Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, November 18, 2019

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White

FINNTAN STORER
Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

MAYA GOLDMAN
Editor in Chief
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA
AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

SOLOMON MEDINTZ | COLUMN

Beware the brunch-industrial complex

KAAVYA RAMACHANDHRAN | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT KAAVYAR@UMICH.EDU

T

his school year marks
the dawn of a new
era with the potential
to
redefine
the
future
of
brunch.
Every
current
college
student
who enrolled right
after
graduating
high
school
was
likely
born
after
1996,
meaning
members of Gen Z
—
not
millennials
— dominate college
campuses.
We
now have an opportunity to
evaluate millennial fads and
redefine our own stereotypes.
First
on
the
list:
bougie
brunches.
I know this is controversial;
lots of people like brunch! But
part of that is because we are
so used to looking up to the
millennials among us and
revering the culture they have
created. Even though they
are now gone from campus, I
worry our generation seems to
have caught the brunch fever.
When I voice my anti-brunch
sentiments, my friends tell
me I should retire from the
hot takes industry, that I am
hating on good things and
that I am just no fun.
But I am by no means the
first person to make this claim
— many fun people have made
it before. During the peak of
anti-millennial hatred in the
mid-2010’s,
headlines
like
“Brunch is for Jerks,” “Why
brunch is stupid” and “The
Complete Guide to Hating
Brunch” peppered the news.
However,
vehement
anti-
brunch
sentiments
have
receded from the headlines.
As the first wave of Gen Zers
graduate college and join
the traditional brunch-going
demographic — young, urban
professionals — we need to
reignite
the
anti-brunch
fervor.
The first reason to be wary
of brunch is that it is a made-
up genre of food. The food
we consume at brunch is
either breakfast food (eggs,
potatoes,
pancakes,
etc.)
or lunch food (sandwiches,
salads, grain bowls, etc.).
The brunch food category is
fully fabricated, likely by the

restaurant industry to allow
us to justify spending money
on food at any time of the day.
However,
restaurants
have
more
incentive
than just getting
people
to
eat
more. They make
a killing because
they
can
serve
breakfast
food
on lunch prices.
The
materials
used
to
make
breakfast
food
— eggs, potatoes and flour
— are cheap, yet restaurants
can get away with charging
ludicrous prices for them.
There
is
even
an
advice
column recommending that
struggling restaurants that
need to increase profits start
serving brunch. Unless your
pancakes are infused with
saffron or truffle mushrooms,
there is no reason to be
paying $17 for your mid-

morning meal. And eating
brunch instead of breakfast
and lunch will not decrease
the amount of food you eat
over the course of the day, so
it is not actually a cost saving
mechanism, it just changes
the schedule.
Part of my frustration is
not with brunch but more
with
brunch
culture.
We
should not wait in excessively
long lines to pay exorbitant
prices for foods that can
easily be made inexpensively
at home, and brunch is the
most prolific manifestation
of this phenomenon. We used
to eat brunch in diners. But
brunch has departed from its
humble beginnings into an
increasingly elitist enterprise.
Across the country, diners
have declined, especially in

cities; in New York City, 60
percent of diners have closed
over the last 25 years. Instead
of diners, brunch has become
fancy. It now often serves
as an indicator of higher
socioeconomic
status,
and
the research backs this up.
The
geographic
locations
where the number of brunch
restaurants
are
expanding
positively
correlate
with
that population’s disposable
income
and
free
time,
demonstrating
a
humble
concept has been co-opted by
the wealthy.
Perhaps
brunch’s
only
redeeming quality is that
it
liberates
us
from
the
restrictive confines of what
we should eat and when. As a
concept, brunch allows us to
justify consuming breakfast
food at any time of the day.
Similarly, since brunch can be
consumed any time between
9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., it
allows us to chip away at meal
time constructs that restrict
when it is socially acceptable
to have a big meal.
However, though attractive
on the surface, brunch subtly
reinforces those restrictions.
Instead of creating more meal
classifications,
we
should
get rid of social constructs
like
mealtimes
and
fake
designations about what food
we should eat when. Why can’t
I have quinoa for breakfast,
cereal for dinner and a full
meal at any time of the day?
These social constructs are
not scientifically based and
are connected to legacies of
colonial racism.
What
we
need
is
a
revitalization of the home-
cooked
mid-morning
food
hangout. When we wake up
lazily and want to debrief the
night with friends, instead of
waiting in line for mediocre,
overpriced
breakfast
food
where the lighting is always
a little too bright, we should
slumber over to a comforting
living room and make our
own eggs and waffles.
Except shameless plug for
Frank’s: Everyone should get
their “Famous French Toast.”

