Introduction: The Gist of This

by Stephen G. Michaelides

In 1998, after 27 years, I left my job as editor of Restaurant Hospitality, a business publication for people working in the restaurant industry: chefs, restaurateurs, hotel food and beverage executives, designers and consultants, restaurant owners and investors, restaurant chain executives—people like that. Ever since then, I’ve thought about collecting as a book some of the 320 columns I wrote. 

Before deciding to do that, I asked my friend, Irena Chalmers—teacher of all things food wise and award-winning author of many food-wise books—what she thought of the idea and she said, never batting an eye, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Nobody reads that kind of book.”

Irena speaks; I listen. Here’s why:

She possesses one of the most discerning and imaginative minds in all of foodservice; reason enough the Culinary Institute of America, a few years ago, hired her to teach food writing and gastronomy at its school in Hyde Park, NY; reason enough, she’s headlined over the years too-numerous-to-mention foodservice association meetings, conferences, symposia, enthralling attendees with her remarks.

She has published several books about food and food business, each of them first-rate, several award winners. She knows what gets published, what doesn’t; knows what people want to read, what they don’t. For more on her latest book (left)—another award-winner—go to www.foodjobsbook.com.

So, when she told me, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I think I knew where she was coming from. I don’t think it had much of anything to do with my stuff.
 

Let me explain: I’ve read lots of editors’ columns in dozens of food and restaurant publications (consumer and business). I’ve read lots of editors’ columns in dozens of mainstream and lifestyle monthlies and weeklies. I make it my business to do that: after all, I used to be a magazine editor.

Many of the columns I have read and those I continue to read include the editor’s signature, as if, absent that, its message would be suspect, less than authoritative, or, worse, counterfeit (ghost written?) or, worse yet, less than credible or compelling. Compelling? There’s nothing compelling about an editor’s column that tells readers what stories they can expect to find in the issue (isn’t that what the table of contents is for?) while heaping praise—ingratiating praise, at that—on staff writers and/or contributors who have written them. Many editors do that because (let me see) adding a signature confirms they know what they’re talking about.   

What’s even more bothersome is how some editors, in their pointless summary of a contributed article, feel obliged to flesh it out with borderline improvements, filling in presumed gaps and lapses, implying that the writer fell short of the assignment or, worse yet, may have decided to ignore what he or she was asked to write about (can you imagine the audacity?). Worse yet is the editor who scolds the writer for embellishments, for introducing surprises extraneous to the assignment. I can hear the editor now: “That’s not what we asked for; why is it here?” Apparently, not only does he or she know as much as the writer who wrote the article, but he or she knows lots more. It is to weep.

I know of one editor, a champion of the abused and/or downtrodden diner (he fancies himself one of those), who regularly reports on a dining-out experience he finds unbearable, scrutinizing to distraction every bit and piece of it. Yet, rarely does he take the time to defend it. He just presents it, willy-nilly—the editorial as soap opera—pleased he’s uncovered yet one more awful incident to write about. So, either ashamed of his temerity or embarrassed by or unsure of it, what does he do? He issues a disclaimer: he invites readers to take a stand (“I’d love to know what you think . . .”), a not-so-subtle way of tempering his temerity, effectively watering-down his point of view while disavowing whatever it was that inspired him to report the awful incident in the first place. I have no idea what he calls his column today, but whatever it is, here’s what it should be: “Pissed. Again.” 

Irena is right: who would want to buy a book about that? 

So, much that I hate to admit it, I agree with Irena: stimulating though some of these kinds of columns might be, they are of the moment: not many people would be interested in reading a collection of that stuff. I think the stuff you’ll find here has more staying power; is (how shall I put it?) more compelling.

The 85 essays (of the 320 I wrote) and the updated “afterthoughts” (about 30 of them) in this collection are narrowly niched. They are about the restaurant industry only—specifically and exclusively about restaurants and what takes place when we dine out or eat out (I think you’ll agree there is a difference) in them. Several of the essays are about extraordinary individuals who live and work and lived and died working in the industry. I’m calling this collection, “Foodservice in America: Timeless Essays and Afterthoughts,” E&A, for short.

