Food Feature: Combat duty

Undercover at Disney’s Epcot Center

I got the runs on my last trip through Mexico. Not the Mexico south of the Rio Grande ... this was the Mexico of Epcot, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, in Florida’s Walt Disney World. This Mexico is part of Epcot’s World Showcase, an archipelago of mini-countries strewn around a lagoon. Here, diversity and cultural imperialism are made one. Like Sam the Eagle says in the Muppets 3D show: “It’s a celebration of all the nations of the world! ... but mostly America.”

Every year, I join a commando team of travel writers that descends on Disney World to update our employer’s best-selling guidebook. Some people actually buy the book every year and read it cover to cover. These people love Disney above all else, so to them it’s a giant almanac of Mouse porn. Some hate the book, hate us, hate our mothers, friends and pets. Those people write us profanity-laced letters and leave indignant customer reviews on Amazon.com, which hurt us deeply and personally.

So we are responsible to an audience. Each trip, we visit the modern monolith of Walt Disney World incognito. We eat the food, or at least examine it clinically. We use the bathrooms. We time the buses. We finger the linens in the hotels. We count the people in line. We wheedle information out of unsuspecting Disney employees. We stalk the costumed characters as if it is “Wild Kingdom” instead of the Magic Kingdom.

And of course, we ride the rides. This is where the reader throws the paper away in disgust. “He gets to go on the rides! For his job! That’s not a job! I’ll show you a job, you pansy ... ” Yes, it’s true, I get to go on the rides. And I like the rides. But that’s a very small part of the picture, sadly.

No, the rides are the easy part. For you see, most people who go to Disney World know there are rides; the rides are fun, and they want to get on them. But they want to ride quickly, without waiting too much in line, and without getting hungry, tired, hot, bored or listening to their children scream like hellspawn for the same reasons.

Because of those things, I have to approach Disney World like Disney Inc. does. It would be easy and fatuous to accuse Disney of having a black, evil heart. Nevertheless, in its black, evil heart, Disney knows the truth. Rides, or more broadly, “attractions,” are the bait, the skeleton of a good theme park. Once the attraction has successfully attracted, the real work begins: the support system that keeps patrons happily circulating, recreating and spending. Which is where we come in.

For instance, I spent a 12-hour day in Epcot, from opening to closing. My primary mission was food. I circumnavigated the entire park and examined every single food-serving establishment. Thankfully, I didn’t have to eat at all of them. We have a food critic for that, poor bastard. My job was to evaluate the menus and prices.

Since the menus at Epcot’s World Showcase are so “cosmopolitan,” this involves a lot more work than other parks. Each “nation” has a few basic items, like drinks, fries and the ubiquitous “veggie wrap.” But Disney wants you to have an Authentic International Experience. So, if you don’t want the veggie wrap, you can have schnitzel in Germany, an egg roll in China, and fish ‘n’ chips in Great Britain, all of which may lead to gastric distress in Mexico.

New establishments have to be thoroughly vetted, which sometimes entails eating there. I managed to avoid this at the Millennium Village’s “Gifts of Cuisine,” which presents food from regions around the globe (dining in all of North America is distilled to a barbecue beef sandwich and a turkey bagel). However, I couldn’t resist the booth in Canada that promised “Beaver Tail - From Canada’s Favorite Animal!” The product was a species of funnel cake shaped like a beaver tail, sort of a Canuck answer to the bear claw. Tasty, and oh-so-Canadian!

By the time of my involuntary siesta in Mexico, I was ready to call it a day. But I still had to meet the boss for dinner and debriefing in Morocco, and then we stuck around for the closing ceremonies. Don’t get me wrong: I like theme parks, I like my job. I even like Disney and its black, evil heart. But do us guidebook grunts a favor the next time you avoid a long line, a crappy ride, or some extremely caustic chili as a result of our advice. Remember that someone had to find it all out, and the good ones (like us) endure it all over again every year. To paraphrase the famous scrubbing bubbles, we do the work so you don’t have to. Have pity.






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