An economist gets lunch
by Tyler Cowen · first published 2012
8mentions
4recommended by
6HN commenters
2012–2025first – last mentioned
67% recommend33% neutral
Tyler Cowen discusses everything from slow food to fast food, from agriculture to gourmet culture, from modernist cuisine to how to pick the best street vendor, and shows how to get good, cheap eats just about anywhere.
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…strip-mall-landia where things start appearing incredibly boring and monocultural A famous economist / foodie has written an entire book about how you've got it EXACTLY backwards: http://www.amazon.com/An-Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday/dp/05... The best food, he asserts, is in strip malls. You just have to know a few tricks to find it. Great book. Go read it.
on “What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.” ↗…Irrational - Dan Ariely This Time is Different - Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff Subliminal - Leonard Mlodinow Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb For something more lighthearted, I also enjoyed: An Economist Gets Lunch - Tyler Cowen Inside Jokes - Matthew Hurley & others (mostly skipped the dense parts)
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books? I'm bored” ↗…idea until much later in life how diverse different styles of BBQ are. There's some interesting coverage of BBQ as an exception to the homogenous, fast-food culture in the US in Tyler Cowen's book "An Economist Gets Lunch": http://amzn.to/2nZDa0k
on “Barbecue: America's Most Political Food” ↗I was really blown away to discover just how regional barbecue is - from a book by an economist of all things: http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday-Foodies-... Where I'm from in Oregon, there are a few places, but they're few and far between, and I doubt the quality measures up to areas where there is more knowledge and competition between…
on “How I Built a Barbecue Restaurant in Brooklyn: The Toll of Owning Your Business” ↗Not just alcohol. An interesting observation in An Economist Gets Lunch (one of my favorite books on food) is that Prohibition is responsible for putting many great restaurants of the era out of business (restaurants make money on alcohol). The remaining restaurants adjusted…
on “History, Sugar and Sex: Why Mixed Drinks Were Terrible for 30 Years” ↗It seems he's retitled the book to "An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies by Tyler Cowen (2013) Paperback Paperback" I do like yours better, but suspect that'd be less popular stateside
on “Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?” ↗This immediately reminds me of Tyler Cowen's book "An Economist Gets Lunch". He infers all sort of rules for profiling restaurant quality. In fact, he makes this very observation - high foot traffic areas command higher rents, and it's harder to provide both good quality and…
on ““The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”” ↗…in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon that you could not find at whatever price 20 years ago. This book looks at a lot of the reasons behind the decline and rise of food in the US: http://www.amazon.com/An-Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday/dp/B0...
on “A foodie repents” ↗