The book also contains a passage to this effect: "Look at the fishermen of Normandy. They drowse whenever they have time to spare and their eyes are bleary. Their children are mostly daughters, and their wives always sullen. Because they eat fish. In contrast, Parisians who eat venison and beef are always vigorous." Observed from our current perspective -- the one obsessed with cholesterol -- considerable portions of the gourmand's classic are questionable, as Brillat-Savarin claims eating meat bestows authority, wealth and health.

In the 1970s and early 80s, our schools sat children down to watch a cartoon, perhaps the only one teachers ever encouraged, that told the story of a child who ate only rice and consequently suffered beriberi and swollen legs. Back then in some schools students who carried lunchboxes with just rice were scolded. Polished barley was touted as remedying harm done by "bad rice." The same was was said of flour. I remember seeing a public service cartoon that asserted the more flour you eat, the healthier you get and the better you study. But the prevailing notion today holds that bread made of flour is liable to cause our children to atopy, which can lead to various degrees of dry skin, and rice grown in our land can prevent it.

Foods that were embraced at one point but hated the next prompt one to think that the arguments about them change according to the times, supply and demand and even administrations. Foods are evaluated and consumed not in the realm of science, but in realm of ideology. Of course, scientific reasons were offered for slandering or praising foods in the past. But the public now knows that the value of any measurement depends on which yardstick you use.

When large-scale neighborhood discount stores began to offer American beef over the weekend, shoppers queued up to buy up to a kilogram each. Sirloin steak cost W100-odd (US$1=W913) less than Jeju-produced quality three-layer pork per 100 g. The shoppers appeared by no means so destitute that they could only afford beef. They were merely making a rational choice, purchasing a product offering a higher degree of satisfaction at a better price.

A few days back, I asked a lady who had enjoyed a steak of U.S. beef if she didn't feel uneasy. "Are you suggesting that all the Americans have come down with mad cow disease and died?" she asked in return. "Even some of those people who are opposed to the market opening must have sent their children to America to study. Did they have their children carry Korean beef when they left?"

Quite a long time has elapsed since Chilean fruit and European pork began to appear on our tables and in our restaurants. But no radical boycott campaigns have been held against them, not like they were against U.S. beef. Is that because their threat to the Korean public is less than that of American beef? Or isn't it because European pork and Chilean fruit lack the stimuli to instigate anti-American sentiment? Like the allegation that we had to import U.S. beef because of pressure from "imperialist America"?

I don't have one iota of affection for American beef, but I learned a clear lesson from the way people were lining up to buy it. It was evidence that the consumer's right of choice was not shaken by the ideological offensive. The opening of markets is unavoidable, and the wider they are opened, the more consumer interests will diverge from those of our industries. It's high time that we made more clear-minded and scientific argument about food, instead of engaging in propaganda warfare. "If you eat U.S. beef, you'll end up with holes in your brains and you'll die of insanity," and that sort of nonsense. We're fed up with ideologically-tainted arguments about food.

This column was contributed by Park Eun-joo, from the Chosun Ilbo's Entertainment Desk.