Eater - A post-election food coma

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Welcome to Eater’s Weekend Special, an inside look at what our staff was buzzing about this week

A little tired from all that doomscrolling? *yawns* Same. Whether you spent the night watching the news or — if you were smart — anti-doom-baking, we must now contend with the results of yet another tense election. Here’s some food-related election news you might have missed.

If Dr. Oz and his crudites got you paying attention to Pennsylvania’s Senate race, it’s worth noting that the victory went to Democratic candidate John Fetterman, who ran a formidable meme campaign. The Fetterman camp celebrated by serving crudites, because of course they did, so let us pour one out for Dr. Oz and his beloved “Wegner’s.” Also in Pennsylvania came a win for the Democrat Josh Shapiro over the far-right Republican Doug Mastriano in the state’s governor race; support for the latter candidate is why some people have dropped their support for Martin’s Potato Rolls and Shake Shack, you might remember.

With labor issues at the forefront of the restaurant industry, the tipped minimum wage became a point of contention on ballots in Washington, D.C., and Portland, Maine. Voters in D.C. overwhelmingly opted in favor of Initiative 82, which will raise the city’s minimum wage for tipped workers from $5.35 an hour to $16.10 by 2027, Eater reports. Though the initiative was backed by some major local restaurant groups as well as the national nonprofit One Fair Wage, some members of the D.C. restaurant industry opposed the initiative, citing its potential to disrupt small businesses and limit the earning potential of tipped employees.

Less successful was Portland, Maine’s Question D ballot measure, which would have raised the city’s minimum wage to $18 by 2025 and eliminated the subminimum tipped wage, HuffPost reports. As Jessica Slattery has written in VinePair, rampant growth of the city’s food and beverage industry and the national media’s resulting praise have led to an increasingly untenable situation for locals. The Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and One Fair Wage both supported the measure as a step toward a more livable Portland, but as in D.C., some restaurant owners, as well as the National Restaurant Association, argued that the measure would hurt Portland’s restaurant industry.

MarketWatch’s Zoe Han also reports: “With Senate results too close to call, food-aid programs for low-income Americans hang in the balance.” Alas, the doomscrolling will have to continue until we have more information.

More reading:

At Civil Eats, Lisa Held explains in detail how the results of this midterm election matter for the farm bill, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization, and national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health.
The exit polls are out, and no surprise: Inflation was the biggest issue for Republican voters, while abortion took top billing for Democrats, according to NBC.
Speaking of inflation, Quartz has some grimace-inducing graphs about price increases on major Thanksgiving ingredients. Ouch. (Might I suggest: Making a totally different menu than usual?)
On a lighter note: Iowa’s Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who was reelected for his eighth term, was born (1933) before the invention of the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe (1939), Time’s senior correspondent Charlotte Alter pointed out on Twitter. Other foods surprisingly younger than the senator include ciabatta (1982) and the cheeseburger (trademarked in 1935).