Steve Pope wrote:
Some sort of mental elision?
Conceptual misunderstanding?
We, the elderly relative and i, still take at least one meal together
every day at the kitchen table. Sometimes 2 or 3 but less often these
days.
And when we do we don't eat in courses of 1st, 2nd and 3rd. (i have a
menu for a 40 course meal) if i am not serving her one of her favourite
soups in a bowl by its self, with bread if she wishes, then often as
not its meat and 2 veggies or a casserole which i will serve a small
salad with.
Sometimes i serve what i call a "big dinner salad" served with diced
breast of cooked chicken marinated in my vinaigrette, serves for a
complete meal. But i put all sorts of good things in it, olives,
shrimp, artichoke hearts, garbonzoes, croutons & etc. along with all the
more common salad greens and veggies, toss with my own vinaigrette or
buttermilk/blue cheese dressing and serve in garlic rubbed bowls.
I often save the last bit for an hour or so and eat it later
There's a brief, narrow window between the salad being well and overly
marinated in the dressing. But the passage of a few hours is not as
awful as it might seem. I have taken left over salad from the night
before, in its well marinated, almost pickled state and used it to make
very delicious omelettes with the next morning
We both snack a lot, have bites of this and that throughout the day,
there's usually pastry and fruit around, i would probly live on
sandwiches if it weren't for the elderly relative who likes to start the
day with toast, cereal and a boiled egg.
But i just never got into the habit of a soup as part of a meal. As a
meal is one thing, but as an insubstantial and minor part of a more
substantial repast .... i just never serve it that way.
Even when i entertained with some muted formality i preferred serving
hors de ourvres or canapes or even a savoury as a first course in those
few meals i served in courses.
I much preferred the family style way, i like to have all the food on
the table rather than served in separate courses but even then a simple
soup seems to have no more place in a fully cooked meal than any other
slight, ephemeral, really irrelevant simple foodstuff would.
I serve food to supply nutrition, to feed people, at one time i did not
understand that some people dined as something to do, not because they
need nutrition or were hungry.
I have been to those types of places where the restaurant was a theatre,
and the food the star of the show, that was served elaborately and even
if its possible with an elaborate simplicity that often included
insulting portions costing hugh amounts of money.
Somebody's got to pay for the accoutrements, the environment and service
of it as well as the actual food.
In which case a tsp. or 2 of some pastel liquid followed by a bite of
fish and a nibble of barely cooked beef washed down with a sip of wine
and then the pallet cleansed with a delicate ice which can then be
followed by a vibrant explosion of exotically spiced chocolate is
understandable, as theatre, but not as dinner
--
JL
