The Culture Code (19 page)

—a thirty-four-year-old man

My first memory of food was the first time my father took me to a McDonald’s. I swear I got a buzz off the fries. Now that I’m on my own, I go there as often as I can for those fries. I know some people say they’re bad for you, but they make me feel great. I heard there was a guy who made a movie about going on an all-McDonald’s diet. I could definitely do that.

—a twenty-two-year-old man

I have the memory of some great meals, but to be honest with you, most of them have more to do with the people I was with than the food I ate. I can’t tell you what I ate at most of the fancy restaurants I’ve been to, but I can tell you what we talked about. Eating was never that important to me. Sometimes people have to remind me to eat and I really only do it to keep going.

—a thirty-three-year-old woman

Not all the stories read this way, of course. America has a subculture of food aficionados, “foodies,” who admire food and take pleasure in its masterful preparation. We have a twenty-four-hour cable television network devoted to food, dozens of food magazines are published monthly, and there are fine restaurants (some of the finest in the world) all over the country. Yet the responses of the vast majority of participants in the discovery suggest that the foodie subculture, vibrant though it might be, is not representative of the way most Americans feel about food.

The overwhelming majority of responses I received spoke not of the pleasures of the palate, but rather of the
function
of food. “Good nutrition that they can fill up with quickly.” “Bacon cheeseburgers for lunch every day—and I actually had more energy.” “There’s no point in eating if the food doesn’t keep you healthy.” “I really only do it to keep going.” For every gourmet who spoke about taste, texture, and savoring a meal, there were two dozen people who talked about filling up and eating as a necessity instead of a pleasure. The message that came through loudly from these stories was that the body is a machine and the job of food is to keep the machine running.

The American Culture Code for food is
FUEL
.

Americans say “I’m full” at the end of a meal because unconsciously they think of eating as refueling. Their mission has been to fill up their tanks; when they complete it, they announce that they’ve finished the task. It is also interesting to note that on highways all across the country, you will find rest stops that combine gas stations and food courts. When you drive up to the pump and tell the attendant to fill up your tank, it wouldn’t be entirely inappropriate for him to ask “Which one?”

Americans regard their bodies as machines. Our machines have functions to perform and we need to keep them working. Some of us choose to keep our machines in top shape by attaching them to other machines—the workout equipment at our local health club, which appears to have been designed by the Marquis de Sade. All of us know, though, that we need fuel to run these machines.

Interestingly, we seem far less concerned with the quality of the fuel than one might expect. In spite of abundant warnings about health effects, Americans love fast food. In his book
Fast Food Nation,
Eric Schlosser notes that “Americans now spend more money on fast food than they do on higher education, personal computers, software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music—combined. In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food. Last year they spent more than $100 billion.”

Regardless of how one feels about its taste or nutritional quality, fast food is definitely on Code. Fast-food restaurants provide us with a quick fill-up. We don’t need to wait for our meals and, refueled, we can go on to our other tasks. This appeals to our need for movement as well as our adolescent desire to have everything now. One might argue that fast food isn’t particularly good fuel to put in one’s tank, but then again, how many of us put regular gas in our cars even when the manufacturer tells us to use premium?

In many other cultures, food isn’t a tool, but rather a means of experiencing refinement. In France, the purpose of food is pleasure, and even a home-cooked meal is something diners savor for a long period. In French restaurants, the meal is symphonic in its artistry, with many “performers”—the chef, the waiter, the sommelier, and the maître d’—working synchronously. In fact, the French use the word
chef
for both a fine cook and the conductor of an orchestra.

In Japan, the preparation and the enjoyment of food are a means to approach perfection. Sushi chefs rigorously study the art of the knife, knowing that a perfectly cut piece of fish offers superior taste and texture. The Japanese consider the best sushi chefs to be masters—artists of the highest degree.

As we’ve already discussed, going against the Codes of a culture is a futile exercise. Therefore, it is unrealistic to believe that a large percentage of Americans will ever perceive food as pleasure or perfection rather than as fuel. What does this mean for the food industry?

Selling quantity before quality makes sense. The all-you-can-eat buffet hits all the right notes: it provides plenty of food that is available immediately. Restaurants that emphasize large portion size are likely to find a continuous stream of customers. Americans expect huge portions (portions astonishing to foreigners) even in the finest restaurants. You might recall the early days of nouvelle cuisine when American restaurateurs served small portions with elaborate presentation. The American market failed to embrace the trend, because it was off Code. Today, serving sizes even in most high-end establishments are gigantic, leading to the incongruous sight of diners leaving four-star restaurants with doggie bags.

Selling speed, of course, makes tremendous sense. Supermarket shelves are filled with packaged foods that busy homemakers can microwave and have on the table in five minutes. Emphasizing a product’s speed of preparation is right on Code because it connects with our need to eat on the go, to fill up the tank and get back to our missions.

Taco Bell recently launched a marketing campaign for its 99-cent menu in which various delighted patrons announce “I’m full!” This is obviously right on Code. They make it clear that one can fill up one’s tank (and express great joy afterward) for very little money.

Red Bull, the energy-drink manufacturer, takes a different on-Code approach in marketing its product. Red Bull’s advertising notes that the drink “gives you wings.” The company’s ads show cartoon characters drinking Red Bull and becoming charged with energy. The message here is that the drink is high-octane fuel that propels you through your busy life.

Some foods take an even more direct on-Code approach to market positioning. One can go to one’s local supermarket and buy a Power-Bar to fill up with a potent amount of protein. There are nutritional supplements called Ultimate Diet Fuel, Yohimbe Fuel, and Blitz: Tim Brown’s Body Fuel System. It’s hard to be more on Code than that.

