Open Writing

Since setting foot in the USA thirty years ago, I have eaten in every type of culinary establishment imaginable; from diners to the pinnacles of haute cuisine, in small towns and big cities from coast to coast. More often than not my gastronomic experiences have left me with feelings ranging from bewildered astonishment to outright disbelief.

The sources of my stupefaction are many and various. Unappetizing food, incompetent service, over-charging, pretentiousness, or because the places I do like go out of business in a year or two.

Having said that, I have to admit that the American dining experience has improved immeasurably since the dark days of my first encounter in the '70's.

I had come from England to Bristol, Pennsylvania, for a three week stay in preparation for a permanent relocation to the USA. My host had housed me in the local motel. It was the Thanksgiving holiday and, since I had no car and didn't know any better, I opted to eat my first American dinner in the hotel. I was the only diner that evening, and the three waitresses on duty plainly wanted to get out of there and back to their Thanksgiving turkey as fast as possible.

While drinking a cocktail, served in a thick, heavy, greenish glass that was like a cross between a small wine glass and a miniature funeral urn, I examined my salad. I was somewhat irritated at being presented with it at the same time as my cocktail, but at that stage of the meal it seemed like a small accommodation for me to make. Contained in one of those pressed wooden bowls that suggest recycled floor tiles, was some wet, brownish lettuce, a couple of pieces of pale pink tomato, a few limp shreds of carrot and a couple of slices of frost-bitten cucumber. The sorry mess was topped off with a generous dollop of orange coloured, supermarket salad dressing.

I turned to the bread basket with rapidly declining appetite. My investigation revealed two soggy looking rolls, a packet of soup crackers and a bread stick. The appearance of the rolls was not deceptive. They were soggy, and worse than that, they were doughy and sweet. I ate half of one and decided I needed another cocktail. Meanwhile, my trio of servers stood in line at the far end of the dining room regarding me with an obvious air of expectation, for what reason I knew not.

Periodically, one of them would break the vigil and approach my table with the question, “Is everything alright?” Well, everything wasn't, but I was not about to take issue with a US citizen this early in my stay, only to reinforce the reputation among Americans that the English are just a bunch of arrogant, stiff necked snobs. “Fine,” was my response. After all, this was going to be my country for the rest of my life and it's not my style to bite the hand that feeds me. Plenty of time to get critical once I started paying taxes.

My serving trio was meanwhile growing ever more restive, until Shana, - “I'll be your waitress this evening” - came bustling over to my table with the sharp admonition, “As soon as you've eaten your salad I'll put in the order for your steak.”

Abashed by the intensity of her demeanour, and dismayed to find out that I had unwittingly run afoul of the establishment’s procedures, I dutifully ate my dreadful salad without a murmur. This was my first encounter with the regimented style of serving that prevails to this day in the majority of American restaurants, and I’m still intimidated by it.

I have pondered the American restaurant serving style long and hard. So much of the dogma held dear by wait staff, and presumably restaurateurs, is either unnecessary, redundant or just plain ridiculous. I can only assume that its prevalence and standardization is because most of the workers in this field only receive training by osmosis, and so consequently are doomed to emulate the mistakes of their more experienced co-workers. What I'd dearly like to know is who started it.

At the beginning of the meal we are told, “Good morning/evening, etc., my name is Helga and I'll be your waitress this morning/evening etc.“ Who cares!?

Next comes, “Can I get you started with a drink?“ The implication here is that you need starting. Well, I often do, but it's no business of any waitress. Then we sit through a recitation of the 'specials' with prices. Coming from a culture where men order for their ladies and guests, and the ladies’ menus had no prices, announcing the price comes over as a little crass to say the least.

Of course, nobody remembers what the specials are by the time she's finished, so the threat, “I'll give you a few minutes, then I'll come back and take your order, “generates frantic questioning among those seated at the table. “How did she say the salmon was cooked?” “What was the third special? Was that the one with the curried refried beans? “By this time we’re reduced to a state of mind approximating that of nervous students before a test.

Before we know it, Helga is steaming back towards the table like a square-rigger in a gale, hell-bent on taking to task anyone who isn't ready to order. Of course there's always one amongst us who has the temerity to ask her to repeat the specials. I shrink down in my chair, certain that terrible retribution is about to be wrought on us all. Helga repeats her recitation with painfully obvious irritation, then commences to waive her pencil and pad around with the unspoken, but very clear, message that we’d better be ready to order now or she’ll rip the tablecloth from under our drinks and ignore us for the rest of the evening.

Once we pass the ordering test - don’ t even think of asking for variations of the menu ¾ the rest of the meal proceeds with predictable and agonizing protocol. Periodically we are regaled with further, trite and quite unnecessary utterances that are delivered
without the least hint of sincerity. They begin with the command, “Enjoy your meal.” Well, since I’m not the one cooking it or serving it or creating the ambience, whether I enjoy it or not is more in their hands than mine. In any case, it seems to me that since I’m the one paying for it, if I choose not to enjoy my meal, for whatever reason, it’s entirely my prerogative.

The next rejoinder, which is always uttered as the plate meets the table, causes me the most puzzlement. “There you go.” When first I heard it I waited for the rest of the sentence, like; there you go
a) spilling your soup again, b) getting spaghetti sauce on your tie,” etc., etc.. When no further words followed I concluded that perhaps I was either required to move to another part of the restaurant, or just to leave altogether.

