French Fries and UberEats

Elle Campbell

Word Count: 1293

I couldn’t tell you the last time I made french fries. I probably couldn’t even tell you half the steps it takes to make a crispy, fresh, handmade potato stick. The premise is pretty simple, I’d assume you just take potatoes, cut them up, and fry them into oblivion. Pretty simple, right? Not that hard. According to the geniuses at the Food Network, I’d be wrong. This “Perfect French Fries” recipe calls for almost three hours of your time, spread out among ten steps. I’d have to fry these fries twice! Seems like a lot of work for a relatively bland, fatty accomplice to the burger.



Though I couldn’t tell you the last time I made fries, I could definitely tell you the last time I ate them. It was about a week ago, driving my friend’s Subaru Forester at 2:00am. We went to the drive-thru at your favorite golden-arched fast food place. It took maybe three minutes from my order to get a hot, red, box of long, salty, fatty fries. These french fries were worth the 3 minutes and $1.89 plus tax. Would they be worth 3+ hours of my time, plus the cost of a pound of potatoes and a liter of oil? Honestly, probably not.

This “Fast Food vs. Slow Food” paradigm is laid out extremely well in Michael Pollan’s “Cooked”. Pollan explains how Americans have let companies cook for them, rather than cooking themselves. Specifically, in the episode “Water”, Pollan explains how skill isn’t really a factor in creating a good meal; time is the missing ingredient. American lives are getting faster by the moment, so cooking is often an activity we outsource. Pollan argues we’ve outsourced too much, and longs for a world where wholesome, home cooked meals are the norm again. He calls these from-scratch meals "Slow Food" to differentiate from the fast food we know and love.

Even Pollan’s critics argue that this made-from-scratch culture is coming back. Emily Matchar argues that this “New Domesticity” culture is getting trendy again. You can clearly see this shift in the upper-class, with the rise of gardening and urban chicken farming. Cookbooks like Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day illustrate the desire for home-cooked meals without the time investment. Again, here the missing ingredient is time. Millennials, as a whole, feel that their time is better valued working on their passion. For many, that passion just isn’t cooking. However, many love home-cooked meals, and are willing to pay extra for that convenience.

Back to the french fries. Say I didn’t want to drive to McDonald’s at 2:00am - how much money would I be willing to spend to stay home?

According to Uber, the magic number is $4.99.

UberEATS is a food delivery platform launched by Uber in 2014. The ride-sharing network uses its drivers to deliver food from “local restaurants and chain favorites” to the average consumer at their home (for a nominal fee, of course).

This platform brings the traditionally slow food mentioned in Pollan’s “Cooked” into a fast food market. An UberEATS customer can get a bowl of Indian curry in 45 minutes with only 2 minutes of “labor” on their phone. Compare this to the Indian women in Pollan's documentary, spending hours on hours of active cooking for their husbands’ lunch. With that saved time, you could clean an entire apartment, read about 200 pages, do a hefty yoga workout, or feed your backyard chickens. This kind of business model is incredibly appealing to 20-somethings and beyond, as one can identify with each side of the RCI triangle.

Identity: Given that you can order food from a number of local restaurants, food from several different cultures is certainly represented in UberEATS. Beyond that, a service like UberEATS can broaden the metaphorical food horizons of the area. Now, just from scrolling through the offerings, anyone can find a hole in the wall Ramen restaurant and have it delivered to your door.

Responsibility: All the branding for UberEATS is in light green. Pictures of fresh, delicious food are plastered over all their ads. Uber a master at marketing their “local eating” model, and inspires a sense of individual responsibility for knowing where your food comes from. A vast majority of the restaurants on the platform are local. With a quick skim of the offerings in Parkland, only 11 of 27 restaurants are chains. If one chooses to order from a local eatery, you can be assured that some of your money will support the local economy. Some of the $15 you spent on a burrito will go towards people that live in your community, and they help your world keep spinning. The question is: how much cash stays in your area?

Convenience: Obviously, the convenience factor is what’s convincing consumers to use UberEATS. You can order food in nearly any condition, given that your phone works and you’re in an area that offers this service. If you’re in a hotel and can’t cook for yourself, order UberEATS. If you’re drunk at a party and want nachos, order UberEATS. If you have a newborn baby and can’t leave your house, plus your kitchen is littered with burp cloths, order UberEATS. Nearly anyone can use this service in one form or another, as long as you have the money for it.

Virtually, the only major downside to UberEATS is the deciding factor in many dilemmas: money. 💸💸💸

According to the UberEATS website, delivery rates vary based on how busy the app is in the area. After some research, I’ve found the median “booking fee” is $4.99 in the Tacoma area. My question is this: Why is convenience worth $4.99?
For example, the last thing I ordered on UberEATS was a $10 burrito.

To make this burrito myself, I would’ve had to buy tortillas, rice, beans, beef, seasoning, avocados, onions, hot sauce, salsa, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, ect. Buying all these things individually probably would’ve cost me $30, based on where I normally get groceries. Granted, all these ingredients bought individually could likely make 5-6 burritos, but it’s not like I want to eat burritos all week. If I’m craving a burrito, I want one burrito. Not five. This doesn’t even take into consideration how much time I would need to marinate my meat, mash avocados, and roll my burrito. On the schedule of a busy student, that’s too much time actively cooking where I could, say, write a journal about UberEATS. That’s how I justified buying the $10 burrito.

In terms of justifying the $4.99 booking fee, that’s a little harder to define. I’d speculate that people my age are as protective as I am over the little money they have. If I complain about guacamole being extra, how in the world can I justify spending ⅓ of my $15 check on just delivery?

Economically, it’s a head scratcher.

Honestly, in a world of instant gratification and lightning-fast internet speeds, it doesn’t surprise me that UberEATS is the largest food delivery service. Bottom line: the $4.99 delivery charge doesn’t matter to you if there’s no groceries in your fridge and you’re hungry from working on a paper. If I was hungry enough, I’d probably pay $10 in delivery fees if I had to. If that money goes to local businesses and gets me a nutritious burrito with fresh(ish) vegetables in it, even better. It’s better than spending that money on french fries or spending the time to make them.