Menu Creation and the Perfect Meal

[Jinmyo]

Again, JAZ, excellent. I think that your examples make the point so well. Thank you for taking the time to do so.

[JAZ]

Jeez, you guys are making me blush...

But it's great to hear that you find this sort of thing helpful. And it's been helpful for me, too, because I was sort of stuck on how to present some of this material, and now I've got some good ideas on how to proceed. So thanks for the feedback.

And if you're still interested in more, I did think of two other points that I forgot to mention.

The first is to keep your menu on the same general level of (for lack of a better word) sophistication. If you start out with foie gras on savory french toast or caviar and creme fraiche on new potatoes, it's probably better to stick with something on that level, rather than following with a country stew. And it's just as true in reverse -- if you start out with a more rustic dish, you con't want to follow it up with a lobster thermidor (if people actually make that anymore). The good news is, it's pretty easy to do minor tweaks to many dishes to move them up and down the sophistication scale.

The second is a way around most everything I've said so far. That's to have a cocktail party. When you have a cocktail party, all food matching rules can be broken, as long as your food is bite sized, has a relatively high fat content, and is flavorful but not too spicy. From a flavor point of view, cocktails are generally palate killers -- alcohol numbs the palate, and cocktails are complex enough on their own that they're hell to match with food. But the good news is that nobody at a cocktail party cares. You're at a party, dressed up, holding a cocktail glass with a cocktail in it, having fun, feeling grown-up and sophisticated. There are wonderful, easy-to- eat, decadent little snacks ready to be snatched up and enjoyed. It never really occurs to anyone to think about whether everything goes together. I love cocktail parties.

And yes, that's all sort of tongue in cheek, but it is true. And another thing it entails is that if you have a really showstopping idea for a starter but you're concerned about how the rest of the menu will follow, serve it in bite sized form (as a sort of amuse bouche), away from the table, with cocktails or an aperitif. Then your guests won't really think of it as part of the meal, so it won't have to meet all those endless criteria.

Thanks again.

Janet

[Jonathan Day]

if you have a really showstopping idea for a starter but you're concerned about how the rest of the menu will follow, serve it in bite sized form (as a sort of amuse bouche), away from the table, with cocktails or an aperitif. Then your guests won't really think of it as part of the meal, so it won't have to meet all those endless criteria.

On this I disagree. I love cocktail parties too, especially where there aren't hundreds of guests and the noise level stays reasonably low. We should start a thread about menus for stand-up dinners or cocktail parties; here the architectural principles are different than for a sit-down dinner.

But over the years I've stopped serving complex "snacks" or "amuses" away from the table. Olives, perhaps, or a few breadsticks or salted nuts. Or tiny wild onions, lampascioni. Or giant caperberries. But no more than one of these things, and in meagre quantity. And more and more, nothing.

First, a complex dish away from the table starts the meal perhaps an hour before people sit down. The appetite and palate are dulled. The initial dishes don't have the freshness and excitement that they would have. Later on, people are tired of eating.

Second, the endless criteria do apply, because taste memories carry over. I remember serving, with drinks before dinner, plates of tiny marinated vegetables. And they were very good, but the guests subsequently left most of the salad I served, hours later, uneaten.

Third, you need to think about dishes clashing with your pre-dinner drink.

Fourth, unless you can do the away-from-the-table amuse well in advance, this adds a layer of complexity and preparation that you may want to avoid, not to mention extra dishes to deal with. And if it's a dish of any ambition, people won't be able to eat it without a plate and fork or spoon.

Finally, at this stage of an evening, I find that people aren't really concentrating on their food -- snacks that are served with the champagne get gobbled down. One more example: I once did a watercress soup that came out beautifully green and flavourful. We served it away from the table, with drinks, in espresso cups. Down it went, without pause or comment. The point here is not to serve dishes in order to elicit comments from guests, but that they were more interested, at that point in the evening, in catching up on news and gossip rather than in tasting the soup that I had fretted over.

It's different when children are around: they cannot manage their hungers as grown-ups can, and need something to eat at their accustomed times.

[JAZ]

On this I disagree. I love cocktail parties too...

But over the years I've stopped serving complex "snacks" or "amuses" away from the table. Olives, perhaps, or a few breadsticks or salted nuts. Or tiny wild onions, lampascioni. Or giant caperberries. But no more than one of these things, and in meagre quantity. And more and more, nothing.

Hmmm, very good points, and I'm rethinking what I posted (which, truth be told, was not very well expressed).

I'll let you know if you've changed my mind, or how much.

Janet

[Cyn-bluefrog]

I wanted to add a comment on Culinary Artistry by Dorenberg and Page. I am not a professional chef, but to me, the book would be extremely invaluable as a chef in order to inspire and entice the reader to the creation of dishes. One of the many wonderful bits of information is a listing of what vegetables are at its highest peak in which season. I had been looking for a listing like that in the gardening section, the cooking section, etc. For a person who is 1) not a gardener, and 2) unable to go to the Farmer's Market everyday, I found it useful while shopping at my local grocer (vegetables and fruits in season are cheaper).

I think this has probably been covered, but I am also under the naive impression that a chef should cook what s/he enjoys eating, which is the reason why an education in other countries, working with new ingredients, etc. makes the chef that much more versatile.

[jaybee]

JAZ,

You must be awesome in a jam session! When I saw Scottish Chef's question, I thought, yes, that's really what being a great chef is about. The ability to plan and produce a sequence of dishes that stand alone and enhance each other.

Early in my eating education, a three star French chef (Jaques Manier) told us that "your meal is on the wrong track." And he went on to explain a redundancy in the dishes we ordered. From that time, whenever we chose a main course, we ask "what track we should be on?"

And I am nowhere near knowing how to lay one down myself.

