Food is vitality, food is exciting, food can be sensual, and intimate experience upon itself. There is so much in a dish that a chef thinks about, the minor details that could lead to a diner's enjoyment, such details a diner probably never even notices. Such details as rough chopping vegetables to create a "homey" dish to induce nostalgia in a diner, or giving a brunois or paysenne cut to add color and consistency to a dish, portion size and placement, everything that arrives in front of the diner has been thought of up to the inclusion or exclusion of a garnishment.
I think about these things being a young striving chef, as I work the grill at a hot spot in my town, I see an order for "well done" on a grassfed beef item.....I wonder, do people get it?
The psychology of eating....what makes somebody take a beautiful piece of meat, and burn it to the ground? Even with the education, sophistication, and compassion our country prizes itself on, why are so many parts of the animal typically going to waste because we won't eat tripe, tongue, ear, or head cheese?
What makes a diner drive past family owned restaurants that have preserved time tested recipes for generations, just to pull into Olive Garden?
And then as I cook the order of overcooked grassfed beef, I begin to think that maybe it's just me being a pompous ass. I grew up most of my life too asking for everything "well done", and asking for "medium well" when I felt adventerous. The idea of steak tartare or a medium pork chop would not even be entertained, but then I began to study the culinary arts and step out of my own comformity. And at times I feel my self becoming what I never wanted to be, an uppity foodie. But what I would like to do is open the diner's eyes to the possibilities of food when it is treated right. But it is hard to undue learned behavior, and the psychology of eating.
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