Square plates...and other culinary crazes that leave a bad taste
Food critic Mr Sitwell: 'No food should be served on a plate with a right angle'
From sliders to suggestively large pepper grinders, here's a rundown of useless home ware that will ruin a good meal.
“Modern” food trends have a lot to answer for.
Not content with serving us dishes dressed with utterly unnecessary froths, foams and micro-herbs, top-end restaurants have developed a fondness for an even more irritating fad: the square plate.
This, as any food-lover knows, is a sure-fire way to ruin a good meal. The seasoning might be sublime, the flavours fantastic and the ingredients organic, top-of-the-range and fresh from the farm – but serve us food on a dish with edges, and it’s destined to put us off our dinner. The sauce gets lost in the corners, our elbows are stuck out at uncomfortable angles, and – if you’re unlucky enough to be given one of those flat plates, boards or platters without a rim – half your meal will end up spattered across the tablecloth.
At long last, however, someone is standing up against this crockery calamity. William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose Kitchen magazine and sometime judge on Masterchef, has launched a one-man crusade against the scourge of squares invading both home and professional kitchens. “Square and rectangular plates,” he said, “are an abomination. Food should be served on round plates and not a right angle in sight. If you have square plates, now is the time to be bold and cast them out.”
In fact, Mr Sitwell hates them so much that he’s hosting a ‘Square Plate Amnesty’ at the Towcester Food Festival in Northamptonshire next month. Visitors are encouraged to bring along their unwanted quadrangles – which are, he believes, “at odds with nature” – for donation to charity.“The square plate is too frequently part of an armoury of a cook who is hoping to divert attention from their own inadequacy,” he added, “in the mistaken belief that the squareness or indeed rectangular shape will lend the cook some kind of fashionable vibe.”
As we all know, it doesn’t. But square plate lovers aren’t alone in their fondness for culinary crazes that leave the rest of us with a bad taste in our mouths. Here’s our list of the most annoying modern kitchen trends…
Sticking with the right-angled theme... square anythings
Square cups, square bowls, and even square glasses. They’re hard to hold, difficult to clean (don’t even try fitting them between those slats in the dishwasher) and stacking them in the cupboard is like a precarious game of Jenga. Crockery that comes in other geometric shapes – pentagons, hexagons, etc – has no place in any kitchen.
Platters made of slate;...or granite, bark or other assorted bits of tree.- as seen in the same fashionable eateries fond of square plates, often called “sliders”. Try eating a cheeseburger off a slippery marble surface and you’ll soon see the problem. Food might look like a work of art but it’s messy and impractical to eat. Give us back classy ceramic.
Coloured glassware; Whether it’s beer, wine or water, tinting it an array of primary colours does not make it more appealing. If anything, it’s the opposite. See also plastic glasses, or wine served in tiny beakers. Only ever appropriate outdoors, at a picnic.
Handwritten menus; These may give the illusion of an ever-changing repertoire or add rustic charm to a high street diner, but most of the time we can’t read your writing. And your spelling of “fettuccine” leaves a lot to be desired. There’s nothing wrong with a nice printed menu, in a plastic sleeve so it doesn’t smudge the second it’s placed on the table. Capital letters, a fast-disappearing breed on modern restaurant menus, are sorely missed too.
Oversized salt and pepper grinders; Suggestive cruet sets don't fool anyone. Beloved of low-budget pizza restaurants, they are never, ever acceptable in your own kitchen. We’re not sure what you’re trying to make up for, but they make us feel like teeny weeny Borrowers. And the seasoning is just as good, and easier to get out of, a regular mill.
Spoon rests; Targeted at first-time cooks looking for somewhere to put their wooden spoon/whisk while their masterpiece bubbles away on the stove – and always overpriced. Professional chefs just use a saucer. The same goes for tea bag rests, chopstick rests and toast tongs. There are other things in your kitchen that will do just the same job.
Enormous wine glasses; We may not be connoisseurs, but surely there should be three sizes – small, medium, large – and no more? Drinking from a glass that has to be cupped in both hands and raised to the lips like a chalice is just asking for trouble. How can you tell how much you've had to drink?
Under-pronged cutlery; Forks should have four tines – three turn it into a trident. Sporks (an annoying spoon-at-one-end, fork-at-the-other combo) are an absolute no-no, as are square- or flat-handled knives and forks. Mismatching it, in that “trendy” way restaurants do with vintage plates, is downright disorientating. Matching metal cutlery has served us well for centuries, just as it is.
Novelty napkins; Forgivable at Christmas, Easter or the odd national celebration – but a starched white number is really all that’s acceptable. Flimsy paper serviettes won’t preserve your clothes, neither will a mini napkin, better suited to a doll’s house. Bibs for grownups, even if it’s the messiest spag bol in history, should be avoided at all costs.
Sarah Rainey. This article appeared in the Daily Telegraph
|
|
|
|
