A few weeks ago I tweeted disapprovingly about a restaurant which was machine-cutting rather than hand-slicing its premium Spanish ham. This is a crime against jamon. I thought the world should know. Swiftly someone replied with three entirely predictable words: “First world problems.” Oh god. Here we go. One whinge about a food issue, and it’s time to reduce everything to a blunt moral calculus. Your service was too slow? First world problems. Your coffee was lukewarm? First world problems. Your bread is stale, your milk has soured, your portion size was meagre? First world bloody problems.
Let’s ignore the fact that nobody working in developmental politics or global aid describes impoverished parts of the globe as the “third world” any more, because it’s so damn patronising. Let’s focus instead on the sanctimonious self-regard of those who feel the need to point out that, while I’m fretting over the mis-slicing of pig, there is suffering in the world. I am thinking of ham. They are thinking only of the plight of Syria’s refugees.
Well, here’s the big news. Some of us can hold more than one thought in our heads at the same time. We can be both outraged at the UK government’s treatment of migrants in the Jungle at Calais, and furious that we were over-charged for our steak; we can worry about the availability of clean drinking water in Nigeria and be outraged by wine mark-ups in restaurants. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Because life is complicated. Take Rwanda. The country has made great strides economically but remains one of the world’s poorest. More than 40% of the population lives at or below the poverty line. That said, it has a growing middle class. In the capital Kigali, a number of modest restaurants have opened to serve them. One of these is called the Great Wall of China. I’ve eaten there and I can tell you it’s awful, a place where approximations of Asian ingredients are defiled nightly.
But now I’m confused. Presumably those people who bark about first world problems don’t regard Rwanda as being in the first world. So is the crappy food at the Great Wall of China a first world problem or not? More to the point, are newly middle-class Rwandans allowed to be furious about how bad the food is, or should they suffer in silence, simply because so many of their neighbours have yet to move up the social scale?
For god’s sake, let them be furious. They’ve earned the right. Yes, a little perspective is important, but sweating the smaller stuff is important too. Not long ago, on a trip to Belfast, I became intrigued by the intensity with which people in the city argued over which restaurant was better. They really gave a damn. A local explained it to me. “We just want to be like the rest of Britain,” he said. “Arguing over who makes the best burger is so much better than arguing about politics and trying to kill each other.”
The same applies to those issues dismissed clumsily as first world problems. Being furious about the machine slicing of iberico de bellota is noble. Sure, if this is your biggest worry then life isn’t too bad, but it does still need to be highlighted, because Spanish pigs deserve better. And when you do get ham cut the way you want it, you’ll discover something amazing: you will still have the capacity to be concerned about bigger issues too.
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