THE "EYES" HAVE IT

Visual components of culinary art

    On this blog, I’m writing about mostly food but not just about cooking. Aside from food information, and gardening, herbs and more there is the presentation of the final work all these other things lend to. When entertaining, or when preparing and serving a meal, there are other aspects that I feel are important to the whole of what I want to give. Cooking delectable food is part of it, as is making the dining experience reflect the effort that goes into making a grand meal. The more one considers these other areas, I feel, the better they get at the true art of cookery.

v Cooking would be assembling and applying heat to food.

v Good cooking would be applying heat to food, with skill and success to bring about delicious meals.

v Being a good cook would be cooking with skill, success, deliciousness, and care and purpose to please others.

v Being a chef is being a master at the skills required in cooking well with creativity.

v And I don’t have a final category name so I will use the word Culinarian.  A culinary master is all the above combined, especially the last two in this little outlined list, namely a good cook, and a chef, with one more aspect thrown in and that is Hospitality.

     So being 1. a good cook and 2. a chef and 3. a gracious host, is always my goal. My purposes in my writing are those which reflect my feelings indeed my philosophies about something beyond being just the preparer of even the very finest foods. Did you now that offering hospitality was considered one of the highest values to the Hebrews in the Bible, as well as later in the cultures when Jesus was alive.

     The act of creating good food / meals for others should, in my opinion, combine many aspects. It has as much to do with serving as with preparing the food. When cooking becomes an art, and act of love, and skills learned,  are done so as to maximize that offering to be the best you can possibly give, then you really are a Culinarian.

     

     And as I have said before and will say a hundred times at least before I die, “A great meal has three things going for it. Smell, sight, and taste.” Most all the senses and the even maybe the sixth are a little involved, but the main three are in order again… Smell Sight and Taste.

     SMELL is the first part of your offering as it hits people first. It is not a skill you are learning but a by-product of having learned your skill well. If when my children, or friends, or guests arrive for a dinner, they walk in and say “Gosh it smells good in here.” I know I am doing my job right. This is the olfactory sense of aromas that make taste into flavor. Have some hors d’oeuvres at hand to quell the appetite the smell will immediately give your guests, preferably some munchies along the same lines and theme as the food you are cooking and they are smelling.

   The third aspect will come if you have done your job well, when they sit down and TASTE your meal and they are delighted with their gustatory sensations. You made their taste buds and them happy.

   It’s the middle thing I mentioned that this article is about. What do your loved ones or guests SEE when they arrive and when they sit down at the table. This is the ophthalmic sense. This aspect should always be considered as an important part of how to experience the offering or serving of a fine meal. Anyone can place crackers cheese and meats on a platter, but for a special occasion add a swan made from cutting an apple, surrounded with little olive rose buds in the middle, and some parsley around the edges of the platter and as a border. And your guests will not just eat the hors d’oeuvres but feel just a little more pampered by the whimsy of the display. And they will know that the cook took some time with the preparation of tonight’s meal. The stage has been set, that this meal is going to be a very pleasing experience. It’s about how you want your guests’ first impressions to make them feel. 

 

     What do you do if someone takes you to a really nice five star restaurant, (and they are treating lol) I mean the kind of place where the Maitre D’ will split your lobster tail for you or bone your fish, or flambé your dessert.  Well I don’t know about you, but my shoulders drop, I relax into knowing I’m going to be paid attention to as if I was someone special. And aren’t we all someone special…especially your family friends or guests. Give them that feeling when they come to your home, as if they are special, and going to be pampered with excellent food.

     …An aside for a second s’il vous plait. I’m not saying do it up fancy all the time. There will always be the suppers where someone stopped by and you whip something up for y’all to eat. Still even then you can still offer what you have whipped up with a sense of reverence for the chance to share a meal with this person, by opening a bottle of wine and setting some stemware and cloth napkins on the table with the plates.

     Eating a meal should be more than just poking sustenance in your pie hole. Every meal doesn’t require a lovely set table to sit at, but at least do sit and spend a little time with whomever you are eating with. Eating is probably the most social thing we do. What is most often thought of for getting together?… grab a bite to eat! And what do we do when we grab that bite, we spend time catching up with our friends and such, enjoying their company. Why not do the same at home. I raised four children and yes even in this day and age of school activities, lessons, sports, phones, TV, computers and video games, we had a rule, the same that I was raised with.  Excepting rare occasions, coming to the table for supper was a requirement when I was growing up, as it was when I raised my family. And in both cases the TV got turned off. It has to do with serving, with the presentation of food, with respecting the processes that got it to the table, and respecting each other in the sharing that food with you. And now that my children are grown they have the same respect for a meal shared, that I was raised with.

   And so I step down from my soap box. Digression should be my middle name.

    Going back to the visual elements of a fine dining experience, it is important to be the host who considers that. So now we are talking about the occasions when we want to make extra effort to let guests, family and friends know, that the meal they are going to share is exceptional. Im talking about a special holiday dinner or dinner party, birthday, family gathering etc., these are the times when you should take the time to pull out all the stops, and going along with that analogy, your dining experience for all can be as splendid as a resounding organ playing a Bach piece. 

    Be willing to light candles at the table, use a nice table cloth and cloth napkins with fancy folds. Be willing to come up with a centerpiece, or place cards. That was something we used to always do for Christmas. Be willing to do interesting things with the food, fancy garnishes and things like apple swans. Become a real culinarian. And offer the very best of your efforts when you cook and serve a meal for others.

   I hope to share articles and links to many things VISUAL for serving a great dining experience, from place settings to special cuttings of food decoration and garnishing. I’d like to share what I’ve learned or even invented over the years, as well as connect to places where I may have gotten some of the info and skills. There is a host of wonderful videos out there. Hopefully you can be inspired and you will start brainstorming yourself.

  May your food be prepared with love, presented with art, and enjoyed with reverence, reverie, and whimsy.

 Blessings mes amis.