The Falafel McPita

So I was reading Den of Thieves, a kind of mediocre book about insider trading, and it got boring, so I picked up Fast Food Nation. So far it kind of sucks, but I'm only like 2 pages into it. Anyway, it's making claims about how much we spend on fast food, and I'm sort of thinking to myself, I don't eat that much fast food.

And then I thought, what about falafel? Does that count? It's not as though there's some falafel-industrial complex. There are falafel chains, I suppose, but they don't exactly span the nation. It is fast, though, and it is deep-fried.

And then I thought, what the fuck? Why aren't there falafel chains across the nation? Or, why don't the existing fast-food restaurants sell falafel? They have already mastered the technology of frying. True, fast-food places hate to add new ingredients, but we're talking about pita, falafel, and tahini. The tomatoes they already have.

And can anyone doubt that falafel would be a big seller? True, you might have to market it as an Israeli food, and play down its Arab connotations. Better yet, you could market it as "authentic New York style falafel." Fundamentally, though, falafel is in keeping with the American aesthetic: deep-fried, hand-held, condiment-smothered goodness.

[before I posted this, I glanced down at the page I was reading, and saw this line, the last I will read from the book, ever: "Fast food has proven to be a revolutionary force in American life; I am interested in it both as a commodity and as a metaphor."]