A Matter of Taste
In the beginning, there were banquet menus – “You want the prime rib? $20 dollars per person extra.. or you can do the chicken they served at the Hackenshlafer wedding, it’s all inclusive”.
Yes, so quaint…
As I’ve often shared, when I attended the Culinary Institute of America, most of the students had the choice of enrolling in either an auto mechanics program or cooking school to stay out of a juvenile detention center.
Now of course, the world is populated with foodies and celebrity chefs, everyone I encounter has an excruciatingly specific knowledge of the differences between sauteeing and pan frying, and are more than happy to share it with me. For our purposes here, I’m going to stick to designing menus for weddings and other social events.
I’ll go on record that I agree with the majority of caterers who won’t do a formal tasting before they have the job. Of course there can be mitigating circumstances where I’ll ask for just that, but for the most part I feel it’s like asking me to do a mini party gratis as an audition (guess my answer?).
The point of a tasting is to suss out what actually can be served, what works together and to try items that have at least an approximation of the look and taste they will have AT THE EVENT.
So, what else can I share with you about tastings?
A tasting SHOULD be:
- A chance for the hosts, event producer and catering person in charge to bond and get a clue into each others tastes and style (with lots of chances for you to get insights that have nothing to do with food). This is the FUN part and should be treated that way, but take good notes.
- A time to assess how many pig products one can rationally serve at one meal or to debate the nuances of “kosher style”.
- Hopefully, a wine tasting (mood-enhancing), even if it’s not the specific wine you will eventually serve, you should come up with something that complements the meal at a price point that makes sense for this specific client.
- An opportunity to marvel at the clever and beauteous ways that the caterer (or restaurant/banquet staff) has designed the various plates.
What a tasting SHOULDN’T BE:
- A time for the chef to show that he can cook risotto for four people in his restaurant kitchen (we kind of already assume that) – but a time to address how it might be done for 200 guests on buffet lines.
- The time for the event producer to pontificate on a meal at Per Se (unless of course the tasting is at Per Se) and for her to supply Mr. Keller’s a la minute recipe to be replicated for a birthday party in a field for 2000.
- A haphazard (“oh, great, we have to do a tasting” sort of thing,) where it’s rote, and the clients are expected to just sign off on everything and go their merry way. If the food is wrong – too salty, unattractive or just plain misconstrued for the event – then there has to be another tasting, because (as we are all painfully aware) chances are pretty good, the foods not going to get any better “day of”.
Some shots from a real-live hors d’oeuvres tasting with the marvelous Olivier Cheng Catering and their Chef Jennie (note all the pens on the table)..
No Lipstick On Pigs Please
I was at a very, very, oh sooo very, hip new restaurant last night for the second time and social buzz addict that I am combined with the fact that there’s a fameuse chef and all I couldn’t quite figure out why I wasn’t just completely seduced by the place. It hit me when the very handsome Latin runner said “Bon Appetit” while he delivered the sliders.
Remember when you were first taught the definition of incongruous? No? Well, I do. It was with a cartoon of a big fat lady walking her teeny tiny dog- and that’s the image I was stuck on last night.
It might not be immediately obvious to you that I’m raving about this topic for a reason, but hang in here for a bit, there’s a point here. How many events don’t work because they have not been produced to be compatible with the guests’ expectations, because there are too many elements that are incongruous. Some examples?
I had a bride several years ago who fancied herself in line to the throne and insisted on not only having fox sleeves sewn to her gown, but that her guests wear extremely formal attire. What’s the problem you ask? Well, the entire sun-stroked ceremony took place on an excruciatingly hot beach in Spain.
I have seen clever (and messy) interactive food stations positioned at events where the women are in spike heels and evening gowns.
I’ve made pleas to clients about a stand-around cocktail party not being sensible for four hours, and that a wedding where most of the guests don’t know each other requires a well thought out seating plan not the “oh, let everyone sit where they want” approach.
An ornate fourteen pound card stock invitation doesn’t make sense for a hayride- get it?
I recently saw a beautiful old world hotel ballroom half-heartedly turned into a tawdry 70s disco for a party- I swore that the space itself was mortified.
Congruency is something that makes us humans comfortable. This is not to say that juxtaposing seemingly wildly incompatible concepts can’t work fabulously and be just the thing that makes the event transcend the ordinary. Humor is all about these kinds of contrasts (I just saw a Twitpic of Anna Wintour and Lady Gaga engrossed in conversation at The Met ball tonight that had me howling).
But it takes a skilled pro to think about what’s going into the mix, what works together and what doesn’t… Someone with enough knowledge and clarity and energy to work on these details and to make sure that if an American/Italian menu is being served in a downtown hipster environment, maybe the staff should be trained to say something other than Bon Appetit.