[thechat] Presentation of food

Martin Burns martin at easyweb.co.uk
Fri Jan 31 02:55:00 CST 2003


On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Tara Cleveland wrote:

> Madhu Menon wrote:
> > Look at those portions. I'd finish that in less than 60 seconds. What's the
> > point?
> >
> > What are your thoughts?
>
> I'm sort of the opposite. That's about the right amount of food for me. If I
> got an appetiser and a dessert with that, I'd be totally stuffed.

I think that's right - it depends on the number of different things your
average meal will contain. If it's quite a few, then each one needs to be
fairly small. At the extreme, think of tapas...

> I also find that typical American chain restaurants have portions that are
> completely insane. In fact, I've shared one meal with two other people and
> been satisfied.

Yeah, our local Chinese (which is really good quality) does banquets where
you get several courses, but each course is as big as a normal meal. So
we've learned that for N people, to order a banquet for (N-1). Similarly,
our local curry house serves portions so big, I only rarely see the
bottom, and then only when we follow the rule of "no starter, and only 1
naan bread between everyone. If we finish the 1st one, then order more"

I also think that small portions of wonderful food are normal at the
quality end. If you're producing food of that quality, then you want
people to appreciate the taste, not just shovel themselves full. And let's
face it - a large plate of scallops would cost the *earth*.

Cheers
Martin>

--
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
 become mere sounds, their etymology being
 buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
 beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie




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