The enormous amount of energy, analysis, and investment that goes into such a mundane experience. What I find interesting is the role of the chef – that there is, behind all the artifice, an ideal image, a “real” referent: the ultimate buffalo wing or loaded potato skin. That there is some archetypal “gold standard” established/constructed at all.

Makes me wonder, did Baudrillard write anything about food and simulation / simulacra?