If We Are What We Eat,
What Does Nouvelle Cuisine Say About Us?
by Dean Christopher
Once I doubted, but now I believe: California really is the seedpod for virtually every major aspect of current and nifty things in this country.
Whatever happens, whatever makes it in California, for better or worse eventually works its way into the American Life Style. Consider these hot cultural indispensables, then judge if I lie: Health/Fitness; Hot Tubs/Jaccuzzis; Sushi/Tofu; Jojoba/Kelp/Mink Oil/Raspberry-Chamomile Shampoos; Roots Shoes; Non-Lawn Ground Covers; Kiwi Fruit/Sprouts Garnish; His/Hers (or His/His, Hers/Hers, His/His/Hers, Hers/Hers/Hers/His/Bob’s, Ours/Fido’s) Matched Robes/Jogging Suits…and even more. If it wasn’t invented or developed or discovered or imported here first, at least it was perfected and successfully marketed here first. And used with a vengeance.
Consider dune buggies. There are dunes in dozens of sandy states. But where is the greatest concentration of dune buggies? In California. There is air virtually everywhere in America. But where are all the hang gliders? Right again. There are mouths from coast to coast, and I believe I can prove that.
But where are the taste buds keenest, most adventurous, most welcoming of new taste shudders? Where are the submaxillary glands pumping to the max? You said it.
Still, just because California leads the way in all these categories and more, don’t think for a moment that I automatically approve. There are certain dopey elitist cultural geysers that I, for one, am eager to cap before they become a real menace to the nation’s heartland.
Take, for example, the kitchen’s answer to high fashion—“Nouvelle Cuisine.” Do angels burp? Can the Muses fart? If so, nouvelle cuisine is just their ticket.
I’ll Have The Squab Brains, Please,
And Easy On The Leek
Picture the latest shriek in hi-dec ambience: a hushed and chi-chi eatery where furnishings and ferns compete with the customers for haut soigné. The requisite mix of bucks-up achievers, nose jobs, confused first-timers from out of town, blinking at all that smog and seated wealth. Music oozes across muted but glittering tables as the worthy bend close to exchange bons mots and complaints abut their help. Headwaiters glide among the tables with the grace of schooners.
And the waiters! There is a widespread notion in my town that for food to be worth the detour, it must be presented to you by pert-buttocked waiters of indeterminate national origin, enthusiastic androgyny, and a sensitivity so profound that they need but close their eyes to feel the Continental Drift.
You may be wondering about the food itself. How very crass of you. Please be informed that in Los Angeles, a nouvelle cuisine meal is much too important to depend on anything as lowly as food. Does Indianapolis base its glory on gasoline? My dear, it’s the event, the Gestalt, the experience that matters!
But since you insist. In a word, the food is fine. Period. It really is. Trust me, you’d love most nouvelle dinners…if they’d only be honest enough to call them hors d’oeuvres. We’re talking dainty portions here, folks. This is the art of taste at the molecular level. Servings so carefully measured that you can actually count the peas, treasure both of your shrimp, appreciate the, um, spacing of the items on your plate. Because what nouvelle cuisine dishes consist of mainly, is space.
I have enjoyed, or at least paid for, nouvelle cuisine that looked more like flower arrangements than food. A platter of petunias might have been more satisfying, and at least would not have attained the same level of presumption. Let me describe one plate, for it was lovely to behold.
A marigold-sized plop of mashed—sorry, puréed—turnip lay odalisque alongside a medallion of presumably womb-fed veal; for balance up at the northwest corner of the overlarge dish (they love to rub it in!) was a dash of zucchini dust. On the medallion, an unexpected flourish: one carefully selected truffle perhaps 20 microns in diameter.
Let me be honest. I truly wished at that moment that my mouth were small enough to do justice to the Master Chef’s creation. But I will also admit to a flush of honest anger: here I am, paying about 30 bucks a plate for this tommyrot, and I just know that the exquisite flavor will pass in a matter of nanoseconds. I am not a stingy man, but I am not a rich one, either; and you may call me a sentimental old fool, but I cling to the archaic notion that you probably shouldn’t be hungry at the end of your dinner.
So if you wish to have the experience, now you will know what to expect in terms of quantity. You will not cry out, “Hey, where’s my food?” That would only show what a churl you are. Remember—all those other people sitting near you just love this shit, and they’re more important than you are. So take your lumps like a grownup.
America tends to (pardon the verb) swallow almost everything California popularizes. Still, I wonder what will happen when this cutesy culinary craze finally trickles down to, say, Papillion, Nebraska, a town where I have joyously eaten some terrific big hot steaks floated down with cold, cold beer.
Imagine the expectant family of strong-spined Cornhuskers. Their faces beam as the waiter approaches. It’s been a long, hard day, and they are hungry for some of that hearty heartland beef. Saliva wells up. Pupils dilate slightly as the waiter nears, his tray brimming with dishes. Now you and I cut away to a Tight Shot of the tray. Here are plates tickled by sleek scraps of steaklike substance, lovingly prepared in their individual thimbles by Monsieur François de Lyon (formerly Frankie of Akron). These meat slivers are artfully framed by nubbies of cauliflower and shreds of Swiss chard. A separate tureenlet features a nimble and probably very perishable sauce. There is no hint of A-1 Sauce or ketchup. The waiter reaches the table. He knows these people don’t buy $400 silk ties, but he’s paid to take his chances.
I leave the gentle reader to imagine the awful outcome. In any case, all this writing has made me hungry. Guess I’ll motor on over to Paco and Seiji’s—the Teriyaki Taco’s on special tonight. I may be a Californian, but I’m no fool when it comes to grub.