The convenience and culinary appeal of fast food is simple to grasp despite the exploitative, unhealthy nature of these franchises. Although many people seem to know such downsides, most Americans enjoy a quick meal at their favorite chains from time to time. This baseline understanding of fast food, however, cannot explain the unusual attachment many have to regional brands, attachments that often involve heated debates on their products: think In-N-Out vs Whataburger. Why might we jump to fast food consumption as a means of explaining our regional pride and identity, even when we know the dangers and consequences of praising their business practices and health impacts?
Cultural identity is reliant upon unique markers of one’s experience within a particular locale, including factors like urbanity or rurality, climate, population demographics, accents, recreational activities, and more. As such, the culinary options and traditions within an area we inhabit influence what we eat and, in turn, how we identify with wherever we call “home.” In the world of fast-food, the coast-to-coast presence of restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King signals little about regional identity in America. Similarly, “Americanized” takes on other national cuisines like Taco Bell or Panda Express carry a reputation as being inauthentic or uprooted, regardless of their quality of experience; even brands with names referencing their origins like Kentucky Fried Chicken or Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen are now present across the globe. Despite these instances, other brands retain symbolic function in representing their locale, even as they expand beyond state and national boundaries.
As someone from eastern Massachusetts who identifies as a New Englander, it is easy to think of instances of this phenomenon. The proliferation of Dunkin’ franchises is almost comical, a constant feature of jokes and references surrounding the region. Dunkin’ was started in Quincy, MA; my hometown used to contain two within a three minute drive, and I have more recently found a Dunkin’ hat randomly resting in my basement. Getting one’s coffee from Dunkin’ instead of Starbucks is seen as an opportunity to forgo infringements of West Coast outsiders, even though both companies are among the largest coffee chains in the world. Friendly’s, D’Angelo’s Grilled Sandwiches, the Ninety Nine and Papa Gino’s also come to mind, with the latter branding themselves as “The Official Pizza of New Englanders.” When I reminisce about my childhood, I remember Monster Mash ice cream sundaes at Friendly’s with my family, donuts from Dunkin’ after soccer matches and fried shrimp meals at the Ninety Nine with my grandparents, where kids eat free if the Boston Red Sox win. In this sense, the association is simple: A region I know and love is marked by the presence of chains that also originated in my vicinity. If experience of these markers helps form my regional identity, then using them to explain the distinctness of an area where I am from is an easy rhetorical move. There could be no cultural memory without the restaurant; the spread of these chains across particular regions thereby enables a specifically localized yet collectively shared sense of self, allowing people to find joy in shared regional experiences.
I recently spent the first half of my spring break at an ultimate frisbee tournament in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a hyper-consumerist area dotted with mini golf spots, surf shops, Christian billboards and, most importantly, food. The main strip is filled to the brim with restaurants, offering many inexpensive chains that are absent in the Northeast. As I made my rounds at Zaxbys, Cookout and Bojangles, the intersection of regionalist pride and fast food/casual dining began to congeal in my mind, increasingly obvious to someone who is out of place in the American South. Other examples of this density include Culver’s in the Midwest, Del Taco on the West Coast and Wawa in the Mid-Atlantic. When traveling to new places, regional chains become a gateway to understanding a particular locale’s offerings. For instance, I was told that I had to visit Swenson’s when traveling to Ohio, a restaurant which now ranks among my favorite chains and serves as a pleasant reminder of visits to my girlfriend’s hometown. Similarly, the aforementioned stores in Myrtle Beach are evocative of time spent vacationing with teammates and friends. My consumption is socialized in the form of meals taken with others, distinct from solitary purchases. In the case of both travel and my origins, the picture I paint of a region seems reliant upon the available stores and products they serve, items which may also reflect those places’ own cultural heritage.
Despite these associations, fast food cannot obviously paint a full picture of one’s locale. As such, its use as a convenient reference for identity is incomplete and problematic. It must be acknowledged that one’s pride therefore becomes entangled with the nature of consumption, a particularly exploitative affair in an industry reliant on tipped or low-wage labor and the environmentally damagingmass production of food. Discarding the restaurant and choosing to link my local experience to the company of others seems reasonable, yet it involves the loss of the most succinct signifier of identity from that moment, a damning implication that our sense of self is built upon market forces. It is simply easier to explain regional pride by making the occasional reference to these symbolic institutions, inadvertently allowing our personal culpability to go by the wayside. This association allows for companies to remain alluring to consumers, something essential to identity formation. Even if the oft-repeated slogan of there being “no ethical consumption under capitalism” seems true, it encourages placidity with our damaging habits. Instead, one’s sense of regional pride should also prioritize supporting the people and places of our locality which enabled us to grow through their support. Although spending in certain forms is still necessary for opening avenues of experience, making an effort to better understand our identity and others’ must go beyond the limits of consumption, instead centering interactions which occur outside of monetary transactions.