Does food presentation matter?
Depends where you come from.
“I am not going to be upset, because I have never explained this to you before. But from now on, you cannot say you didn’t know”, I quoted my old driving instructor, who would go from cheerful to furious in a matter of seconds.
“Love goes through the stomach”, the popular idiom goes. Going one step further back, it is the eyes that meet the food first. So, even before tasting the food, we already start eating it with our eyes, when they first see it. I dare say that, love goes through the eyes first.
Should we then instead say, “love goes through the stomach, but not before it has gone through the eyes”? Too long to catch on, in my humble opinion. But there is something about paying attention to food presentation, that makes it taste better. Strange, if you think about it. Does it matter if your cappuccino has a little flower drawn on the foam? After all, it will taste the same, whether there is a flower, a cat, a heart or nothing at all.
Yes god damn it, it matters and it matters a lot. Why? Because that little flower, means that someone put effort in your coffee, to make it as good as possible, in all dimensions, for all your senses to enjoy. And maybe you don’t care if the barista at your local coffee shop put extra effort on your coffee, but what about your partner making dinner? Would you feel the same if they ordered burgers, or if they went the extra mile to make them themselves?
Symi1 island, a few summers back.
Anna2 and I, just returned to our guesthouse after a day at the beach. We like cooking, so we have stopped by the grocery store and picked up some stuff to make dinner. On a typical vacation day on an island, we would have breakfast, skip lunch and go straight to dinner. That was also the case on that day. That means we are pretty hungry3, so along with the ingredients we needed for dinner, we have also bought a can of dolmadakia to snack on, until dinner is prepared. Anna loves4 them and since they are time-consuming to make, she will make sure to have a can at home, even during vacation.
Small parenthesis to give some background.
Dolmadakia5 is a typical Greek food. It is basically rice, wrapped in grape leaves6, and then cooked together. They are usually served with a side of (Greek) yoghurt. Well, in Greece it is just called yoghurt.
I think they originate from middle east and the standard version also includes minced meat in the filling. That is also why the ones that do not include meat, are called yalançı -which in Turkish means liar7- to imply that they are fake. You will hear this word being used also in Greece, mainly in the northern part.
The -aki suffix in the Greek language implies small. The extra -a implies plural. Dolmadakia then means many, small, dolmas, which is also a famous middle-eastern dish.
I am on cooking duty, and like any lame, yet self-respecting, amateur chef on vacation, I am only wearing shorts and an apron. No, it is not relevant to the plot, but story presentation also matters.
Since I am busy cooking, I ask Anna to take care of the dolmadakia, so we can snack until dinner is prepared.
- “Ready”, she announces 10 seconds later. Suspiciously quick, even for canned food.
What she had done, was to open the can and just dump the dolmadakia on a plate. They were not even aligned, just thrown on the plate, sitting there, stranded and disoriented. Sad sight.
Is this how all my meals are gonna be from now on? Practical and sad?
It was our first vacation together and this was a turning point. Either I stand up for my beliefs, or I will have to endure sad, gloomy meals until the end of time.
With my ridiculous shorts-apron outfit, that was definitely not appropriate for serious conversation, I walked over to her. I put my hands gently on her cheeks. Despite the explosions taking place in my mind, I tried to summon my calmest voice:
- “I am not going to be upset, because I have never explained this to you before. But from now on, you cannot say you didn’t know”, I quoted my old driving instructor, who would go from cheerful to furious in a matter of seconds.
She looked at me confused, with big puppy eyes, but with full attention.
- “Amore, this is… sad. I mean, look at them. They are just laying there, helpless”, pointing with four fingers towards the chaotic formation.
- “Let’s place them nicely on the plate”, I said while aligning the finger-sized snacks.
- “Then let’s get some yoghurt and put it on the side. Add a bit of dill, et voilà. Look at how beautiful they look now!”
That was it. The moment order was established in the plate, tension died out as fast as it had risen. We now had a dish that was endearing both to the stomach and the eyes. No further words were exchanged; our mouths were too busy devouring the source of the conflict. I don’t know if the updated presentation made the dolmadakia taste better, but I would like to think so.
One of the next mornings, Anna made breakfast. It looked like this:
Looking back, I can confidently say that, ever since that vacation in Symi, Anna is a firm advocate of the importance of food presentation😊.
- The Naive Ignorant
Symi is a gorgeous, tiny island and I should probably write a post about it at some point.
I have used the nickname Anna for my girlfriend in the post about our US road trip and the post about long-distance relationships. So now I am stuck with it!
Like, really.
Or ntolmadakia.
Or cabbage leaves.
I hope my Turkish friends will forgive me if I butchered this!
If you like stories like this, you might also want to check out:
I didn't know the '-akia' thing! So it would be totally absolutely wrong of me to call them 'dolmadakine', right? (-ine being the Italian equivalent).
Really enjoyed this on a couple of levels. Having spent some time on Symi in was nice to go back there in my mind and to get a Greek language lesson at the same time. Here in Australia, where we have a large Greek population, they are just called Dolmades - whether they’re big, small or otherwise. Looking forward to promised post about Symi. What a shame it hit the headlines last year for the sad death there of Dr. Michael Moseley.