Social satirist Mort Sahl spins a tale about a crowded airplane
that finds itself in a heap of trouble. It is losing altitude. To correct, the
pilot jettisons fuel and dumps baggage. Matter of fact, everything dumpable is
dumped; but, the plane continues to drop. If the plane is not to
crash, it must shed another 150 pounds or so. Someone must jump, commands
the pilot. The passengers agree. They decide to select a volunteer in inverse
proportion to his or her contributions to society. There ensues a heated
argument between a used car salesman and a disc jockey. So ends Sahl’s tale. My
guess is that there wasn’t a restaurant critic on board.
With few exceptions (you can count
them on the thumbs of both hands), you cannot trust restaurant critics. You do
not need a degree in journalism to spot in a publication the connection between
a rave review and an adjacent ad placed by the restaurant raved about. Neither
does it take a like amount of intelligence to realize that if a restaurant
doesn’t advertise, it will never be reviewed or, if and when it is, the review
won’t be complimentary. More proof? Most of the consumer magazines that cater to the
appetites of gourmands, amateur cooks, and other fanciers of culinary fandango,
advise (warn?) readers that their listings of restaurants, usually in the back, are limited to those
that advertise. There is honor, at least, among backscratchers.
Most restaurant critics have no
idea what they are writing about. They know little of what it takes to run a
restaurant, have no appreciation of what goes on in a kitchen, have difficulty
identifying ingredients or can figure out why the chef has selected them, know nothing about
the history of dining out (hence cannot make sensible judgments about how
foodservice, restaurants and their menus have evolved over the years), and,
finally, are irritatingly naïve about food products and how their availability,
distribution, preparation, and costs shape the style and quality of dining-out.
Because critics do not understand the interrelationships of all of these
variables, they are not fit to criticize, evaluate, advise, or review.
Furthermore, few magazines, still
fewer newspapers, can afford to subsidize competent, thorough, and believable
reviewing. Because of limited media budgets, most critics evaluate restaurants,
and so tell readers of their merits, based on one visit. Regardless of
arguments to the contrary (arguers argue that since the customer has only one chance, why should the critic be any different), restaurants and their staffs do have
“off” nights. Now, inconsistency is one thing, malfunctioning equipment or a
sick chef, quite another. No responsible critic can appreciate what a restaurant is all about based on one visit. There is
just too much to observe, absorb, and analyze; too much to taste; too much to
study and examine and just too much to think about writing about and, once
written, to convey credibly what you thought as if you knew what you were
writing about.
In a letter to the editor of Cleveland Magazine, I admonished its restaurant critic for panning unmercifully
two restaurants after having visited each but once. “One wonders,” I wrote,
“what your critic would think of the reviewer who, after sitting through a
subpar performance, would dub forever the Cleveland Orchestra as
unprofessional.” Writers who write about cars don’t just kick the tires, they
drive them.
In view of all of the above, is it
any wonder the days of restaurant critics and their influence are numbered?
An owner and operator
of several dandy saloons in New York City, after reading a particularly nasty
review of one of them, shrugged it off: “They have no idea what they’re
talking about. They don’t affect my sales.”
Curiously enough, people who enjoy
eating out regularly have developed palates so sophisticated they no longer
rely on critics to tell them where or what to eat. If perchance they have not
had the good fortune to dine at a new restaurant, rather than wait for a review
(itself, they will tell you, suspect), they prefer word of mouth: to rely on
the impressions of friends or acquaintances who are more than willing to share
their impressions, either good or bad—far more trustworthy than
those of any restaurant critic whose criteria (see below) for reviewing may be
fishy or, worse, irrelevant.
Good critics continue to write
honestly and objectively (or as objectively as they can when dealing with
matters of taste): they know what makes restaurants tick; can separate and
identify ingredients and understand why they work the way they do in a particular dish; know what the classic dishes and their variations are
supposed to look and taste like and how they evolved and why they are classics;
understand and are in awe of the efforts put forth by chefs and their cooks to
concoct new dishes; and despise culinary hanky-panky. But, so do most people.
Their exposure to restaurants all over the world has provided for most an
education in dining out that rivals the expertise of the best critics,
surpasses by light-years the juvenile babblings of amateurs, and finally
renders most restaurant criticism superfluous.
No comments:
Post a Comment