Fine Dining

The discussion started while we were at Middlethorpe Hall and rhubarb appeared on the dessert menu one evening. There were two in our group who just had to have the rhubarb. They were truly excited by the prospect.

This was the same night that Mark looked at the fine dining menu and decided he'd rather have bangers and mash. (We discovered that the chef prepares bangers and mash for Prince Andrew whenever he's in town so Mark felt as though he got the royal treatment.)

But back to the rhubarb. It was quite elegant, although it seemed that there were things on the plate that were difficult to identify. And that's when Linda (who is not known to mince her words) said, "Well, I only wanted a bowl of rhubarb with some custard." And Mike seemed to agree with her.

You're just not going to get a bowl of rhubarb with some custard in a fine dining establishment. You will get a piece of sponge cake sprinkled with a bit of diced rhubarb and some other dainties that are made with rhubarb but will keep you guessing as to their true identity.

Don't get me wrong. I consider myself something of a "foodie" and I enjoy fine dining. But every now and again, I'll read the menu and think "that was sounding pretty good until I got to the quail egg." But I also enjoy comfort food. (Well, who doesn't?)

I think many chefs are more interested in being seen as creative than they are in producing a top quality meal. I get it. It's a lot of pressure. I think it may have become so prevalent in Britain because British food has been labeled as stodgy, unimaginative, and bland. (Think fish and chips, bangers and mash, steak and ale pie.- Traditional British comfort food. Nothing wrong with it at all. - Just a different taste from Italian, Thai, or Indian.) And let's face it, sometimes you prefer comfort food to fine dining. But quite often the comfort food is "imaginatively" converted into a fine dining dish. Okay, so maybe not fish and chips, but let's look at roast chicken.

The fine dining version of roast chicken has the chicken cut into pieces, served with an unusual grilled vegetable (say endive), a mousse of some kind (say sweet potato or pea), and some type of exotic mushroom.

The pub Sunday lunch version leaves the breast whole or cuts it into slices. It's served with mashed or roasted potatoes, carrots, and cabbage or broccoli or peas. There will be a Yorkshire pudding, a stuffing ball or two and the whole lot of it will be smothered in gravy.

Nothing wrong with either one of these!

When we visited New York we went to an "Indian-inspired" restaurant. I wanted a familiar dish but there were none. Because it was "inspired". (Inspired may be code for "fine dining". -  Which might mean that we only want to serve food in unexpected (imaginative and creative) combinations. Sorry, I wasn't impressed.

I'm speaking only for myself. I'm old enough to know what I like and what I don't like. I do not feel any pressure to eat anything I know I don't like. I reject some foods because I don't like the sound of it - the idea of it - or the texture I imagine it will have. I barely tolerate chicken eggs. Do not try to impress me with a quail egg or a duck egg. Also, I don't want to eat anything with a head on it. That includes shrimp (prawns) and fish.

I also consider myself a reasonably good cook. But it's dependent on my ability to read and follow a recipe. Sometimes I might embellish the recipe and other times I'll follow it to the letter. (I routinely double the amount of garlic in any recipe. I NEVER increase the amount of green curry paste.) Sometimes I watch "Chopped" on the food network and I am sure that if presented with a box of mystery ingredients, I could not produce a palatable dish in 30 minutes. Especially when some of the ingredients are not available in the real world - like "ranch dressing soda".

And with that, I'll just stop