A FRIEND recently shared a photograph of a serving dish at a party she had attended.
The stomach of a plastic baby doll had been removed and the hollow space filled with guacamole. I guess its creator was going for quirky, but the overall effect was one of septic gunge oozing from a woefully neglected wound. It didn't look appetising.
Call me culinary-stunted, but the curious trend for re-fashioning odd objects as receptacles for food leaves me cold. It feels like every second restaurant these days is playing silly beggars with how their fare is presented. In the process, the good old-fashioned plate is fast going the way of the Dodo.
From lumps of wood, jagged-looking slates and tin buckets to recycled cans and even dustbin lids, the humble dinner table is increasingly looking like an unkempt, cluttered corner of Steptoe's Yard.
The general theme would appear to be the more inappropriate the vessel, the better. An eatery in Yorkshire has apparently upcycled the region's famed flat caps as bread baskets. There's even a restaurant in Spain that is reported to use iPads to dish up grub. Yuk and, err, what?
My heart sinks whenever I see waiting staff arriving with an ever more ridiculous array of items in lieu of traditional crockery. Nothing kills the appetite quite like a sweaty thumb holding your burger in place to stop it sliding precariously across a grease-soaked roof tile.
Glassware is worryingly following suit. Few things set my teeth on edge like being served a cocktail in the currently fashionable and ubiquitous jam jar. It always makes me feel like I've inadvertently wandered into a bad Enid Blyton novel. Which isn't fun or kooky. It's annoying. And naff.
I want a proper glass with a nice, elegant stem and sufficiently wide enough rim that it doesn't make me feel like a pig digging for truffles whenever I try to take a sip.
Cutlery will be next, I fear. We'll be forced to dig into our Sunday roast using old clothes pegs fashioned together by paper clips and mattress springs, attempting to cut the meat with repurposed school rulers and spear our potatoes with a nit comb. The gravy boat will no doubt be substituted for an old potty.
If I'm honest, presentation gimmicks always make me feel a tad suspicious. It smacks of smoke and mirrors, a clever sleight of hand to disguise the fact you've just forked out the best part of £15 for some gloopy pasta and a fiver for a bowl of soup. Here's a quaint notion: why not just let the food speak for itself?
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