If you have never been to Changsha during the holidays, you may never know that migrant workers who are taking a break are willing to queue for 2-3 hours for a cup of milk tea.

This is probably the charm of Changsha - or in other words, the charm of the food city.

But there are also the same group of people who go to other cities with the mentality of "filling the vacancy in their hearts with food", but regret it time and time again at the dinner table.

On social networks, such cities are called "food deserts." These cities may have good cultural and natural landscapes, but the food they eat there makes people instantly understand why their parents always want to take instant noodles abroad.

So on the second day of the holiday, we sorted out the cities known as "food deserts" on Weibo and took a look at which cities have which food that makes everyone dissatisfied.

Which cities are called "food deserts"?

The cities at the top of the "food desert" list are all large cities with developed economies. This is also easier to understand. Due to the large number of people living and moving in these large cities, the volume of discussions and complaints is relatively high, and they are also higher in the rankings.

Among the top 10 “food deserts”, seven or three are open in northern and southern cities.

In the entire Desert Group, due to its huge leading advantages in Beijing and Hangzhou, an independent label - Desert Brothers has been formed.

How desolate and angry are these two desert brothers? Probably in the 21st century, when everyone has a huge appetite and everyone is clamoring to lose weight, people living in this city are troubled and angry because they cannot grow meat.

(Source: Weibo)

Beijing has roast duck, Hangzhou has Dongpo Pork. What are the Chinese delicacies? Other cities criticized as "food deserts" also have their own famous dishes. But still unfortunately on the list.

What foods can get in the way? From the large-scale complaints, we found the "targeted" group of people in the Internet food industry.

What are the Chinese delicacies that netizens complain about the most? They are traditional snacks from all over the world. These "hidden delicacies" often appear in dilapidated Syrian-style alleys in food guides, often leaving tourists from afar stunned.

The snacks that are complained about usually fall into two categories. One is "how could you do this" substandard snacks, such as hot dry noodles without sesame sauce; the other is local delicacies that are not acceptable to foreign tourists, such as old Beijing's favorite soy milk and fried belly.

At which moment did you realize that this was a “food desert”

By analyzing netizens’ complaints about Beijing and Hangzhou, we can actually summarize everyone’s complex emotions about the “food desert” .

Take Beijing as an example. Everyone’s complaints about Beijing focus on certain foods, such as braised pork, roast duck, and fried noodles. Although in the eyes of Beijing locals, these delicacies are considered local representatives, in the eyes of foreigners with different tastes, these delicacies are not very convincing.

Media person Liu Chun also discussed Beijing snacks from an outsider’s perspective on Weibo. In the Weibo comment area, foods such as fried liver, preserved fruit, and pea yellow have become the targets of criticism.

(Source: Weibo)

Take Hangzhou as an example. People’s criticism of “Hangzhou cuisine” mainly focuses on the lack of understanding of the taste of the food. For example, popular Hangzhou dishes are light, sour and sweet, etc. You can see some common sayings such as "I don't want to lose weight, Hangzhou is too bad" and "How to eat sweet and sour food?" Have they been eaten? " Mouth".

Sure enough, the reasons for being fat in this world are all the same, but there are countless versions of the reasons for being thin. It’s just that being forced to starve to death to lose weight is particularly miserable.

Judging from the comments of netizens, they came all the way to Hangzhou and found that the more popular the place, the harder it is to get delicious food. Everyone has mentioned it many times because of the lineup of the time-honored New White Deer Restaurant and the three-step-one street photography by the lake.

This kind of description full of scenes makes people feel a little uncomfortable.

In the keywords of Beijing and Hangzhou, we also found the "takeaway" scene.

The term "food desert" is not only the evaluation of a city by foreign tourists, but also the heartfelt sadness of people living in this city every day.

Migrant workers who are exhausted by work every day always want to rely on a good meal to restore their blood. But whether it’s the tangled meal selection process or the unpalatable last meal, it’s inevitable that people feel that the food in this city is really not friendly to the people living here.

This also leads to all vacations becoming a reason for them to travel or come home to explore food. The life in the distance is called life, and the life in front of you is just a part-time job.

In the comment area, we also found many local residents criticizing a city. "I have no desire for life", "The takeout I order most is salad", "takeout is an IQ tax"... The disappointment brought by a city is probably the most painful life experience in the most low-key words.

From these words, we can also see everyone’s expectations for food and the contrast that reality brings to them.

When young people are attracted by a beautiful city promotional video, they find that their simplest food desires cannot be satisfied here, and they can only call this city a "food desert". This is Their most helpless cry.

What are the criteria for judging a "food desert"?

In fact, in the process of discussing "food famine", we also discovered a new problem - everyone's definition of food famine is different.

Media scholar Lou Jian is from Hangzhou and now lives in Beijing. According to our choices above, he has been eating in the "desert" for decades. But he raised a question - when people talk about food deserts, are they talking about local food, or food that can be eaten locally?

(Source: Weibo)

Such contradictions are even more obvious in the two major cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

Shanghai ranked fourth in this food desert selection. When everyone praises the city’s food culture, French, Italian, Japanese and Korean cuisines top the list. However, on Shanghai Weibo accounts, local dishes and xiaolongbao have also been criticized by many people.

Why does Beijing, which has so many excellent food offices in Beijing, still rank first as a food desert in the selection?

Another point of conflict when people discuss food deserts is the price of food. In posts discussing Hangzhou food (it’s so delicious), many people mentioned the high-end restaurant Jinsha Tang, which costs 743 yuan per person.

Wang Xuanyi, the author of "State Banquet·Family Banquet", was born in a family in Zhejiang. Hangzhou cuisine is elegant in her impression, and its value lies more in showing the sincerity of the owner.

She wrote in the article, "An eggplant is steamed and stir-fried with various materials and methods such as scallops, crab meat, water chestnuts, etc., and then simmered, stewed, stewed, dipped in gravy, seafood, etc. Placed. When the dish was served, he only saw a plate of eggplants. The host said proudly, "Please have some eggplants." Finally, the guest said, "Ah, what's so delicious about this eggplant?"

However, this sincerity is usually based on a high price. Compared with the current popular tastes, Hangzhou cuisine and local cuisine, which focus on sincerity, seem a bit too arrogant.

But in a city that prides itself on gourmet food, it would be too glamorous to always attract customers with dishes that cost hundreds of yuan per capita. If you really want to please tourists and young people, you still need affordable food that appeals to the masses.

After all, in the eyes of ordinary migrant workers, real food is the truly delicious takeaways they get after working overtime until late at night.