Dessert Sales Down

[Holly Moore]

Americans deep-six desserts at dinner

One result, according to the article, "Mini Desserts." Houlihan's now, but I'm hoping the trend will catch on.

I understand the economics of large desserts at large prices, but for those of us trying to cut down calories and minimize sugar intake, it's either smaller desserts or foregoing dessert. I'm all for mini desserts.

[fifi]

I am not a dessert eater just because I am not really big on sweets. I have to agree, though that when I have been hit with the portion size from appetizer to main course, there is just no room for dessert on the rare occasion I would want to indulge. I can see that price may have something to do with it at your typical chain. But I wonder what the numbers look like at higher end restaurants. I would think that "occasion" dining would be less price sensitive.

I disagree with the statement that dessert has no nutritional value. What is in chocolate mousse, after all? Chocolate is one of the necessary food groups, even to the sweet tooth challenged.

[Bux]

I love a good dessert. I can often skip banal desserts, but nothing pleases me less than a good restaurant where the portions are so large that I don't have the appetite for dessert. A really fine meal is as incomplete without dessert as it is without wine for me.

[NHCountryGirl]

Interesting survey and article. I might speculate that, although desserts at home are down, snacking in general on dessert type goodies is probably up?

A lot of us who were brought up that we couldn't have dessert unless we finished our dinner have grown up and rebeled. We realized that we can eat pie for breakfast or a couple of cookies in the late afternoon, before dinner if we want to! Likewise kids eat all sorts of "junk food" at all times of the day now, not restricted just to a dessert time after dinner.

So maybe this isn't a good thing? Maybe if we saw a rise in home dessert consumption it would mean we were eating better balanced meals?

Edited September 6, 2003 by NHCountryGirl (log)

[browniebaker]

I love a good dessert. I can often skip banal desserts, but nothing pleases me less than a good restaurant where the portions are so large that I don't have the appetite for dessert. A really fine meal is as incomplete without dessert as it is without wine for me.

Like you, I feel a meal is not a meal without the closure of dessert. Perhaps the new discipline is not so much cleaning one's plate as of old, but holding back during the main course so as to have have room for dessert.

At a restaurant, that means sending the plate back half-eaten or asking for a doggie bag. At a restaurant where all the desserts look too banal to be appealing, I will actually go home and bake a proper dessert that same night.

But, from informal discussions with friends and with other eGulleters, I do feel in the minority in my dedication to dessert.

[Jinmyo]

browniebaker, I don't want to argue or to hurt your feelings in any way.

But refraining from eating actual food in order to save "room" to ingest nutritionally pointless calories...

That just shocks me.

I despise desserts. Except perhaps for a few slices of fruit (although I myself wouldn't eat them) or a sugarless sorbet to cleanse the palate.

If people have less time to prepare and eat meals, that they seem to be concentrating on actual food instead of desserts seems to me a good thing.

[Katherine]

Interesting survey and article. I might speculate that, although desserts at home are down, snacking in general on dessert type goodies is probably up?

Indeed, desserts have been displaced by between-meal snacks and mammoth-sized appetizers and entrees.

[Bux]

... refraining from eating actual food in order to save "room" to ingest nutritionally pointless calories...

That just shocks me.

Surely we don't just eat to ingest nutritionally pointed calories. My main reason for having dessert would be for the art of eating. It just rounds out and ends off a meal for me, although that's far more important in certain types of meals and settings than in others. Nevertheless, I'm not sure a good dessert need be nutritionally pointless calories or even largely nutritionally pointless calories. I've rarely seen meat or seafood incorporated into a dessert with any success, but I don't consider fruit, dairy or chocolate without nutritional value. The strongest claim for that might be the quantity of sugar used. To that I'd respond that desserts need not be ultra sweet and that I've had savory Japanese and Chinese meals without dessert that seemed inordinately sweet and contained more sugar than a three course French meal with dessert.

I can't remember when I last had an oreo or supermarket packaged cake and I could go the rest of my life without even a good example, but a fine home made or professionally crafted dessert or pastry is a real gastronomic treat for me. While I rarely have the self control to leave food on my plate, if it's tasty, I almost resent restaurants where the meal is not well paced so that I have room for dessert.

[Jinmyo]

Bux, you certainly know by now that I do not believe eating is just a matter of ingesting nutritionally pointed calories. But I object to desserts strenously as the opposite of eating actual food.

Certainly many Chinese and Japanese dishes are inordinately sweet. I object to them as well.

I object to more than the slightest most judicious use of sugars, and then only in balance with other flavour profiles.

In short, I am a very very objectionable woman. At least in this regard.

[fresco]

It's worth noting that you read it first on eGullet:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...5289&hl=dessert

[Bux]

I object to more than the slightest most judicious use of sugars, and then only in balance with other flavour profiles.

Sustained.

In short, I am a very very objectionable woman. At least in this regard.

[Bux]

Indeed, desserts have been displaced by between-meal snacks and mammoth-sized appetizers and entrees.

I'll object to that, although I may be told to mind my own business.

