April 6, 2008
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There are dual - and contradictory - movements afoot in the culinary world.
Alright, "culinary" might be overstating the case for one of those movements.
Actually, "movement" isn't the best term, but I'm blanking on what's a better one.
Whatever. In the realm of haute cuisine the new twist is for dishes to be "decontructed." This is when the various elements of a dish are served separately on the plate, leaving it to the diner to get a bit of each on his or her fork so that the taste of the original dish shows up on the palate.
IOW, some assembly required.
You know, this is an idea that bears thinking about. A loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter and a jar of jam and you've got a deconstructed PB&J! Can of tuna, jar of mayonniase, a hard-boiled egg, and a bottle of relish and....poof!...deconstructed tuna salad!
Seriously, I thought the idea is for the chef to do the work. What do want to bet the price of the dish isn't lowered to reflect the work the diner is now forced to perform?
On the flip side there's the various fast food places who have gone to the other extreme by taking a "kitchen sink" approach to their food, especially in the area of breakfast. Sausage! Eggs! Cheese! Hash browns! Tater tots! Onions! Peppers! Throw 'em all on a flour tortilla and cram 'em together. They're all going to wind up in the same place, right? Why bother eating them separately, then?
Comments (7)
Magaly must be a "natural" deconstructor. She won't eat a peanut butter sandwich, but give her a spoonful of peanut butter (to be scooped off with her finger) followed by a slice of white bread (no crusts, please) and you've got a happy little girl!
Is there really a deconstructing trend? I can't remember when I've eaten in a haute cuisine place except on the cruise, and they certainly didn't ascribe to it. Interesting. Hopefully it's just TV chefs, trying to make old favorites seem like new, fancy foods?
me<><
I've not personally run across it mind...Chili's, El Fenix, and Railhead Bar-B-Q don't run to such frippery stuff...but it's common on FoodTV with the uptown chefs, plus I've seen it mentioned in restaurant reviews in the Dallas Morning News.
So it's out there.
Another similar contradiction is the simultaneous movement toward "light, fresh, healthy, flavorful" in the restaurant and home cooking worlds, and then BK coming out with a bacon-cheese wrap. (Ironically, I first learned of the bacon-cheese wrap while having dessert in an Applebee's, since there were screens everywhere, it being the middle of the Kansas-UNC blowout.)
I mean, okay, fast food was never supposed to be healthy, but bacon-cheese wrap? Sheesh, why don't they just have phlebotomists working at BK, opening veins and spooning glue in directly?
Mainline that fat, boy!
There are places where you get to cook your own steak. I don't THINK so. I go out to eat to avoid that sort of thing.
I've seen those advertised, and thought the precise same thing.
No, I pay YOU and YOU cook it the way I want it.
If I wanted to cook it myself I'd stay home and either fire up the grill, or do the sear-in-a-pan-then-bake-in-the-oven thing (which works quite well, BTW).
Okay, so I assume they're selling those cook it yourself steaks for $8.99/lb at those places?
Because if not, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU PAYING FOR?????? Ambience, I guess.
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