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May 28, 2006
Conspicuous Combustion and the Uber-Grill
The weekend N.Y. Times has an awe-inpriringly nutty piece on the current (mostly male) fascination with spending oodles of money on super-grills. Call it conspicuous combustion, but the article contains this great quote:As Memorial Day marks the official beginning of grilling season, many men will find themselves almost genetically drawn to throwing hunks of raw meat onto a fire and poking them with tongs. It's a pull that some will spend almost any amount of money to satisfy, said Pantelis A. Georgiadis, the owner of Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, the grill manufacturer based in Michigan. "There is a market segment we call the 'man cook with fire' types," he said.Two years ago when I last bought a grill, I ended up with a teensy Weber "Q" grill -- which seemed like the practical thing to do. While buying the Q, I asked the salesperson at Home Depot about all these other uber-grills around it, huge multi-burner things that looked like you could cook a passing velociraptor. He said that it was mostly a male fascination with BTUs -- BTU envy -- and people wanted the most BTUs they could buy, even if they'd never actually get that opportunity to do dinosaur for dinner.
[Update] Following on the above note of the continuing super-sizing of everything, the Boston Globe this weekend has an article about how three (children) is the new two:
"For some people in Wellesley [MA]," says [pediatrician Jim] Goldston, "having four kids has become the new status symbol, like having a luxury SUV. It says you can afford it; you can have a nanny to help you out."
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Zoli -- You and me both, although see my update to this post.
I wonder which pre-occupation really represents a greater generation of male BTU's in a one-to-one standoff? Both devices are really Dino-Juice Burners if you think about it. As with most other male-ego related activities, they also contribute in some measure to global warning. Interesting, that modern man should still today put so much self-defining value in such heat generating activities. It sounds like there could be a subliminal connection to other genetically programmed male-oriented activities. Maybe some aspiring Geno-Psychologist could do their doctoral thesis on the topic?
Actually, eating your dino raw would logically be a greater measure of machismo.
Cheers!
KC - a native of Kalamazoo now living in Lower Saxony.
Hmmm. I'd be curious to see an informed percentage estimate of how much these bigass grills actually contribute to global warming.
Against the backdrop of developing world industrialization, not to mention rich world transportation, I'd guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.000000000001%... on another ironic note, one could argue that Putin / Chavez / Ahmadinejad are doing more to combat global warming than Al Gore and Kyoto combined, considering how $3 a gallon gas is finally reining in the Ford Behemoth crowd. But only by a little bit. Maybe at $4 we'll stop kvetching and start paying real attention.
Regarding having children as a status symbol. I sure hope note....children are a gift.
America needs more children. We need to reverse the workers to retired ratio
If this will replace the trend to buy SUV-s, I'm all for it :-)