Solomon Medintz can be reached

at smedintz@umich.edu.

We need to
reignite the anti-
brunch fervor

SAMANTHA SZUHAJ | COLUMN

T

here is a sense of wonder
that accompanies the
changing of seasons for
me. Having grown
up
in
northern
California,
where
it is eternally 65
degrees and slightly
overcast,
fall
in
Michigan
was
cinematic the first
time I experienced
it, and it still takes
me
aback
when
I
walk
through
campus. Seeing the
bright hues of trees dotting
the sides of the streets and
highways around Ann Arbor
brings me nothing but joy
and warmth. There is an
inherent sense of festivity
that accompanies the season
and an authenticity that the
West Coast landscape of my
upbringing lacks.
The
autumn
of
my
freshman year also brought
the realization that I was
far from home. Despite the
whirlwind of commotion that
constituted the beginning
of my first year, I distinctly
remember the first cold day.
I had come to school with
a single sweater and coat,
blissfully unaware as to how
quickly the relief from the
summer heat quickly became
the frigid nature of fall and
winter.
I
remember
my
awe quickly morphing into
homesickness, a longing for
warmth and a familiar face
in the sea of undergraduate
students.
I know I am not alone in
this feeling — I still find
myself feeling this way.
As my third year in Ann
Arbor
continues
on,
my
perspective
has
slightly
shifted. Fall is still this
magical
time
in
which
nature really is in its prime.
The leaves still carpet the
grass and sidewalks, people

come and go in costumes
and venture to cider mills on
the weekends. But now, fall
is not something
that
makes
me
long
for
home
(except for maybe
the
California
weather), but just
a
reminder
of
how I am living a
new
experience,
independent
of
what I had been
accustomed to for
so long. With the
comings and goings of the
seasons every year, personal
change
has
followed.
Friends, activities, academic
interests,
experiences,
the type of music I like at
the time or a new snack
food obsession — time has
brought these changes, big
and small, over time.

Three years ago, I stood
in the rain, lost on my
way
to
class,
terrified
of how to make my way
as a student here at the
University
of
Michigan,
knowing little about what
I wanted to do and having
few familiar faces. I called
my
mom,
overwhelmed
with this sense of panicked
uncertainty.
I
explained
what was happening, and
after
patiently
listening,
she gave me a single piece of
advice: Find something that
reminds you of home.

Life in its stages brings
in the new, for the good
and
the
bad.
Sometimes
we can predict it, like the
changing of seasons, and
other times we cannot, like
getting caught in the rain on
a windy fall day. It is what
we do with that change and
how we embrace it moving
forward
that
makes
the
largest impact on our lives.
As students, our lives are
constantly
bringing
the
new
into
our
somewhat
established
routines
and
livelihoods. My past self
found this difficult, and at
times I still find it difficult.
But the key to how I have
managed to deal with the
newness, homesickness and
distance is to find familiar
things from home and work
them into my life wherever
I find myself — eating food
that
reminds
me
of
my
family’s cooking, watching
my
hometown
sports
teams play or listening to
music that I connect to my
childhood. Carrying a bit of
the old into the new offers
a sense of security and
something I can fall back on.
After talking to my mom
on that rainy day, I rushed
home and got a big bowl of
vegetable soup, something
I would always eat on rare
rainy days as a kid. It was a
temporary fix, but it offered
a greater lesson as to the
importance of incorporating
the old into the new. So, as
we all embrace fall and the
change
that
comes
with
it, remember to seek out
the old and comfortable as
things seem unfamiliar or
uncertain.
Carry
yourself
through with the familiar,
as I plan to do — starting
with a big bowl of soup.

Samantha Szuhaj can be reached

at szuhajs@umich.edu.

A good day for soup

SAMANTHA
SZUHAJ

Life in its stages
brings in the new,
for the good and
the bad

SOLOMON
MEDINTZ

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor
and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while
op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full
name and University affiliation to
tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

SUBMIT TO SURVIVORS SPEAK

The Opinion section has created a space in The Michigan
Daily for first-person accounts of sexual assault and
its corresponding personal, academic and legal
implications. Submission information can be found at
https://tinyurl.com/survivespeak.

LENA SISKIND | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT LENASISK@UMICH.EDU