How Certain Dishes Become the "In" Thing
 

Have you noticed how, all of a sudden, certain dishes start to appear widely in so-called fine dining restaurants - dishes that were relatively rare or mundane. A few years ago it was shitake mushrooms everywhere. Then, they got replaced by portabello. Now its mac and cheese. Since when was mac and cheese a gourmet dish?

It seems to happen with deserts too. A number of years ago it was tiramisu. More recently, panna cotta and bread pudding. Again, how did bread pudding get into the gourmet line?

Do you have others like this? I guess someone starts a trend and then, especially if it's a "celebrity" chef, everyone copies.

"Fine" restaurant dining - not exactly my cup of tea after too many less than overwhelming experiences - seems dictated by a combination of crowd psychology and pop culture, too often subject to the whims and caprices of a relatively small crowd of food writers and restaurant critics who possess broad and existing forums within which to circulate their opinions.

These days, presentation, especially the myriad small dishes approach, seems to have passed actual "pleasure received from consumption" as the justification for high rankings and popularity among the relatively small set of diners who patronize the "restaurants of the month/year/other small segments in time".

Some of the restaurant "Old Guard" continue to occupy their place in public appeal based on consistent execution and delivery of classics, but from "foam" through the moment Bacardi put a fake "Mojito" in a bottle to actually purchasing a burger made with Kobe beef, much of what's out there and popular are little more than whims, caprices and the "smoke and mirrors" ventures of the chefs of the day to ignite a flame which brings a crowd of "nouveau gourmets" to the door and at the end of the meals to cash registers where all the digits have moved an extra space to the left of the decimal point.

As football coaches are often heard to say: "Wait till next year!". Well, next year, the pop food and drink list will have changed and celebrity restaurants will have been joined by new claimants and lost a few pretenders to the ranks of the consistently able.

Last night, on the TV series "Chopped" we were treated to the sort of abject silliness which seems all too pervasive, the creation of starters, entrees and desserts from blatantly inappropriate and almost unmeldable ingredients. I want chefs capable of taking complimentary, locally available ingredients to produce meals from which I can depart feeling not only satisfied, but wanting to come again for the same or similar culinary adventures, and comfortable with the overall "cost/benefit" ratio/equation.

My tastes may change, but my critical perspective doesn't.

Certainly the celebrity chef, then leading to critics and bloggers all contribute to viral spread of copied dishes. Many of Thomas Keller's dishes (including mac n cheese) have been copied.

Another reason is that chefs are taking traditional and forgotten (depending on cuisine) ingredients and re-acquainting people with new interpretations. Pork belly, which traditionally in many of the world's cuisines was peasant food: filling and tasty, has been elevated to haute cuisine and is found in countless mid to upscale restaurant menus.

This sounds like the storyline of the Pixar film Ratatouille?

I think it started with CA pizza and Nobu's fushion sushi / sashimi. Then it moves onto the Kobe beef, mac & cheese, fancy burgers, ramen joints, BBQ...etc. Just easier to market I guess. Not a really bad thing if it gets regular people to try exotic food. Just annoyed when price is hiked way up for no good reason (ala ramen noodles).

actually, ramen has always been a big deal for the japanese. the ramen you get at a restaurant bears little in common with the packages you find at the store.

Average to great ramen in Japan ranges from 700-1200 yen a bowl. If a domestic ramenya can make great ramen, I would not hesitate to pay $12 a bowl. Unfortunately, ramenyas in the SF Bay Area offer bowls ranging from "utter crap" to "somewhat good". At the "somewhat good" places, I don't mind paying $8-10 a bowl.

Average to great ramen in Japan ranges from 700-1100 yen a bowl. If a domestic ramenya can make great ramen, I would not hesitate to pay $11 a bowl. Unfortunately, ramenyas in the SF Bay Area offer bowls ranging from "utter crap" to "somewhat good". At the "somewhat good" places, I don't mind paying $8-10 a bowl.

Exactly!

I think there must be secret societies of influential chefs who meet every year, each bringing with them a recipe for a "fantastic" new dish that uses cheap as chips ingredients but can deliver a huge profit.

They then all go back to their acclaimed restaurants and start pushing ridiculous muck on "foodie" customers who would eat dog food on a doily if they heard it was served at El Bulli.

its not really any different than fashion, or hairstyles, car trends, or why Miley Cyrus is a gazillionaire.

Sheeple.

But I guess when it comes to food though, I'm a little more supportive of the idea.
If its getting people to try new foods or revisit old foods, then cool.

Macaroni and Cheese was a dish from my youth that was fixed in bulk to fill many stomachs as cheaply as possible - I mean, really, some flour, milk, salt, pepper, macaroni and cheese, maybe some crushed saltines - pretty inexpensive stuff. Bread pudding was something you made to get rid of stale but not yet moldy bread, some sugar, milk and eggs -- again pretty basic stuff, cheaply made.

I have a hard time getting excited about this trend. Not to say that it can't be tasty food, but I don't like paying top dollar for 'comfort' food.

I can always get excited about mac and cheese :)

Yes, it *can* be made cheaply. But I think the benefit of these trends is to show people that it doesn't have to be.

I like me some kraft out of the box, but i'm also quite fond of the high falutin stuff too.