Everyone loves to enjoy a fancy meal, to sit down at a high class restaurant, and eat high class food, or find a fancy recipe to create at home. In America today vast amounts of cookbooks, cooking reality TV shows, and the vast knowledge of the internet makes finding good food readily available to anyone. Some people believe to find the best gourmet food one would have to put out a pretty penny, but that is not entirely true. Anybody can enjoy good food no matter what their socioeconomic status so long as they go out and find it.

Food is everywhere in America. It advertised at every street corner, sold in many different ways, and presented to the general public in a variety of styles. Whether presented in Gourmet magazine, Iron Chef on TV, or a recipe website on the internet, food can be found anywhere, and by anyone.

It is true that there are some extremely famous and high class restaurants that only the elite can afford, but does that necessarily mean that they have the best food, and that good food cannot be found else where. As the comic writer Jorge Cham indicated in his comic, “Piled High and Deeper,” food taste is equal to food quality times hunger divided by cost. Just because the food is expensive does not mean that it will taste any better than a cheaper restaurant. The most important thing with food can go with the famous saying, “Hunger is the best spice,” no matter what the quality of the meal is, if one isn’t hunger for it, then it won’t taste as good as one who is starving. It is true that if someone wishes to follow the path of a food critic that a lot of time and devotion to food is needed. Though to the main stream public grommet food can be enjoyed by all no matter their socioeconomic status.

The highest class are able to afford the expensive meals at restaurants run by chefs like Gordon Ramsay, made famous by being the head chef in TV’s cooking competition Hell’s Kitchen. Though the draw back to some of these famous establishments is the long waiting list and high class formal dining, making reservations and proper attire a necessity. The food maybe good, but it takes a lot of effort to even be able to attend. Other high class society members choose to hire their own cook to make dinner for them. Since they have to money to be able to pay a chef they don’t have to worry about being able to cook.

Middle class families are the most dynamic class in what they choose to eat. Most middle class families have some sort of cooking experience among its members. They can create their own dinner experiences at home or they can also dine out on occasion. Not every restaurant costs an arm and a leg to go to. Most chain restaurants are good and they do not cost as much as the elite restaurants. Just because Ruth Chris’ Steakhouse is more expensive than Longhorns or Outback does not mean that their steaks will be better. People in the middle class society can even buy their own steaks and make it themselves. If they have the right ingredients they can make their own steaks taste just as good as any restaurant.

Even the low class people can eat well. Fast food restaurants are everywhere across America. McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s are just a few places that dot America, and they are cheap. Many people enjoy a cheeseburger at their favorite fast food restaurant. America has made fast food into a huge industry, and everyone has probably eaten fast food at one time or another. It may not be the best food ever, but the food is still good. Along with the lower and more affordable prices and quick stopping times, fast food restaurants fits better with people’s busy schedules.

Another resource to many people is the cookbook. Back in the past people kept recipes by word of mouth, and parents taught their children how to cook. As time went on people began to write their recipes down and exchange them with others. Finally, collections of recipes were brought together and sold in books. Now today there are so many cookbooks that with some digging anybody can find a recipe for any occasion.

Good food doesn’t have to come from an expensive cookbook with expensive ingredients or be written by a famous author or chef. If someone doesn’t know how to cook, “...with the book closed,” as the book, Bittersweet: Lessons From My Mother’s Kitchen by Matthew McAllester, would say, then there are many recipes that can just be read and repeated with little difficulty. Most cookbooks do not have complicated recipes or ingredients that are difficult to find, unless it is a specialty cookbook, and are simple enough for most people to follow. To make things easier more and more things are becoming pre packaged were the cook only has to add water or milk or a couple of simple ingredients, mix it up, and cook it.

There are cookbooks for every type of socioeconomic class and with a little digging they can be found at a variety of bookstores. Some cookbooks are specialized for their simplicity and little time preparation for the people who are too busy with other things than to cook all day. Other cookbooks are more complicated, for a more specialized cook, but because the price tag associated with the book is higher does not mean that it is better than a cheaper cookbook.

Since the TV was invented cooking shows have been constantly evolving over the years to fit our every changing view of food in America. In the beginning there were shows like the French Chef with Julia Child. These older shows demonstrated how to prepare a great entree of food. Most of the ingredients could be found at a local market and the instructions detailed enough for the common person to recreate the dish for friends and family. Back in these days many women still stayed at home, and could put the time into cooking.

However as time passed, the television became increasingly popular, and was used more for entertainment purposes. Good Eats with Alton Brown tried to be a good transitional show as it contained elements for entertainment, and elements for cooking. As a topic of the episode was introduced, Alton Brown has a story line to go with it, and the show was filmed in a more exciting fashion to keep the audience entertained. For example in the episode Coconut Cake Revival, Mr. Brown shows the audience how to make the perfect coconut cake, while looking for what happened to the famed “cake lady,” at his favorite restaurant.

As the attention span of the U.S. Still decreased people became more interested in seeing food as a medium of competition instead as an educational cooking, shows such as Iron Chef and Hell’s Kitchen started airing. Yet, to those who still want to learn how to cook education cooking is still around. Rachel Ray is one of the most popular names on Food Network as she cooks for a more modern time. Her thirty minute meals are aimed at the busy lifestyle of most Americans that cannot put the time into cooking. Today is has become so simple to make food that all one has to due is to place it in the microwave and heat it up.

The downfall in America is obvious, no matter what the socioeconomic status of an individual here in America most people are well fed. Some too well fed, no other place in the world has problems with obesity instead of starvation. The fast food restaurants are cheap ways to obtain food, and with the technology people have gotten both lazy or too busy to exercise. In the film Super Size Me, it is obvious what fast food is doing to America. The star of the show ate nothing but McDonald’s food for a long period of time, by the end of the movie he had gained an exponential amount of weight.

Lastly, with the addition of the internet any type of socioeconomic person can access any site and use it as a resource for their foodie experiments. Using the internet makes it easy to find individual recipes and more of what one wants. The older TV shows it was whatever the chef decided to do an episode on, and the viewer didn’t get a choice. Now people can go onto popular search engines and find any type of recipe they want. Any type of entree, dessert or appetizer can be found online. This makes any expensive cuisine recipes readily available.

It does not take a lot of money to eat well, and what one eats does not determine their economic status. Any type of status can eat well. Expensive prices does not mean that the food will taste any better than a cheaper restaurant. Just because it comes from an expensive cookbook, or it’s prepared by Gordon Ramsay himself, food is food, and it can be prepared by just about anyone.