Huh? Certainly, without the keys, the car won't start. Ans without the glasses, you won't be able to read the menu. But sadly, without the last two, you may not have a clue what you're ordering.
We've come a long way since the days when veggies meant overcooked carrot and a lump of stodgy potato. Its a great treat to have the breadth of food choices we enjoy nowadays. But the pretentious language that' built up dinning is enough to make me grind my teeth so hard that whatever I choose to eat will soon need to consumed through a straw.
Celebrity chefs need to take a large share of the blame. Who cares if, back in the kitchen ( preferably a closed kitchen, out of eye line and earshot of the dining tables), they call the meaty component of the dish "the protein"?
Thanks to the legions of the professional cooks fleeing the kitchen to bask in the glow of TV studios, we've all heard the jargon. But when suburban cooks start talking about "balancing the protein," something's gone awry. By all the means, chef, ask your apprentice to "check the protein on the grille," if you must: by the time it makes it ti eh table, I want to hear it described as a chop.
If ostentatiously basic terms are annoying, the absurdly florid ones are positively infuriating. When is a sauce not sauce? When it's a "coulis" or a "jus" (pronounced coolie and zoo, naturellement). Or a "drizzle." When is a selection of cold not recognizably that? When it's an "assiette." Even fast food chains aren't above trying co- opt the English language to confer prestige upon themselves: the staff who prepare the food at Subway are officially called "Sandwich Artists." It's time for the return to reality.
Here, then, is our essential recipe and the restaurant survival guide to get you through you next meal.
Molecular gastronomy: All the cooking relies on the change that heat produces in molecules, so "molecular gastronomy" (MG) is technically a redundancy. But that hasn't stopped it being taken up by the chefs and around the world, who use it as an umbrella tern to mean "cooking," but not as you and I would recognize it.
Employing equipment from a science lab, rather than the second drawer down, adherents such as British chef Heston Blumenthal rely on pressure probes, blowtorches and dehydration machines. For the record, Blumenthal says he now dislikes the term:
"Molecular makes it sound complicated. And gastronomy makes it sound elitist."
Sous vide: Beloved of MG enthusiasts, this is long, super- slow cooking in a low temperature water bath. And for a mere $900, a home version of the equipment could be yours. Requisite vacuum packer for the food not included. (Elitist, moi?)
Haute barnyard: Not satire, nor a criticism, but a term coined by New York magazine's Adam platt to describe basic, good quality, seasonal ingredients served up at hugely inflated prices in high -end restaurants.
Deconstructed: Translation: if you didn't know what it is was want to be, you'd never recognize it. A salade Nicoise, say, commonly mixes core ingredients such as tuna, green beans, olives and boiled egg. Ina deconstructed version, the egg might be infused with tuna, the beans might be mere smear of sauce (sorry, drizzle) on the palte, and the olives might be served separately, possibly to neighbouring table.
Mouthfeel: A highly technical and self- important way of describing the way food feels. In your mouth.
EVOO: Short for "extra - virgin olive oil." Believe it or not, this word has actually made it into at least one dictionary. It's also the most pricey version of OO - prompting the new "extra virgin coconut oil" (more cash in the palms).
Compote: You've probably been eating compote since you were a child, you didn't know it. It's fruit stewed in sugar syrup. Yes, just like mother used to make, but at price she'd assume was a misprint.
Wilted: This used to be a bad thing who would want to eat wilted veggies? Now it describes:
a) greens that have been lightly cooked; and
b)diners who have to admitted defeat in the face of the chef's pretensions.
Muddled: Cocktail ingredients, such as fresh lime or mint, which have been bashed about a bit with pestle rather than chopped or blended. See also b) above
Two more pets hates: "Chef's special sauce" (what are all the others - ready mix in a jar?), and "pan- fried." (As oposed to waiting for pavement outside to get hot enough, perhaps?)
The worst part of it all is that this overdone approach is unnecessary something the truly great chef's know.
As acclaimed British restaurateur Alastair Little once put it, "You don't want to read that your swash blossoms were hand- picked underwater by Panamanian virgins. All you need is the primary ingredients, the main method of cooking and perhaps where the food has come from."
His compatriot Fergus Henderson shows how it should be done, at the acclaimed St John Bar and Restaurant in London. Sample entries fro the bar menu: "Gull's Egg & Celery Salts"; "Cheese & Chutney Sandwich"; "Cured Beef, Beetroot & Red Cabbage."
Now, that's appetizing.
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