{"id":46,"date":"2017-12-09T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-09T14:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/2017-12-9-form-swallows-function-the-tyranny-of-tasting-menus\/"},"modified":"2024-03-03T16:02:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T16:02:15","slug":"2017-12-9-form-swallows-function-the-tyranny-of-tasting-menus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/2017-12-9-form-swallows-function-the-tyranny-of-tasting-menus\/","title":{"rendered":"Form Swallows Function: The Tyranny of Tasting Menus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tasting menus have played a major part in the debasement of dining in better restaurants. I derive it from being a veteran eater, cutting my gastronomic teeth most notably in highly-rated and otherwise interesting restaurants in provincial France in the last 30% of the 20th century, and stuying change in mass or popular culture. As a result, I have witnessed, noted and participated in the changes between upper-level restaurants then and upper-level restaurants now. I think that the primary phenomenon that has driven the change between then and now is that when fine dining lost its elitism and became imbedded in the popular culture, the inevitable dilution and quest for monetary maximizing created what we have today, which is mainly that chefs are more concerned with being empire builders than devotion to the kitchen; that there are increasingly sinister ways to diminish, if not destroy, the value-for-money aspect of dining in the upper-echelons; and the public\u2019s preoccupation with chefs and restaurants that are non-gustatory in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n