The Code suggests a huge opportunity for the food industry to further exploit the American perception of food as fuel that powers the body-machine. Given that we use our machines for different purposes at different times of day, and that different nutrients and vitamins help us perform certain tasks (B vitamins for energy, healthy fats for brain function, magnesium for relaxation, and so on), a food packager that sells its product as fuel for a specific kind of activity (for instance, a cereal that has one formula to get you started on your day, another that you could eat before sports practice, and a third that you could snack on before you do your homework) would be on Code in breakthrough fashion.

TWO
CANS
ARE
BETTER
THAN
ONE

How and when one imprints an archetype affects the power and meaning of that archetype. The timing of the imprint of alcohol in our culture and the French culture offers an intriguing way to see this in action.

As mentioned earlier in the book, the French, while they don’t allow their children to drink in quantity, will expose them to alcohol (specifically, wine) at a very early age, allowing them to take a sip or perhaps to dip a cookie in a glass of champagne. They teach their children that wine enhances food and that older, lower-alcohol wines are best because the alcohol inhibits the flavor of the wine.

Americans, with their strong history of temperance (this is one of the few Western cultures ever to make the consumption of alcohol illegal for all of its citizens), generally keep their children completely away from alcohol until they are well into their teens. Americans teach their children that alcohol is an intoxicant that can lead to irresponsible behavior.

Forbidden to drink alcohol as children, and learning little about it other than that it is “bad” for you, Americans end up imprinting alcohol at a rebellious age. When they gain access to alcohol (usually underage, which enhances the sense that they are doing something taboo), they know nothing of its pleasures, subtleties, or role as an enhancer of food, but they quickly discover its intoxicating qualities. Taste is unimportant. What matters is that this substance can do a job for you: it can get you drunk. As a bonus, your parents don’t want you to do it, so you can rebel and get wasted at the same time.

Drunkenness is in no way unique to Americans. Yet the phrase “going out to get drunk” is quintessentially American. Certainly, people in most cultures seek inebriation in different forms, but only in America, with its incredibly strong work ethic and bias for action, is the mission stated so directly by so many. It seems to be the primary avocation of many American teenagers and college students—not going to a party, not going to a nightclub, not spending an evening with friends, but “going out to get drunk.” American ingenuity has even devised the most efficient way to accomplish the task: a hat that allows us to suck two cans of beer through a straw at once.

So is the Code for alcohol similarly efficient—the equivalent of food as fuel, with the mission being inebriation? It is not nearly as straightforward as that. When Seagram, Jack Daniel’s, and Gallo commissioned a discovery, the stories revealed first imprints that were anything but matter-of-fact.

My first memory of alcohol was when I was maybe seven or eight years old. My parents had some company over and I was bugging my father to give me a taste of his scotch. Eventually he said, “Sure, but you have to drink it down all at once.” I did what he told me and I nearly choked to death. I also felt miserable for the rest of the day. I actually thought I was going to die.

—a forty-two-year-old man

When I was thirteen, we sneaked into my friend’s parents’ liquor cabinet. None of us knew what we were doing, but we pulled out a bottle of vodka. My friend told me that she saw her parents drinking it with orange juice, so we mixed some up. We took our first taste and it tasted just like orange juice. So we put some more in—something like a quarter of the bottle. The sip I took after that tasted like bad medicine, but I felt the changes in my body almost instantly.

—a twenty-eight-year-old woman

My most powerful memory was right after I started a new job. It was the boss’s birthday and a bunch of us went out with him to celebrate. It turns out this was a huge event every year and that it all had to do with drinking. Everyone started doing shots in insane quantities. I was the new guy and I wanted to fit in, so I downed more than my share. I thought I was doing a good job of keeping up until I stood to go to the bathroom. I nearly collapsed right on the spot. I was sick for days after.

—a thirty-seven-year-old man

I drank a lot in college. A lot. A whole lot. The thing I remember most about that time was that I always had a couple of quick drinks in my room alone before I went out to get me in the mood. Those drinks took me out of myself, which was definitely the idea in those days.

—a thirty-five-year-old woman

Alcohol is a very powerful thing. It makes me feel strong. It helps me forget. It gives me added confidence. I could get by without it, but if I’m in a stressful situation, a couple of drinks are a nice thing to have on my side.

—a fifty-four-year-old man

The study revealed that alcohol had a very powerful effect, with the ability to alter lives and change circumstances. The structure and imagery of the stories suggested something that could make you “feel miserable” and that you were “going to die,” change your body almost instantly, cause you to “collapse right on the spot,” take you “out of” yourself, and was “a nice thing to have on your side.” Alcohol is more than fuel; it is something very powerful, instantaneous, and extreme.

The American Culture Code for alcohol is
GUN
.

This was a shocking and intense discovery. The American Code is in such sharp contrast to the European attitude toward alcohol. Yet perhaps it should not surprise us, given that there has always been a strong connection between alcohol and guns in this culture. Think of the Old West saloon and the recurring image of people getting drunk and getting into gunfights, or the sheriff taking a stiff drink of whiskey before facing down the villain in a duel. Think of the gangster subculture that emerged during Prohibition. Our word for a quick drink of hard liquor is “shot.” No other culture uses this terminology. There’s even a malt liquor on the market called Colt .45.

Hip-hop music is known for its intense images of violence and regular references to guns and murder. In 1999, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services performed a study of the thousand most popular songs of 1996 and 1997 and discovered that 47 percent of the rap songs in this group contained references to alcohol.

This Code explains the aura of danger, so puzzling to Europeans, surrounding alcohol in American culture. When we drink to excess, on some level we feel as though we are toying with a loaded gun. When we abhor drinking and driving, or frown at drunkenness, it is because we fear what can happen if the gun goes off.