This Margaret Wente article from the Globe and Mail had me thinking.  In a city full of wonderful and interesting foods, is it time to go back to the basics?  This means boring old meatloaf with tomato sauce, plain mashed potatoes if you’re Anglo, stir-fry beef and gai lan if you’re Chinese or whatever dishes your culture makes that is, well…”boring.”  Have we reached a point in the foodie world that REAL basic should become a thing?

Sure, there are tons of diners in this city, but many, especially those on the “foodie” map, also serve more “elevated” foods.  Many chefs are reinventing old dishes and adding more “modern” or “newer” elements (and have so for years) to bring home-style cuisine to the 21st century.  And sure, that’s a good thing (in fact, I LOVE “fancy” mac and cheese), but can the “original” stuff still be considered something that a “foodie” would go for?  In other words, mac and cheese from scratch, the way one might have made it 50-60 years ago (i.e. not from a box that comes with a package of orange powdered “cheese”)?  I would totally go for that.  I know that restaurants do serve that, too.  However, it’s not really something that a food blog would likely write about.  In fact, most food blogs (other than recipe posts) tend to lean on the more “elevated” side of things.  The foodie world tends to think that plain dishes are rather boring.

So my question to readers is this:  Is it worth writing, in detail (not just Instagram pictures) of “normcore” foods?  Should “normcore” food be a “thing” that chefs and food bloggers should embrace?  Lastly, is it “boring” to talk about the kind of meatloaf or mac and cheese that grandma made in the “old days?”

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