Is Fast Food really dining?

It sounds like an easy question, but it is not. If you look in Webster's under "dine", all it says is, "To eat dinner". So, in a sense, if a person is driving down the highway talking on the cell phone while using one hand to steer the vehicle and the other hand to push a burger near his mouth, he is dining. The cuisine may not be gourmet, and the accommodations less than comfortable, but, he is, by definition, still dining. Yet, that verb, "to dine" and its many conjugations have such a euphemistic effect on perception as to change the ordinary into the extraordinary.

If a person says, "I ate lunch", most people get visions of a brown bag, baloney and a bag of chips washed down with something out of an aluminum can. If that same person chooses his words more wisely and says, "I dined at lunch", he still just ate, but the listener this time gets visions of finely pressed linens, wine stains and a table surrounded by men in penguin suits with white towels on their arms serving up steaming entrees served from under chrome covers and supplied with enough forks to use one for every bite. Yet, what if lifting those envisioned covers reveals just a brown bag, baloney, a bag of chips with something in a can to wash it down? Now, is he still dining, or is he just eating, but very, very extravagantly? Do you see the complexity of the issue?

Many people talk of gourmet dining, exquisite cuisine, and luxury accommodations, but the truth is that America is a Fast Food Nation. One out of four Americans eat fast food daily, Americans eat out on average four times per week, and Americans aged six to fourteen eat fast food 157 million times a month. People give fast food a bad rap, comment on the ages of the cooks and servers, and never think of sitting down at such an establishment as dining, even though that is a dining room. At feeding times, however, whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, you can watch the long lines form outside any pick-up window at almost any fast food eatery almost anywhere in the United States. The automobile and our mobile, fast-paced society may have altered the meaning of the word "dining" forever.

The "Horn and Hardat Automat" in New York is credited with beginning the transformation back on July 7, 1912. It was the first of what would become 40 such establishments in the New York area by 1939. It was a coin-operated fast-food vendor that offered food served from behind glass windows. Customers made selections, inserted their coins and opened the windows to take their food "cafeteria" style. By 1921, the first hamburger joint opened up, but it was not McDonald's and it was not in New York. It was a White Castle in Topeka, Kansas that served five cent burgers purposely pierced with five holes to accelerate cooking. Even McDonald's did not start out serving hamburgers.

In 1940, Dick and Mac MacDonald opened a barbecue restaurant they called "MacDonald's". They began to notice that their hamburgers were their best sellers, (maybe the barbecue was not so good?), so they changed their focus to burgers only, with a short menu of other quick foods to go with it. They organized their kitchen around the Henry Ford assembly line model and were able to have food in people's hands almost before they ordered it. Later, a milkshake salesman named Ray Krok offered up even more ideas to facilitate the exchange of cash for burgers and, by 1961, he bought out the Macdonald boys. The rest is history sold billions and billions of times.

Fast food has come a long way since the days of the automat and the burger. The last automat closed in 1991, but you can still find a variety of burgers, fries and shakes all over the country. The new trend in fast food is "healthy" fast food featuring more than just meat, bread and potatoes out of a hot oil Jacuzzi. Now, fast food offers vegetables, salads, soups, rice and beverages beyond soda pop. Three of my favorite new entries into the fast food race are Qdoba, Chipotle and Kokoro.

Qdoba and Chipotle offer a very similar product that you can sit down to "dine" on, or take with you on the road. Among other things, they serve up very large burritos made with white rice, black beans, guacamole, lettuce and cheese. The burritos are spiced to taste, made before your eyes, and are outstanding. I recommend sitting down to enjoy one of these or you might just end up with rice, beans and sauce all over your suit. These restaurants even encourage phone-in and fax orders. You can find locations on-line at www.qdoba.com, and www.chipotle.com. You can also get the order forms on line, or place your order right there. Both of these represent a high quality product that is low in fat, high in flavor and served up at new millennium speeds.

Another modern fast food contender is Kokoro. They serve up Japanese rice bowls as well as a variety of other accompaniments. I particularly like that they offer brown rice which is far more tasty and nutritious than plain, white rice. The Super Veggie Bowl is a winner for either lunch or dinner at a reasonable price. Kokoros are located all over town, but my favorite is at 5535 Wadsworth in Arvada, phone 303-934-2200

To answer the question, "Is Fast Food really dining?" it is all up to you. No matter what you choose, where you choose, or how you choose, you still get to choose. Some people may dine over a burger served up on a plate next to fine silver and a glass of Cabernet, and others may just grab a Grilled Herb Poussin and a coke before hitting the road for that next interview. No one can tell you where to dine or what to dine on, but I do however, recommend against doing anything while driving except for driving. Instead, sit down, relax, enjoy the company of friends and turn every dining experience into more than just eating. You may just find the ordinary can easily become extraordinary.