To Captain Hammer Every Problem Is A Nail

In the paper yesterday I found an article about a seven course menu with chocolate in every course at the Almeida restaurant in honour of National Chocolate Week (13-19 October).

We'll wait a moment for the chocoholics to calm down.

I've been talking about thematically linked seven course meals for a while now, and it's probably run it's course. I think it began when my parents came back from France having been in the middle of a tomato growing district during the tomato season and had a seven course meal with tomato in every course[1]. I'm familiar with the idea of designing your meal around the wines, although not confident enough in my own wine knowledge to actually do it. With the apple tree and blackberry bush overflowing a month ago there were a variety of apple and blackberry themed meals, and I'm pretty sure I could have gone seven courses on that.

Not surprisingly I was asked at the Great British Beer Festival, as I designed a meal around seven different beers, why I'm obsessed with thematically linked seven course meals?

I've been officially barred from being a Zen Master, which is just as well as I have no desire to convert to Buddhism. Nevertheless, as I see it everything in the world is connected to everything else. If you have or develop a method or technique for viewing something (literary deconstruction, deep penetrative radar) you can turn it on other things and see aspects which weren't visible before. If you're familiar with action TV you see the A-Team in the first act of Iron Man; if you're into Norse myth you see Volund.

Which is why, once I start looking at the world with my seven-course-thematically-linked-meal eyes, I see seven course meals everywhere. Sadly it's not of any use, unless I have a big and posh dinner party in the near future. Which is why, although I'm keeping it in my toolbox, I'm not actively seeking meal themes any more.

[1] Looking at the menu I was disappointed to see the more expensive lobster menu only had five courses and the dessert course had no lobster. What kind of chef can't make a lobster pudding?

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