Thanks JAZ for laying one down, and thanks SF for asking.

[JAZ]

On this I disagree. I love cocktail parties too...

But over the years I've stopped serving complex "snacks" or "amuses" away from the table. Olives, perhaps, or a few breadsticks or salted nuts. Or tiny wild onions, lampascioni. Or giant caperberries. But no more than one of these things, and in meagre quantity. And more and more, nothing.

Hmmm, very good points, and I'm rethinking what I posted (which, truth be told, was not very well expressed).

I'll let you know if you've changed my mind, or how much.

Janet

The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think you’re right, mostly. When I wrote what I did, I was thinking back to a period many years ago when my then-fiance and I would get together with several other couples for dinners in which the hosting couple would make the main course and the other couples would provide the other courses. When not hosting, I was generally asked to bring the hors d’oeuvre. And although I always tried to stay in line generally with what the host was making, I liked the freedom afforded by the set up and often “ran wild” with what I made. Everyone always raved, but looking back on it now, my offerings were not always the best choices for the meal as a whole. More than once I (unintentionally) upstaged the main part of the dinner. And I can remember one occasion when I brought some Asian beef rolls and a Thai cashew salad – everyone ate so much of the cashews, which were of course terribly rich, that no one even wanted dinner.

And you’re probably right in saying that in concentrating on socializing and cocktails, your guests won’t necessarily appreciate the full effect of anything served during the cocktail hour. And it’s generally difficult to match cocktails with food. (Or more precisely, it’s very difficult to match them from standpoint of taste only. It’s much easier when it comes to texture, and matching cocktails and food on a psychological level is pathetically easy.)

But if I serve cocktails, I always serve my guests something to eat, regardless of how fully they’ll appreciate it; I just don’t like the idea of their downing cocktails on an empty stomach. I do usually keep it fairly simple now (or at least simpler than I used to), and don’t serve much, but I do serve something more than olives and nuts.

One final point: I doubt we really disagree all that much, in theory. I suspect that our dinner parties are vastly different, though, so the differences in practice might be somewhat greater.

Janet

[NeroW]

In certain circumstances I could see a menu in which the ingredient provided the continuity, enabling a chef to compose, for example, a six-course tasting menu consisting of shrimp dishes reminiscent of six different cuisines. It would take a talented chef, and the order of the cuisines represented would have to be very well thought out (off the top of my head, I'm thinking you could start with Latin America, then go to the Caribbean, which shares some of the same flavor elements; then on to Africa, the Middle East and the end with the Mediterranean, except that's only five and I don't know where to go from there...). But that's a special case.

Interesting to read that. One of my biggest gripes so far in my (limited) dinner party planning experience has been mixing and matching. I usually try to go with what "feels seasonal," as many others said. I have also usually planned everything else around the main course, unless a soup is particularly compelling.

Last month we had a RISK! The Game of World Domination dinner party for friends who all played RISK! obsessively during our dorm days (3 years--not so long ago). The theme (besides RISK) was Foods From Around the World, and it allowed my sister and I to go hog-wild on the preparation of different dishes, cuisines, etc. We had a fantastic time putting it together--peperonata and cured meats, sweet and savory fondues, olives, pissaladiere, deep-dish mac and cheese, fried cabbage dumplings, makeua oop, pierogi, a Moroccan-spiced caponata, spanakopita, stromboli . . . not only that, because we weren't concerned with continuity, we could serve wine, beer, and all kinds of liquor, whenever we wanted, with whatever we wanted. Although I realize this is probably limited to a college-crowd setting, I enjoyed the opportunity to relax over the menu for once.

[Jonathan Day]

It’s generally difficult to match cocktails with food. (Or more precisely, it’s very difficult to match them from standpoint of taste only. It’s much easier when it comes to texture, and matching cocktails and food on a psychological level is pathetically easy.)

Janet, you've hooked me with that last sentence...in fact with the entire quote. What do you mean?

(Or is this the basis for a new thread on menu design for cocktail parties? -- if you think so, why not start one?)

[JAZ]

It’s generally difficult to match cocktails with food. (Or more precisely, it’s very difficult to match them from standpoint of taste only. It’s much easier when it comes to texture, and matching cocktails and food on a psychological level is pathetically easy.)

Janet, you've hooked me with that last sentence...in fact with the entire quote. What do you mean?

(Or is this the basis for a new thread on menu design for cocktail parties? -- if you think so, why not start one?)

I think it probably is a separate thread, so let me pull some notes out, and I'll start a new topic. (I originally thought to put it in the "other spirits" forum, but now I think it's better off here.)

Edited January 22, 2003 by JAZ (log)

[Rachel Perlow]

Just picked up a book (which I have mentioned on mamster's market basket thread) called "Culinary Artistry" by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. . . .

If any one is familiar with this book, I love to hear your opinion.

As I, ahem, ahem, said in the very first response to ScottishChef's question, it "can be quite useful, and even inspiring." I did not mean to damn it with faint praise -- it is a terrific book, one that I look to frequently for suggestions when I'm tired of serving the same combinations over and over again. It reminds me that great chefs are different from you and me; they think on an entirely different plane. I'm grateful that Andrew and Karen talked to so many, and pulled their thoughts together so well.

I wanted to add a comment on Culinary Artistry by Dornenburg and Page.  I am not a professional chef, but to me, the book would be extremely invaluable as a chef in order to inspire and entice the reader to the creation of dishes.  One of the many wonderful bits of information is a listing of what vegetables are at its highest peak in which season.  I had been looking for a listing like that in the gardening section, the cooking section, etc.  For a person who is 1) not a gardener, and 2) unable to go to the Farmer's Market everyday, I found it useful while shopping at my local grocer (vegetables and fruits in season are cheaper).

Just a reminder that Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page are online for an eGullet Q&A right now.