Notice it is not about any cultural influence on or of anything. Rather I refer to this general epidemic of having a mental bias about some nationality or what they represent.
Case in point where in America anyone from the continent aka Europe is considered a novelty more so if they happen to speak one of the Romantic languages. On further investigation it is evident that it has nothing to do with the how the language sounds - romantic to some - but rather had to do with the antics of the Romans. As in derived from the language used in erstwhile Roma, which is Latin.
In America an Italian restaurant gets off with super over pricing pasta based on this mental notion Americans have about freshness and the fact that Italian is a romantic language and anything from that region has to be out of this (cookie cutter) world. Far from it.
Pasta in a restaurant to me is the biggest marketing scam. Most places ranked in the high echelons of dining simply get away with 3 parallel lines of green pesto sauce on a plate and jack the price by $50. Saying Bon Appetit when serving the dish another $20. What nonsense. To paraphrase Costanza -"You mean there is no room to haggle on pasta?"
Another trick the restaurant business has learned is to call everything a 'Gourmet' creation. We have no idea what the man in the white apron has actually learned and what his origins are but any old corner Italian food establishment now a days puts a picture of some oversize guy with a balding pate in a white chef smock and tries to jack their price by another $10. If any item is gourmet well then...
Wish I figured out or had the enthusiasm to sell over priced Waran Bhat.. a beautiful melange of slow cooked basmati rice, hand picked from the foothills of the Himalayas fed by the crystalline snow melt, simmered to perfection and accompanied by mildly spiced lentil soup that warms your insides with a touch of clarified butter that melts golden brown on the dollop as it comes steaming from our gourmet kitchen to your fine china.
Case in point where in America anyone from the continent aka Europe is considered a novelty more so if they happen to speak one of the Romantic languages. On further investigation it is evident that it has nothing to do with the how the language sounds - romantic to some - but rather had to do with the antics of the Romans. As in derived from the language used in erstwhile Roma, which is Latin.
In America an Italian restaurant gets off with super over pricing pasta based on this mental notion Americans have about freshness and the fact that Italian is a romantic language and anything from that region has to be out of this (cookie cutter) world. Far from it.
Pasta in a restaurant to me is the biggest marketing scam. Most places ranked in the high echelons of dining simply get away with 3 parallel lines of green pesto sauce on a plate and jack the price by $50. Saying Bon Appetit when serving the dish another $20. What nonsense. To paraphrase Costanza -"You mean there is no room to haggle on pasta?"
Another trick the restaurant business has learned is to call everything a 'Gourmet' creation. We have no idea what the man in the white apron has actually learned and what his origins are but any old corner Italian food establishment now a days puts a picture of some oversize guy with a balding pate in a white chef smock and tries to jack their price by another $10. If any item is gourmet well then...
Wish I figured out or had the enthusiasm to sell over priced Waran Bhat.. a beautiful melange of slow cooked basmati rice, hand picked from the foothills of the Himalayas fed by the crystalline snow melt, simmered to perfection and accompanied by mildly spiced lentil soup that warms your insides with a touch of clarified butter that melts golden brown on the dollop as it comes steaming from our gourmet kitchen to your fine china.
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