Tasteatlas, the worst ranking of the best foods – 04/14/2023 – Cozinha Bruta

We in the press have always loved lists and rankings. For a simple reason: this type of content is attractive and addictive. It gives reading, as they used to say – the expression, updated, has become “generates an audience”.

In the analogue yore, the journalist pulled the list out of his own head or consulted a small number of specialists to endorse the choices.

They were, almost always, banal and intuitive things: “Ten tips for not embarrassing yourself at the company party”, “The five best destinations for winter vacations” and so on.

It happens that it is increasingly common to outsource lists and rankings published on news sites. Someone on the internet produces such content, the business booms on social networks, and the professional press chases after it to earn easy clicks.

A certain Tasteatlas has appeared frequently in pages related to gastronomy. It is a site that defines itself as “an encyclopedia of flavors”.

Tasteatlas is notable for its best and worst food rankings. The platform ranks everything from dishes and restaurants to world cuisines.

Despite having relatively few followers (188,000 on Instagram and 73,000 on Twitter), Tasteatlas causes endless fights on the networks and ends up having repercussions in the press.

At the end of last year, for example, they listed the 95 best cuisines, with the top five, in descending order: Italy, Greece, Spain, Japan and India.

Brazilian followers were irritated by the fact that our cuisine (12th place) was below the American one (8th).

At the same time, picanha appeared in second place in a ranking of the best dishes in the world – behind kare raisu, the Japanese curry.

After these two episodes, Tasteatlas became a regular source on Brazilian news sites. Minas cheese appeared on one list, coxinha appeared on another, and the press reported it as if it had some relevance.

Tasteatlas lists have an opacity that is unusual even for the wild west that is the internet. To begin with, the site is anonymous: there is no human name or face behind it.

Food appears on chips that resemble playing cards. The visitor, once logged in, can evaluate them with grades ranging from one to five stars. The result is published without any additional statistical information.

It is clear that countries with more accesses to the Tasteatlas will have higher scores. It is evident that the rankings and lists of this “encyclopedia” have no journalistic value.

Even so, fellow journalists are quick to reproduce the poor quality information – and think they are exempting themselves from responsibility by adding that it is an election (which is a lie) of an international website (which is a deception).

It’s not the picanha, it’s not the coxinha, it’s not the Canasta cheese. It is journalism setting a bad example – while posing as the only possible salvation for the tsunami of disinformation that keeps us submerged.

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