's an easy target for derision, but the sheer scale and ingenuity of the consumption-driving society we've built is jaw-dropping. Viewed as a panorama, the endless tracts of identical homes in our suburbs can be as arresting as the pyramids. Our big-box stores sell an array of goods unparallelled at any other point in history. And our titans of fast food produce tiny miracles like the chalupa every day.
The Titanic may inevitably sink. But until then, it's a pretty impressive boat.
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