My latest article in the Montreal got a different name than the one I’d originally pitched. Titled “Why Aren’t Quebec restaurants Using Free Food as a Vaccination Incentive?” instead of “Taco for a Shot.”
The straightforward question as a title certainly gets the point across, but it certainly doesn’t make as many people want to click on the article. I want to hear much more about tacos than about how restaurants maybe aren’t doing enough, which is also a bit misleading since the title might make people who only read the headline think that the onus is on restaurants to do more. Why aren’t they giving away free food?
Turns out there are a number of reasons, which are explained in the article. But the onus isn’t on them.
What I do get to write about (as a thin veil over a complex issue) are coconut custard cream buns at an aromatic bubble tea and desserts chain, my favourite food truck that’s now fully vegan and sells its own line of hot sauces and spreads; and everyone’s favourite Montreal smoked meat. I get to talk about mayhem (over food and over politics, separately and together, which sets my little foodie heart aflutter to know that people can get as riled up as I can over food), inflation (re: smoked meat) and which incentives actually work (food, lotteries, vaccine passports).
Overall, it was a fun and time-consuming piece to write, so I hope you’ll give it a read, and understand that what each person is quoted as saying in the article is about half of what they said to me. Their responses were nuanced and worried and proud and passionate and concerned and professional, and I hope some of that came across in the limited word count. I hope also that the carefully worded language of the Ministry of Health came across. I’m skeptical that they have zero idea of how successful the vaccine lottery was. Would they really launch such an expensive program with no plan to measure the results? A shot in the dark worth over a million dollars of taxpayer money?
I’d love some feedback. What did you like? Would you have liked to hear more from why Molson-Coors won’t be restarting the “I Am Canadian” commercials and giving out free beer to the vaccinated? Yes, I would have, too.
I didn’t talk about neighbourhoods or types of food that had proven most effective in the US. Should I have? How could I unravel so much fear and mistrust in less than 1,000 words? But I digress. The point is, there are delicious noodles and sugary buns and delicious falafel tacos to inhale, and hopefully now you’ll go do some of that. And maybe have a conversation about why restaurants are afraid to alienate customers and why tacos were the food of choice for vaccination incentive freebies in the US.
Food for thought.
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