Banal Food Frippery

The first time you see a 'new' (to you) garnish or embellishment in a dish, the novelty may engage you but by the umpteenth time it becomes tiresome. Can anyone else recall such instances?

The first one I'll offer is the over use of runny egg yolks as a combination sauce and conjuring trick on top of a dish. I had one instance where it was food you normally pick up (a hamburger) and there was so much too runny yolk that one would have had to eat it with a spoon (I opted to send it back).

Another one was ironically done by a long time friend at a restaurant he owned and we frequented for wine events. They stuck a branch (and yes I chose that term advisedly) of rosemary into just about everything they served. I joking asked for a glass of water and some rooting powder so I could take my 'tree' home for the garden. Right up there with the obligatory green plastic garnish used by sushi chefs or the slice of orange on the plate at Denny's that only completists eat.

Then there are foams, which I think are pretty passé today but were once the show off trick of many chefs. I don't want fricking caviar foam on my food, just bring me the caviar!

There are presentation posturings. The one where everyone is served simultaneously by a waiter holding a plate under a cloche - that is de rigueur in fancy French cooking service has a solid foundation based on not having anyone sitting waiting for their plate while other start eating. But when you combine it with mist or smoke coming out when the lift the cloche, I think we are trespassing into Barnum and Bailey territory.

Ditto for the over use (in some cultures) of gold leaf (which is tasteless and only included as window dressing, to show that you can afford it). Gold leaf is, to the Asian world, raising the old cliché of adding a sprig of parsley to the plate (that almost no one ever eats) to a new height of fatuity (yes, I know that word isn't used much bit it suits here).

On the whole I prefer a chef to concentrate on making the food taste good, leaving appearance secondary (thought it is not an either/or proposition. If they can make it taste good and they then 'go for baroque' in the appearance department, that's fine, but if the appearance is achieved to the detriment of taste that's a big 'no' from me.

Any other examples of food frippery?

Intentionally leaving lumps in mashed potatoes to prove that they're not instant. As Julia Child observed, perhaps they are using instant but put in one real potato to disguise it?

-Paul W.

Good one! That certainly sounds like Julia.

Putting little toques on top of the exposed leg bone of a roasted bird. I've never actually seen this done, but it's a cliche in all of the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, so I assume it must have been in vogue in the 1920s. Ditto with the apple in the mouth of the roasted suckling pig.

-Paul W.

I've not seen it on a bird, except in cartoons, but I've seen it on racks of lamb.

I understood the purpose of the paper toques was for you to hold, thus protecting fingers from fat while you gnawed remaining meat from bones

A crown roast of lamb with and without. I don't think that the French ticklers (yes, when I googled for the term for the lamb adornments and pictures thereof, that's what was included in the catch) add anything to the roast except a bit of fussiness.

Turns out that the usual name for them is 'chop frills' (I guess you could call what came up on my search 'chop thrills'). They are available on Amazon in paper, gold foil, multi colours etc. Who knew?

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=chop+frills&ref=nb_sb_noss_1



and with

[Jenise]

I had to laugh at the plastic grass thing that shows up in to-go sushi. Don't think I've ever had it in a restaurant but nonetheless--WHY? What idiot decided that's the standard and why did anyone else listen to him?

I can defend foams. Texturally it's not a favorite sensation, but as a subtle way of saucing a delicate dish they have merit. The problem is that everyone decided at the exact same moment to use them on everything so what coulda shoulda been a nice, innovative twist here and there became an abuse, an overnight cliche. We shot the messenger! It's a problem that has befallen so many otherwise worthwhile ideas. At the risk of venturing beyond the borders of garniture, can I mention blackened food? Blackened redfish at a Cajun restaurant in Cajun country? Delicious. Blackened everything everywhere all the time? No thank you.

The orange half slice with the obligatory parsley sprig at Denny's made me laugh too. Not at all a customer of that kind of place but in my life I guess I've been to enough of them to recognize the truth in that. It's right up there with the small pile of shredded canned beets in the center of every chef salad served in that same class of venue. You have probably never ordered one in your life, but trust me; it's true.

I'm not sure I have any current or at least new complaints in the garnish department. OH WAIT YES I DO. Squirt bottle sauces. Squirting little lines of sauce north to south and east to west like a grid map of downtown Van does not fancy food make. Particularly with desserts, which I never eat but still I see them. Nothing can make you look like a fake faster than thinking you 'elevated' a slice of cheesecake because you squirted 84 stripes of caramel sauce on the plate. Particularly when that occurs in mom and pop restaurants where the food is otherwise clumsy but serviceable family fare.

A more generalized complaint that is a major source of irritation to me locally is about restaurants that adopt the mantle of 'fusion'. Around here there are a number of little hole in the wall restaurants with menus which include, say, pho, teriyaki skewers, gyozas and fried rice--which they invariably call 'Asian Fusion Cuisine'. NO YOU BLITHERING IDIOTS THAT'S NOT A CUISINE. Nor does serving them all under the same roof fusion, what it is is pan-Asian. Fusion is a marriage of the skills and techniques of one ethnicity with the ingredients common to another. Btw, I avoid all these places.

