A Different Omnivore’s Dilemma
You may think me blasphemous, but I’m over pork belly. And offal. And pieces of fat for fat’s sake. This isn’t an issue of health or of taste, but of fatigue. For too many chefs, gratuitous additions of animal oddities creep into every appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert. I’m an omnivore, but I don’t need animal in everything I eat.
With restrained options disappearing from restaurant menus—where is the understated starter salad?—I think the trend has gone too far. The attempt to ramp up each plate to a full-palate, fatty affair often backfires. Rather than introducing different flavors and textures over the course of the meal, such dishes, taken together, become repetitive, unimaginative, exhausting. In these cases, a chef’s impertinence draws attention to itself, the culinary equivalent of overwrought prose.
To me, a crisp winter-leaf salad with tart vinaigrette perfectly readies the palate for rich, fatty meats. The first course sets up the second. Culinary restraint, in this case, doesn’t hamper ideas or slide toward rote limitations. This restraint is an exercise in patience, in attention, and ultimately, even, an expression of confidence. It suggests that a meal can be indulgent simply by virtue of its being well prepared. Offal doesn’t have to do all the work.
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6 Comments
Really appreciate this and so so SO agree.
Also, glad I found your blog, Ronna.
great post. i agree all the way. the whole bacon/pork belly thing has gone too far and it does seem like offal is the new fad. i am all for eating the whole animal, but you’re right – does it have to be included in every dish? it’s often quite difficult for my vegetarian (well, pescetarian) husband to find something to eat from a restaurant menu…even in the salads section! i have a hard time finding recipes for soups and pasta dishes that don’t include pork of some kind…i often just skip the bacon or pancetta or whatever, but it would be great to have recipes with more imagination for depth of flavor. i look forward to your workshop in january!
Exactly! I have no idea where this fat-with-fat stupidity came from. Fat goes with lean or bready. You fry fish or chicken, not beef or pork. As a Jew, it’s also tough seeing pork shoved into places it has no good reason to be in.
Boring is boring, as pork belly has become, but lets not include offal, which isn’t served in NY except (pardon) in a few bits and pieces – Gateway Sweetbreads, sure, here-and-there tripe… Pig’s feet at Les Halles, a few blood sausages.
But can you go for rolled pig’s spleen with bacon? NO. Venison or rabbit kidneys? Um, Nah.
Lamb’s tongues with green sauce? Fat chance. Chitterlings? Americans make faces and act like picky two-year-olds.
So stop the nonsense about offal – Its Not Served Here In New York and if you think so, that word Offal does not mean what you think it means.
Alex, my experience with offal on the restaurant line and as a casual diner is different than yours. I find that it is often used to similar, gratuitous effect as the more commonplace pork belly, even in New York. In any case, my point, above, is not to take issue with an ingredient in itself (I consume my fair share of innards), but with chef’s who might rely on a hip trend as a substitute for culinary finesse.
I’m not over offal (though I haven’t eaten a meal in New York in 5 years…). It’s not even that I’m that big a food adventurer, I just supplement my small-family-farm-raised meat from the meat CSA with my small-family-farm-raised dollar bin tongues and livers because they taste good and bring the average cost of meat in our household down!