My Zite (excitingly soon to be rolled into Flipboard) feed threw up an article from the Drum last week that really irked me. It's a poorly written and argued piece, but the general thrust - that Australians generally have got it good, especially compared to other countries, and therefore should complain less about their lot - is fine.
The authort had a go at a (then) year 12 student who wrote a letter to Crikey complaining that the coffee in Canberra sucks:
Yeah, you heard it right, a 17-year-old complaining about the scarcity of some boutique coffee choice and the horror of an unsophisticated food shop. And it was published.
... Now being poor, or down-to-earth, or insufficiently educated on different varieties of Colombian coffee beans is something to be derided. Now we call instant coffee drinkers 'bogans'.
And tell me something else - can a breakfast in a cafe be uncomplicated anymore? Does every dish we eat have to be insufferably pretentious? You can't sit down for breakfast without being confronted with choices like 'Madagascan vanilla quinoa porridge with a side of flambéed quinces'. Can't I just eat some eggs on toast please? You know things are getting bad when you need a working knowledge of French and an advanced diploma in food science before deciding on an inner-city breakfast.He argues that the reason for this change in Australia's cafe culture (from filter coffee and fried eggs to lattes and shakshuka) is that we've become whingers. I think it's much more correct say say that we've become wealthier.
Australia's per capita GDP is ~50% higher today than it was in 2004. That massive increase in wealth has driven a greater willingness to pay for food that requires more hours of more skilled and increasingly expensive labour to produce. It has given an increased willingness to pay for espresso-based coffees that are produced on machines with high upfront costs by skilled baristas who command high wages.
This is a (minor) example of why economic growth is important - it increases living standards. With more income, people can buy breakfast foods that they prefer. This has nothing to do necessarily with snobbery (but of course it can be accompanied by it). This is a great thing - the standard of food available while eating out in Australia is vastly better now than it used to be, and we're better off for it.
Bemoaning an excess of flambee-ing at your local cafe is an easy 21st century way of being a Luddite. Yes, breakfast used to be more simple, and it also used to be more shit. Now, we are wealthier and it is better. And, with the fresh ingredients and improved service we get these days, I'm sure the cafe would happily knock the author up whatever 1980s throwback breakfast he's craving.