Anything chock full of preservatives,most tinned foods,supermarket sliced white bread,fish fingers,burgers,salad cream,dehydrated mashed potato and Kebabs are my candidates.
Mentioned in an earlier post ,distance increases the snob value,food eaten by Italian farmworkers suddenly becomes very chic when its being eaten in a London resteraunt.
[QUOTE=devilsknew]
Oh yea, whatabout beignets and zeppoli?
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Yes. Please! And funnel cake, sho’t’nin bread, pizza fritt’ and Yorkshire pudding while we’re at it.
Someone mentioned the “rags to riches” track of lobster, but no one’s mentioned the “riches to rags” track of lowly Jell-O. Upon a time, only the wealthy had the resources and staff - and, most importantly, refrigeration - to turn a cow’s hoof into a dessert.
And that tidbit is why I’m not really sure what I think of some of the responses here.
Haute cuisine has little to do with the actual ingredients and everything to do with selection, preparation, and presentation. Oscar Meyer takes offal and turns it into sandwich meat that only belongs on white bread with mayonnaise. Good chefs take offal, season it well, add various in-season ingredients, and turn it into a terrine. There’s liver and onions available at most any diner, and then there’s foie gras.
One could mince up a chuck roast, brown it with onions and garlic and olive oil, boil some pasta, prepare a marinara sauce from garden-grown tomatoes and herbs, and call it dinner…or you can dump a box of Hamburger Helper into a pound of ground beef and call it done.
The result of either is low-brow, when you get down to brass tacks, but one is decidedly more “haute” than the other.
[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
…and Kebabs are my candidates.
[/QUOTE]
But kebabs are exotic, Mediterranean fare! Certainly not low-brow!
I just waddled in here to mention Krispy Kreme fried apple pies. Sugar glazed fried dough stuffed with apple pie filling. Used to buy them from vending machines. Definitely low-brow.
[QUOTE=Don’t fight the hypothetical]
He he he.
My state’s offering.
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…and truly, what is the difference between chicken fried bacon and an order of sausage gravy and biscuits, or even a double order of bacon. The differences are negligible.
That’s my point… the irresponsible way that media, dieticians, the medical establishment, government agencies, and culinary affocianadoes handle and hype these things is what most of the people base their schizophrenic views of food on in this day and age. It’s ridiculous, these agencies appeal to food bias on a daily bias in some frenetic ideology and bastardize or raise foods to mythic proportions through base and implemented frisson. It detracts more from an honest and average culinary experience and propagandizes food rather than offer possibilities and a level and healthy approach. It is dishonest and creates a great divide both culturally and intrinsically.
[QUOTE=Balthisar]
But kebabs are exotic, Mediterranean fare! Certainly not low-brow!
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Well I love Donna 's myself but in the U.K. they are a food mostly bought by groups of blokes staggering back from the pub when they’re at the “Your my bess mate,nah honestly” and “I love my missus,shes the bess” stage .(speaking from personal experience 
)
[QUOTE=Balthisar]
But kebabs are exotic, Mediterranean fare! Certainly not low-brow!
[/QUOTE]
They’re also historically “easy to make” foods for people “on the go.” For example, Mongolian raiders would do their kebab thing with whatever meat they could find, lots of spices, and their swords. That’s a historic step away from cooking with a griddle on top of a hot engine block, IMO, so definitely low-brow, but confused with high-brow because of “exoticness” added to its connotations. Just because it’s ethnically diverse doesn’t mean it’s high-brow.
[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
I’m a bit surprised at some of the hostile responses here. Do you understand the difference between lowbrow and highbrow in anything else? Movies? Novels? Music?
Lowbrow foods are designed to hit the basal pleasures hard without much refinement or complexity. They load up on the fat, sugar and MSG to provide that immediate rush but theres no depth behind them. The food isn’t sophisticated and it just clobbers you in the mouth. Furthermore, lowbrow food often attempts to hide the poor quality of it’s ingredients through the use of strong flavours. Ketchup is the ultimate example of a lowbrow food, overwhelmingly sweet, salty and sour. Anything you put ketchup on will end up just tasting of ketchup, it overpowers other flavours.
Highbrow foods are more pure and subtle in their flavours and provide balance and integrity. Theres an effort to bring out the inherent taste of the food and provide balance and harmony on the plate. The goal of high brow food is that you should be able to taste each element of the food clearly yet at the same time maintain a cohesive whole.
This is not to say there’s anything wrong with lowbrow food. Sometimes, all you want is just a nice big plate of greasy french fries dipped in ketchup or some buttery popcorn. At the same time, lots of highbrow food falls well short of it’s intended mark and is stunningly awful. Lowbrow vs Highbrow food is like watching a hollywood blockbuster with lots of tits and explosions vs a cerebreal arthouse film. Nobody would ever confuse the two with each other which is why it’s so puzzling to me why people insist it’s just a matter of pretension when it comes to food.
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This is exactly what I thought. Taking this into account, healthiness is a factor in determining if a food is low brow or high brow. How about how the food is eaten? Cotton candy has to picked at. It doesn’t seem to classy.