Imperative cooking: there's no place like home
LIATLAT4L
IMPERATIVE cooks don't like eating in restaurants. These inevitably cater for the aggregate diner whose tastes are, well, aggregate. They are also given to literally extravagant follies. I have been slowly con- scious of a new one of these — like some returning twinge; but I only fully recog- nised it in the unlikely setting of a restau- rant in Yucatan — precisely because it was so unlikely.
Most of the restaurants in Playa del Car- men are fairly basic but rather good. And their goodness and basicness are enhanced by their tendency to specialise. One place serves only chicken, marinaded chicken cooked over wood and served with tortillas, salad and salsa (made with habanero chill- ies and lime). You can have a whole chick- en, half a chicken or, the house speciality, a freak chicken with four legs and no back. That's it, chicken. Take it or leave it and go down the road to the next . . .
Which only sells ceviche and coctels. The ceviche is the fish-of-the-day marinaded in lime. A coctel is shellfish such as conch and prawns in a sort of ceviche-gazpachoish soup. Further on, another place sells tacos and burritos. Yet further, a fish or meat and rice place. 'What fish have you got?' `Snapper.' What else?' Just snapper.' So, of course, you visit three places per evening: the best order is ceviche, chicken, snapper.
In contrast was the folly restaurant. First, we were given a menu. None of the other places had bothered with them for obvious reasons. There were some 15 or so dishes on it. The waiter returned, took the order and snatched away the menu. Why? I looked around to check: there were plenty of other copies stacked at the bar. I wanted the menu. I always want the menu. It's something to read while one waits. You can look at other dishes, prices, see if there is reason to return for something else tomor- row night. But, following almost standard American and English practice, against my interests and that of the restaurant, this restaurant takes away menus. I asked for it back. Reluctantly, the waiter brought it back. At least we did not get the look which follows this request in England, which is a sort of dumbfounded amazement mixed with contempt.
We started with some limy soup — every- thing is limy in Yucatan. With this flour tortillas. As soon as the last drop of soup disappeared down the red lane, the waiter was there again to take away the tortillas. When a mixed fish dish arrived, he brought them back. This is only a minor variation on the English practice of offering a tiny roll, then whisking the roll basket away till the management decides one should be allowed another. Why? What do they do with them in the meantime? Why can't we be left the bread to eat as and when we like.
But at least one mystery was solved. I know what a 'take-away' restaurant is. The Mexican had no wine to speak of, so he couldn't perform the worst take-away of all. This consists in selling you an overpriced bottle of wine, then not allowing you to drink it. A half glassful — enough for 30 seconds — is pretentiously poured into a goldfish bowl, then they they whisk it away and hide it. A variation is to park the bottle on another little table where you can see it, gaze at it longingly, thirstily, but can't reach it. And they can get shirty when you insist on keeping your wine. A friend was involved almost in a tug-of-war with one waiter. Deprived of this folly, the Mexican contented himself with taking away the salsa — twice.
He also tried to take away the olive oil. Across America, they serve salad at the wrong point in dinner. You never know when it might turn up, so Imperative cooks demand olive oil on arriving, even before drinks. This normally involves a battle. When you win, the buggers are so annoyed they lurk around trying to get their revenge by stealing the olive oil back.
The show ends, of course, with a bill, when you pay for the food and drink that has been so grudgingly and fleetingly allowed you. You put down a few notes by it, leaving the bill there so the waiter can note the total. The bill is yours. You need it to try to extract the cost of the dinner from Mr Dominic Lawson or at least set it against the even more take-away demands of Her Majesty's Inspector of Taxes. Dis- tracted by some university lecturers demanding Fanta with their lobster, you turn away, then back: the bill is gone, taken away. What a relief to take oneself and one's custom away and be safely back in the Imperative dining-room.
Digby Anderson
'They just chucked him away.'
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