So I put the little snippet quoted above in my okCupid profile:

White people! White people have all kinds of ridiculous gadgets and toys in their kitchen. They’ve got 16 different knives, an eggbeater, a slicer, a dicer, a cheese grater, and all kinds of other wacky shit. My dad has one (1) big ol’ cleaver, and chopsticks.

What can white people make in their kitchens that my dad can’t? Grits?

And here is an okCupid message exchange I had shortly afterwards:

dana: id take that white people shit off
otherwise im repoting you, you racist asshole
jin: word? why’s that
dana: bc its racism
jin: you think it’s racist to notice that white people, on the whole, tend to have a somewhat different collection of gadgets in their kitchen than chinese people?
dana: yes
its differentiating us
and its ignorant
remove it or i report you
cuz its not cute
jin: lol
go ahead
noticing that some people are different is hardly controversial
dana: dont talk in your rhetoric
consider yourself reported for racism honey
jin: cool!
the idea that all people are the same is pretty naive
but go ahead and imagine that you, as a white person, have any idea what non-white people think in regards to race
i’ll have you know that i can’t possibly be racist, since i have white friends
(you can even see them in some of my photos)
dana: i didnt look at them youre nasty
goodbye
blocked

But we’re not talking about Master Chefs – we’re talking about Joe Q. Average.

Anyways, your point about choices is backed up by scientific study (one which I don’t have a link for). Research finds that, at one company, when presented with 4 or 5 options for their 401k, a good number of their employees participated in the company’s 401k program. But when presented with nearly 50 options, significantly fewer employees participated.

When you buy toothpaste, do you carefully consider the merits of all 319 toothpastes offered to you? Or do you just kind of grab a tube and hope for the best?

There’s also something here about the fetishization of ascetism in a consumerist society, but I definitely haven’t put enough thought into that to even begin talking about it competently.

It’s very like me to take a philosophical discussion on cultural differences and start talking about metal, but I do think there’s an analogy here: my favorite metal blog just did two pieces on drum triggering in metal, and the point is basically that there is a time and a place. Yes, triggering can compensate for certain things, but it’s just one technique of compensation.

Personally, if I don’t know how to do something, giving me tons of options on how to do it is likely to overwhelm me. In fact, I can certainly imagine that subconsciously, the sheer number of things I’d need to understand in order to be a decent cook has kept me away from even trying. Perhaps had I grown up in a house where the kitchen boasted a single freaking knife, I’d've been more confident and experimented with cooking.

Your point is well taken, though: I just used four paragraphs in this comment when I could have thought a little bit harder and said everything in one.

Wouldn’t it be just as easy to say that Americans focus too much on the chef and his tools, while Chinese are more inclined to look at the chef, his life, and his overall ability?

It was my understanding that that’s precisely what I was saying! And you’re right, not enough data. But that’s never stopped me before and I don’t expect to let it now.

As far as your comment about shortcuts, the efficiency of the one-cleaver-fits-all style of cooking seems to me to conform more to my definition of a shortcut. Now I see where you’re coming from, though, and I do agree—but it’s interesting to me that at first I’d have thought that the vast number of kitchen utensils in the average American kitchen wasn’t out of laziness, but out of vanity.

I guess I was just being lazy in my analysis.

This seems to be the same – Americans looking for a shortcut to nicely sliced food, rather than actually learning how to use a knife over time and cutting it.

It’s kind of an economic democracy – if you don’t have the skills, just buy this device and you’ll be as good as the masters! (Boy, there’s a lot to unpack in that idea)

Anyways, I think your interpretation of the context around a great chef is limited. Wouldn’t it be just as easy to say that Americans focus too much on the chef and his tools, while Chinese are more inclined to look at the chef, his life, and his overall ability? NOT ENOUGH DATA, CONOR!!

Finally, I hope to always and forever be referred to as a terminal sociologist and recovering Chinese-American.

@T-rex: Most esoteric comment award. Are you talking about Sean and me? Also, is farting or pooping better in this scenario you present?

American consumer driven economy has pushed for the invention of 10000 slightly different utensils, each intended to maximize the efficiency of a very specific action, and each carrying the promise that if you, yes, you, the average Joe, buys just this one more thing you too would become a great chef. Such are, however, the lies of infomercials. For utensils alone do not make for a great chef and a great chef is not defined as a man who owns very many utensils. For to define it as such, would be to forsake content and judge only upon form. There are certain skills mastered by a chef (American, Chinese, or whatever the nationality) that simply – and this might come as a shock to an American – cannot be bought. Taste, creativity and sense of composition among them. These skills are partially learned abilities and partially raw talent.

Lastly, I would just like to observe that even though each different utensil is in fact design to maximize the efficiency of an action, the final product might be less efficient than using “one (1) big fuckoff cleaver, and chopsticks”. And that, I believe, is because in cooking as in life, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

…

I thought it was funny – you say “choice and maximization of individual freedom” and I say “consumer driven economy and materialism”. You say “freedom” and I say “compelled”.