NO YOU BLITHERING IDIOTS THAT'S NOT A CUISINE. Serving them all under the same roof isn't fusion, what it is is pan-Asian. Fusion is a marriage of the skills and techniques of one ethnicity with the ingredients common to another. Btw, I avoid all these places.

Yeah! Geez, you have to have things like teriyaki gefilte fish to claim the fusion label! And I hate the 'fusion' of adding pineapple to pizza - who first committed that culinary sin? (Oops - looks like it was a Greek immigrant in Toronto!). Try ordering a Hawaiian pizza in Napoli some time - you might end up sleeping with the fishes (or at least the object of much laughter and derision).

And I hate the 'fusion' of adding pineapple to pizza - who first committed that culinary sin? (Oops - looks like it was a Greek immigrant in Toronto!). Try ordering a Hawaiian pizza in Napoli some time - you might end up sleeping with the fishes (or at least the object of much laughter and derision).

I happen to like pineapple on pizza, but I certainly wouldn't order it in Napoli. OTOH, I hate anchovies on pizza. Looks like we'll have to settle this in the parking lot.

I happen to like pineapple on pizza, but I certainly wouldn't order it in Napoli. OTOH, I hate anchovies on pizza. Looks like we'll have to settle this in the parking lot.

Anchovies at 10 paces?

There are lots of things that I don't like about pizzas, many of then are perversions created in America. Who needs to have cheese filled crusts when you have a population with a skewed number of obese heart patients in training. Adding 30% to calories and carbs seems an evil thing to perpetrate on a population with demonstrable lack of self control. But then the tobacco companies paved that road a long tie ago.

[Jenise]

Bill, make that "perpetrated by corporate chain store pizza operations" which has nothing to do with quality or what the rest of us eat. I agree they sound pretty gross, though.

My absolute favorite pizzas are NY-style pizzas with pepperoni or Pizza Margheritas. I love good pizza but hate the carbs, which means I don't eat many any more.

My absolute favorite pizzas are NY-style pizzas with pepperoni or Pizza Margheritas. I love good pizza but hate the carbs, which means I don't eat many any more.

We make pizzas at home using whole wheat flour. I just eat the toppings while SWMBO consumes everything but the pattern on the plate. It is all protein and a bit of mozza.

I frequently use some WW flour in my pizza dough for some extra flavor. And sometimes a bit of rye flour for even more flavor. Most of my bread also has some rye. Some years ago I fell in love with how a bit 'o rye makes any dough more flavorful.

A local pizza place has some different and interesting doughs, one using antique grains such as spelt, Kamut, and emmer.

I can forgive "showy or unnecessary ornament" most of the time. Presumably, the chef is trying to innovate or decorate, and maybe his/her judgement is not the best in these matters, but so it goes. All the foams, twigs, vapors, plastic grass are fine... push them aside. (Nota bene: better plastic grass than shiso... gak.)

But I'm with Jenise on the tic-tac-toe board of Hershey's and Kraft caramel blasted on or under every dessert. Either the sauce is worth eating -- in which case you've just given me a 20-minute task with one tine of a fork scraping it up -- or it's not worth eating and you just glued my food to the plate with burned sugar.

Variant pizzas are moot, really. Napoletanos only have a handful of kinds that are traditional, everything else is Gianni-come-lately. But I can't even work up much of a head of steam over that because a lot of people who make weird pizzas are not Italian themselves and have never had a real pie. Anyway, you can use a person's pizza order as a window into his/her heritage: I work with a lot of Indian people and many of them are totally gaga for pineapple-jalapeno pizza - sweet and hot are often paired in their culture so what could be better than to make American pizza more traditional?

[Jenise]

So what do you all think of the recent fad of piling/stacking/placing all the food on only one side of the plate?

You mean like this?



Right up there with stabbing a twig of rosemary into everything you plate.

Has not happened to me but looks pretty silly. This, too, shall pass.

How far from its New England birthplace has the Greek pizzaria concept spread?

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Bill, yup. First encounter with that was at Hawksworth. I see it all the time now.

I figured it was the first move toward 'D' shaped plates, though the logic escapes me.

[Jenise]

LOL Bill! But it's kind of fun to arrange food differently, to indulge one's sense of flair (if one has one, that is). So I'm as okay with off to one side as I am straight down the middle. It's about challenging norms, and I'm the kind of person who appreciates that. I'll bet it's a great bonus to servers too--much easier to arrange three-plate carries if all the food isn't in the center of the plate.

I'll bet it's a great bonus to servers too--much easier to arrange three-plate carries if all the food isn't in the center of the plate.

And for waiters to keep their thumbs out of the entrée.

II understood the purpose of the paper toques was for you to hold, thus protecting fingers from fat while you gnawed remaining meat from bones

That makes sense. And the same thing would apply to roast poultry legs.

-Paul W.