Blast the past: restaurants should prepare food that can't be made at home

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 13, 2003 by Bret Thorn

OK, enough. Enough of the meat loaf and the macaroni and cheese. Enough of the retro baked Alaska and chicken potpies. Stop revering green goddess dressing and Salisbury steak. Stop pretending food was better when we were growing up, or that life was simpler and things were easier. It wasn't, and they weren't.

All Americans, not just our chefs, seem to be suffering from retro fever. Let's look, for example, at some of the most popular Broadway shows these days. There's "The Producers," "Movin' Out" and "Mamma Mia!"

"The Producers" is based on a film made in 1968. What else happened in 1968? Hmm. The Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, crushing a pro-democracy movement. The Vietnamese Communists launched the Tet Offensive, dashing hopes that the Vietnam War might be drawing to a close. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Race riots swept the nation. Ah, what happy, simple times those were.

"Movin' Out" and "Mamma Mia" both are hugely popular, and both are based on the music of the 1970s, the decade of Watergate, defeat in Vietnam and double-digit inflation. What fun.

You know it was a bad decade when our fondest memories of it are the music and the fashion, and the music of the 1970s -- with plenty of exceptions, such as Billy Joel, of course -- was disco, and the fashion was polyester leisure suits, platform shoes, sideburns and gold chains. Need I say more?

And what was one of the big critical hits at movie theaters in 2002? "Far from Heaven," homage to director Douglas Sirk and his films of the 1950s, a decade that, as the film points out, was a time of racism and homophobia so extreme that most Americans have trouble even conceiving of it now.

I think that's why Trent Lott got into so much trouble recently. He said that if Strom Thurmond had been elected president, we wouldn't have the problems we have today. Apparently, he forgot how far we've come -- that Thurmond's segregationist views weren't that extreme 40 years ago but seem ludicrous now.

And what was food like in the '50s, '60s and '70s? Meat was well done, vegetables were overcooked and the closest thing to a vinaigrette was ketchup-based "French" dressing. No wonder TV dinners seemed like such a treat.

And, of course, all of that was happening under the dark clouds of the Cold War and the ominous threat of nuclear holocaust.

I admit I am pretty nostalgic for the '90s, however. The Cold War ended and with it the immediate threat of an apocalyptic cataclysm. The economy turned around. The Internet and cell phones were popularized, making communication and information-gathering so much easier than they were previously. And we entered a post-fusion culinary period of fun and experimentation. A growing number of chefs started working directly with farmers to develop excellent produce. Food from all over the world became more widely available. Heirloom seeds came out of the attics.

Sure, some of the food got too tall and too weird, but that's no excuse to try to turn back the clocks and start serving pot roast. Neither is the recession or the war on terrorism.

The past two years haven't been great, but the world still is at our fingertips. Chefs have learned cooking techniques from around the planet, and customers, though still hesitant to try new things, are certainly bolder than they've ever been in our lifetimes.

I don't want to go to a restaurant for food that I can make at home. Give me that high-quality halibut that only you, with your good connections with purveyors, can get your hands on. Steam it in hoja santa. Serve it with a complex sauce that it took you hours to make and give me some of those obscure, fresh vegetables that I can't get on my own. If I want mac and cheese, I'll make it myself.