[Elizabeth_11]

Jinmyo, with all due respect, you are offending the art of pastry; now that is objectionable.

[herbacidal]

i must agree with jinmyo.

i appreciate the art of pastry. i admire the more creative and artistic things done. i just wouldn't eat most of the things within the pastry field that are deemed artful.

it is my opinion that most of the particular chinese and japanese dishes that are especially sweet are attempts to mimic and/or attract western tastes.

it is a relatively unsubstantiated opinion right now and i have not investigated this statement very much.

Edited September 7, 2003 by herbacidal (log)

[beegew]

The bittersweet chocolate souffle we walk half a mile for (after dinner at a different establishment), is the excuse for a lovely glass of Cline Little Berry Vineyard Zinfandel. I'm not giving it up.

[Katherine]

Indeed, desserts have been displaced by between-meal snacks and mammoth-sized appetizers and entrees.

I'll object to that, although I may be told to mind my own business.

Please explain.

Perhaps not universally, but that's the trend I see. People who munch around the clock have small appetites at dinner, and imagine that they are being virtuous for eating small meals and passing up dessert. They will comment on the size of the meal you are eating, but of course, an hour after they leave they're hungry again, munching on packaged cookies.

On the flip side of the coin, it is also true that people who eat at restaurants that serve jumbo portions are less likely to have room for dessert than those who eat at restaurants that serve more reasonable portions. The trend has been toward ever-increasing portion size. Something had to give somewhere.

Not that I'd suggest that you would eat at such places...

[Jinmyo]

Jinmyo, with all due respect, you are offending the art of pastry; now that is objectionable.   

I know. I'm sorry.

Like herbacidal, I very much admire the creativity of pastry chefs.

I have seen some stunning objects.

But they don't seem to me to be food.

They had might as well be made of glass and plastic.

[browniebaker]

browniebaker, I don't want to argue or to hurt your feelings in any way.

But refraining from eating actual food in order to save "room" to ingest nutritionally pointless calories...

That just shocks me.

I despise desserts. Except perhaps for a few slices of fruit (although I myself wouldn't eat them) or a sugarless sorbet to cleanse the palate.

If people have less time to prepare and eat meals, that they seem to be concentrating on actual food instead of desserts seems to me a good thing.

Jinmyo, I know I'm your complete opposite when it comes to sweets. I do respect others' preferences for the savory over the sweet but your total dismissal of all sweets makes me feel very, very sorry for your missing out on a whole class of wonderful FOODS, yes, FOODS!

This is from a saccharovore who yesterday drove fifteen miles and spent two hours picking out mooncakes and brought home six mooncakes for a family of two adults and two little children. Guess who's planning on eating most of the mooncakes this Thursday evening while gazing at the full moon? Sorry, Jinmyo.

[Jinmyo]

Gah. No mooncakes. Pork gyoza.

Enjoy, browniebaker.

[Elizabeth_11]

Browniebaker--I am SO in your corner. I live for sweets too! Saccharovore! Love it!

Edited September 8, 2003 by Elizabeth_11 (log)

[SobaAddict70]

Do these count as dessert?

(scroll down to the link that references grilled chocolate sandwiches)

Soba

Edited September 8, 2003 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Socrates]

This is from a saccharovore who yesterday drove fifteen miles and spent two hours picking out mooncakes and brought home six mooncakes for a family of two adults and two little children. Guess who's planning on eating most of the mooncakes this Thursday evening while gazing at the full moon? Sorry, Jinmyo.

Okay, I now know I'm a saccarovore too. Nice that we can name our affliction!

Sorry, tho', but I don't know mooncakes, are they the same as moonpies??

[browniebaker]

Mooncakes: Chinese; eaten once a year only for the mid-autumn moon festival (lunar calendar); pastry wrapped around sweet fillings of lotus paste, red-bean paste, mung-bean paste, date paste, or five-nut cake, all available with or without one or two salty preserved egg yolks; expensive.

Moonpies: American (originating in Tennessee, where I grew up!); eaten year-round; marshmallow between cookies, all dipped in chocolate, and available in single-decker, double-decker, and mini; inexpensive.

Both: irresistible and fattening. Love 'em both.

[mpav]

I love desserts, but find I only eat them when I have time to make them, when they are usually WTC (worth the calories). Otherwise, I often find them dissappointing, i.e. NWTC (not worth the calories).

[Socrates]

Mooncakes: Chinese; eaten once a year only for the mid-autumn moon festival (lunar calendar); pastry wrapped around sweet fillings of lotus paste, red-bean paste, mung-bean paste, date paste, or five-nut cake, all available with or without one or two salty preserved egg yolks; expensive.

Moonpies: American (originating in Tennessee, where I grew up!); eaten year-round; marshmallow between cookies, all dipped in chocolate, and available in single-decker, double-decker, and mini; inexpensive.

Both: irresistible and fattening. Love 'em both.

I have had both actually, I just didn't know the first ones were called mooncakes. I agree there both really good. Thanks for telling us (me) the difference.