Food: The Most Inclusive Art Form; But At What Cost?
Nobody likes an armchair critic. Especially an ill-informed, often wilfully ignorant armchair critic.
And in this day and age, they are an ever multiplying, keyboard-tapping breed that simply refuses to put their money where their mouths are. This is an especially fitting metaphor for the content matter of my article today: the criticism of fine dining cuisine by the self-righteous masses who know little to nothing about the art form which they are criticising.
This is not to say that these people are ignorant or that their opinions are unworthy of our attention, but they certainly don’t know enough about food, or being a chef, to spew out the kind of harsh, confident criticism that they do, and mostly online.
If you think about it, fine dining is one of the only art forms which is continuously critiqued by people who actually know little about what goes into it. There aren’t Facebook groups (that I know of) where hundreds of everyday civilians criticise architecture of their city. I don’t know many people without prior knowledge who feel entitled to verbally rip apart Picasso’s life work. And yet, you do have thousands of people with little to no real knowledge about the training, work and dedication which goes into producing food of Michelin quality, loudly telling anyone who will listen that it’s all ‘silly little blobs on a big plate’ and a ‘total waste of money’.
People defend critics by justifying their entitlement to ridicule food through spending of their own money on it.
It’s important to state right off the bat what I thought was an extremely obvious fact: no one is forcing you to spend your hard-earned salary on Michelin-quality meals.
Sure, you may get carted off to the odd fancy dinner for a special client dinner, or for the birthday of a cousin that you consider particularly pretentious. But at the end of the day, those few meals that you don’t have any control over are few and far between. At the end of the day- if you want to eat out at your local Italian restaurant and nowhere else, you can. And you’ll probably never have a bad dining experience. You’ll never be disappointed by the portion sizes and the number at the bottom of your bill will never make you quietly gasp in horror.
Before I began my training to become a chef, and before I made it my business to work in restaurant kitchens and learn all I could about the industry, I was to some extent one of the disgruntled masses at the newest ‘hip’ restaurant in town; rolling my eyes at the exorbitant prices and huffing over my two scallops artfully arrayed on the huge, glisteningly white plate in front of me.
One thing I can never recall doing, however, is ignorantly lambasting an art form about which I knew nothing.
And yes, whether you choose to believe it or not, a chef who can produce Michelin-quality food is an artist.
Would you waltz into the Tate Modern and publically and confidently poo-poo one of Rothco’s artworks? If your answer is yes, I’d hope you’re an artist with at least an equal amount of renown and talent.
Now don’t get me wrong- I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to dislike fine dining. But there is a huge difference between stating your opinion as just that- an opinion- and stating it as some kind of irrefutable fact.
When many people dine out at a top class restaurant, I think they forget that they’re never just paying for their plate of food. They’re paying for a certain standard of service. They’re paying for a well-researched wine list with wines that complement the food on offer perfectly. Their money is going towards high-quality ingredients prepared by someone who has probably spent many years learning how to get the very best out of those ingredients.
An exceptional fine dining meal will always favour quality over quantity. And that’s not pretentious- it is the way that this food is supposed to be enjoyed; because it is supposed to be a full sensory experience. Your eyes will appreciate the beautiful plating. You might smell a mix of tantalising aromas. On the first bite, you may pick out one or two flavours. And on the next, different layers of taste and texture should surprise and delight you.
You won’t need a heaped bowl of this dish to satisfy you, because you aren’t there to be stuffed to the brim. You’re there for your palette to be challenged, educated and hopefully delighted.
If all they’re after is a full stomach and punchy flavours, then of course diners shouldn’t be spending their money on fine dining. They should enjoy their local Italian’s tangles of pasta and extra-cheesy pizzas and no one should ever feel entitled to judge them for not lusting after seaweed-foam-studded-oysters. But in the same way, no one should feel entitled to judge people who have made it their life’s mission to turn cooking into an art form. And equally, no one should be judging people who truly enjoy this style of food and consider it worth spending their money on.
Chefs today have to somehow balance the truth of what they are working towards with the constant barrage of online criticism from largely ignorant diners. They have to block out all of this white noise and focus on their goal: to create beautiful food that a large number of people truly appreciate. This can be difficult, though, and I imagine that it will only become more challenging in an ever-expanding world of online sharing of information and opinions.
Do we as members of this industry make it our goal to educate people’s palates, to show them the value in what we’re all working to achieve? Or do we accept that some people will never see the ‘art’ in our art form, and try to ignore the roar of their disapproval?
Julia is contributing to the Foodchain publication.
Foodchain is building a digital food marketplace in which high quality food is accessible and sustainably sourced. This platform uses technology to create a virtual community of chefs and suppliers, helping them overcome food supply challenges in the restaurant industry.
