Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

chocolate passion fruit bread pudding!

I'll have the chocolate bread pudding, please.

bacon and brussels!

i can has choco-coconut bread pudding?

@thatgrrrl - I won't stand for you dissing TK!!!!

But seriously, this is targeted for people who wouldn't be making fried chicken otherwise. The recipe for the from-scratch version is in Ad Hoc at Home and is the free sample recipe on amazon's page for the book.

The recipe is freely out there for those who want to make it, so it's not like this is the only way to have the end result. To me, it implies that it's a time-saver, not that it's so difficult you can't do it without help . If a product encourages people to cook something they normally wouldn't, that's a wondering thing.

This is an interesting article, albeit poorly executed. I have some responses to those who have commented before me and then I'll share my own thoughts.

@gingercookiewithlime - you're right that political ideology has nothing to do with whether or not you'll LIKE a certain food, but it does play a role in whether you'll ever have the opportunity or be willing to TRY that food. I'll elaborate on this below.

@beth1 - I wouldn't say this is stereotyping per se--it's just that on average, this is what you'd find. I would never say that ALL conservatives like x and ALL liberals like y, it's just that one may be more likely to eat a certain thing than another. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

@Ozymandiasxp - there would definitely be a strong geographic component, but that wouldn't tell you anything about conservative vs. liberal food choice because there's a similar geographic clustering of liberals and conservatives. Since much of the midwest and south are conservative majorities, we wouldn't know whether it's region or politics, although I'll argue below that we can tease these apart.

@steelpride - yeah, this obviously isn't any kind of methodologically rigorous study, but it does confirm what a lot of previous research has found: conservatives, compared to liberals, tend to be less open to new experiences and prefer traditional to novelty.

Here are my own thoughts on the subject, based on my knowledge of the relevant research. Based on Jost's work, we know that conservatives and liberals each tend to have particular traits and personality characteristics. Much of it boils down to how open you are to new experiences. Conservatives are more likely to be fixed in their opinions/preferences, while liberals are more likely to accept new ideas and seek out new experiences. I don't want to venture into politics, but if you look at things like gay marriage and healthcare, you can see we could apply these traits to real world issues.

There are a few ways in which this could affect our food preferences. Political ideology is frequently passed down from parents to kids, so a conservative is likely to have conservative parents and liberals have liberal parents. This would, again, on average, result in vastly different early food experiences, such that young conservatives would be more likely to eat the "traditional" foods their parents like and young liberals be more exposed to the openness of their parents' food. Early exposure to diverse foods opens one up to trying new foods later in life, while sticking to a traditional range of foods lessens (but certainly doesn't prevent) the likelihood of trying new things. This also carries into adulthood with similar patterns.

The influence of geography is an interesting argument, but the above referenced research by Jost is based on a meta analysis of people in 12 countries, so these patterns seem fairly universal. Of course there will be conservatives who would absolutely love to try exotic foods but can't because they live in a rural area where these things aren't available, just as there are liberals living in Manhattan who refuse to eat anything other than burgers and hot dogs.

My main point is that this finding isn't an anomaly, and I'm just trying to provide one possible explanation. I'm certainly not going to say that this is definitely the case, but there is empirical work suggesting that it is. Think of it this way: if the people on Hunch had just said "Openness to new experiences predicts trying new foods and preference for tradition predicts trying traditional foods," would that be an easier sell? These are highly linked to political values, so there is truth in it, but it's not political ideology itself that's driving the effect, it's an underlying trait that (likely) influences both food preferences and politics.