You will find here observations of an industry that defies definition though God only knows those of us who write about it have tried. It persists to this day to confound even the most astute among us: restaurant reviewers and critics; chefs and cooks; gourmands, gastronomes, and gourmets; cookbook authors, co-authors, and ghost-authors; chroniclers, historians, and teachers of culinary arts; food magazine editors (myself included); consultants and consultants-in-waiting (decent folk, either fired or retired, who think consulting to be a terrific way to make a buck); producers and personalities of TV shows about food—both legit and snake-oily; publicists, bloggers, foodies, prognosticators, oracles, and ditherers, every one of us self-indulgently committed to explaining categorically and assuredly—no apologies, qualification or disclaimer tendered (bloggers please take note)—exactly what’s horrid or not about the industry and what all of us have to do to improve it. Or else.

                                             bonumopus

The restaurant industry continues to mystify us; it always has, always will. It is as perplexing today as it was eons ago when, at the dawn of foodservice, long before restaurants were invented, someone cracked an egg and tried to figure out what to do with it.  Egg wizards I know tell me we have. Figured it out, that is (I’m not so sure about that.) They say this about the egg: “It is what it is. Take it or leave it.”

Not so, eating out/dining out: we talk about it all the time. Not a day goes by when we don’t think about it, when it doesn’t somehow slither into our conversations, especially when we dine out and the menu, in and of itself, becomes the intense focus of our attention as if it were a legal document (“Please don’t bother me: I’m cross-examining the appetizers with the entrees.”) worthy and demanding of our line-by-line scrutiny: what’s going on here; what do we think of it; what looks good and why; what doesn’t and why; what’s best, what isn’t; what’s edible or not; what’s corny or phony; too ambitious or affected. Based on the last time we ate out, will tonight be any better or worse? There is no end to the slithering: it slides and slinks. The irony? Nothing is more central to the dining-out experience than talking about dining out when we’re dining out. It is, all other topics aside, of monumental consequence. We revel in it. You want to discuss politics or climate change, talk about your medical condition, tell us what you did on your summer vacation, the last movie you saw? Later; not now. We’re dining. Chew on that.

Whatever today inspires or contaminates the restaurant industry will survive until the next inspiration or contamination comes along. The industry is fickle, it lacks traction; it is forever in a state of flux—unsettled and unpredictable: always evolving, sometimes repulsively (need I explain?), sometimes happily.

Our industry’s collective culinary consciousness relentlessly (Food Network, the most relentless: not a week or a day or a minute goes by—or so it seems—when it doesn’t exploit yet another cooking curiosity it honestly believes will enchant and thrill us) explores the world of restaurants trying to make sense of it; and, most maddeningly (Food Network, abandoning all hope, the most maddening), inspects it as meticulously as a coroner dissecting a cadaver. Is it fad or trend; healthy or fattening; worthy or worthless; dead or alive; old or new; good or bad; sustainable or disposable; fresh or frozen; real or fake; sensible or reckless; edible or not; green or wasteful?  And so on and so on. Teaspoon or tablespoon; pinch or dash? This or that?

The Essays and Afterthoughts (essay reconsiderations) in this collection deal with these differences and nuances; but don’t expect to find solutions, clarifications, or explanations. Opinions, yes; conjecture, of course. Confirmation of how nutty and fickle the industry is? One can only hope. Answers? Nope. 

marekuliasz                                                                                

So, much that I adore Irena—we’ve been friends for years—I’ve decided to plunge ahead, cracking a few eggs along the way. It is what it is. 

Throughout Essays and Afterthoughts I have highlighted links to websites of restaurants, hotels, publications, food and beverage companies, organizations, associations, etc. I’ve even highlighted the websites of chefs, consultants, teachers, et al. For those not highlighted, simply Google their names if you want more information about them.