Of all these banalities, the one that frustrates me most is, “How is everything?” In the first place, if the restaurant has any competence at all, they should know that everything is just the way you ordered it and cooked to perfection. Further, if by some remote chance the chef is not quite on the ball that day, an attentive waiter or waitress should be able to see from 25 yards away if the diners are not totally comfortable with the meal. “How’s everything?” is really saying, “This is your last chance of appeal, and you’d better speak up now because I’ll not be back until you’ve cleaned your plates.

In any case, I for one don’t want to get into a harangue about some culinary subtlety with a wait person who doesn’t even know the difference between a medium rare and a 93medium steak, while my dinner companions sit in embarrassed, suspended animation.
Just suppose I send something back that needs to be cooked a little more, or, horror of horrors, replaced. Either my table companions politely stop eating despite my protestations, leaving their dishes to go cold; or they continue as if nothing has happened, only to sit staring at me over their empty plates while I eat my belated entree. Either way, it’s a miserable experience for all concerned.

Then there’s the 'Have they finished?, Have they not?' routine. Growing up in Europe, I was taught that if I had finished eating, and only then, I should place my knife and fork side by side and parallel on the plate. At all other times, when resting them on the plate, they should be at a roughly forty five degree angle. This would signal to the waiter that one was simply pausing for a while. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked if I had finished when I was merely pausing to converse, only to be told upon my refusal to relinquish my plate, “Take your time, no hurry.”

When first I encountered this thinly veiled pressure to leave, I attributed it to the rather unfortunate practice, in some restaurants, of seating a table more than once in an evening. Heaven forbid that you might want to linger over a brandy and a little conversation. But more often than not there were no diners waiting or expected when I was thus entreated, so I fail to understand the urgency. In my worst such experience, my dinner guest actually had food taken from her plate by a bus boy while she was merely taking a breather. Both of us were quite speechless, needless to say.

Though not as prevalent as some of the other grating phrases, probably the most unfortunate is the increasingly common, “No problem” response to a request for a glass of water or whatever. One would hope that any reasonable request shouldn’t be a problem, but one is left to wonder what request would be a problem.

But to cap off any meal, the final piece of meaningless jargon is the, “I’ll take the bill up when you’re ready” This statement, like most of the others, cries out for a sarcastic response. Such as, “Please don’t take it up when I’m not ready.” or, “Well it certainly isn’t going to take its self up.”

My unfortunate dining experiences in the USA are all the harder to bear when I reflect that the gastronomy of my native England has been sneered at by both neighbouring Europeans and Americans alike. I won't even begin to try to defend the hostelries or food of my homeland, which I have always considered to be excellent, but at least the establishments stay in business, and usually at the same address for more than just a year or two. On my infrequent return trips to the U.K.,I can be sure that I will be able to dine at one of my favourite establishments, some of which have been around for a couple of hundred years or more.

In this country, on the other hand, one is lucky to be able to eat at the same restaurant for more than two years in a row, or at least at a restaurant with the same name and location. They either burn down, are dispossessed for non-payment of taxes, feel the need to 'change the formula' or get absorbed into a restaurant chain. Or else the chef, in a fit of pique, decides to take his bat and ball and play somewhere else. What is wrong with these people?

In a Connecticut town where my wife and I spend almost all our summer weekends, the restaurant we have returned to most often has had four names, owners and styles in five years. In each of its lives we considered that it had appetizing menu choices, good cooking and fair prices. The service was never as good as I thought it should be, but then I don't expect that any more. The place always seemed to have plenty of clientele; in fact getting a reservation at all on a weekend was usually a chancy business. Nonetheless, each transmogrification occurred without the least hint that anything was amiss, or that the proprietor was getting bored, being sued for taxes or whatever. It remains a mystery.

Dining out has been one of my most enduring pastimes, and ironically, often a source of dissatisfaction and displeasure. When I read restaurant reviews, I’m astonished by the usually glowing reports. If the reviews are critical at all, it is only in some oblique way, and usually right at the end of the piece, after paragraphs of praise. “The pâté was superb” “The game pie was out of this world.” etc., etc. “...But the lighting left something to be desired.” Nothing about the convolutions the reviewer had to go through to get a reservation, or about the proximity of the tables, which made it easier to converse with your neighbour than with your guests, or about the inexpert wait staff etc., etc.

A few years ago when my previous marriage ended in divorce, circumstances forced me to take up cooking. It wasn’t that I had held the opinion that 'Cooking is women’s work,' but my ex-wife is an excellent cook and didn’t take too kindly to my presence in the kitchen. Opportunities to learn were therefore limited. My early attempts were predictably bad, and it was a long time before I got the hang of it. Through most of the learning curve I hated cooking and looked upon it as a chore. But imperceptibly, as I gained experience, I actually started to enjoy it. More than that, I found it to be therapeutic.

While I’m never likely to achieve cordon bleu standards, I think my waning enthusiasm for dining out pretty much coincides with my waxing enthusiasm for spending more time in the kitchen. One of the few remaining incentives to dine out is that someone else does the dishes. Certainly, if restaurants in America continue to care more about titillating presentation and making a quick buck, and I suspect they will, then dining in may make a big comeback, and not just in my home.