Not special anymore, the bore for produce like Dior.
Beef Stroganoff has wild and varying histories: possibly an inspired creation in the 18th century kitchens of the Stroganov family, definitely served with rice in Russian restaurants of Hong Kong, ironically used to fill bellies of American soldiers during the Vietnam War from dehydrated packets. Whatever Stroganov is, or was, it has a pretty sharp name, and it didn't really matter how you made it, what you served it with, or what meat you decided to use.
"it is as if the meat’s name in a restaurant is more important than the chef’s name, or even the restaurant’s"
Waldorf salad, beef Carpaccio, Bloody Mary, Chairman Mao pork (Máo shì hóngshāoròu), pizza alla marinara, peach Melba, Toulouse sausage - course through old cookbooks and menus, and the many names evoke people and place. There was a real panache given to the creation and naming of dishes, not banally listing ingredients on a menu like is done today. Back then, it was a given that food was fresh, local, organic, and biodynamic, because, well, it was food.
Decades of industrialisation, modernisation, mechanisation; in the Anglosphere we suddenly had no idea where our food came from. As far as we were concerned, it all came from factories, magically appearing in supermarkets and on our plates in restaurants. And so, clearly, after a while, we suddenly wanted to know – where does our food come from?
"Naming produce and place is a faux effort to connect restaurants to farmers and produce"
Skull island prawns, O'Connor beef, Coffin Bay oysters, Great Ocean ducks, Eugowra chicken, these are all seen on menus throughout Melbourne today. They sound exotic, local, sustainable, and worth paying money for. It isn’t enough that we might be eating at Gimlet, we can’t trust the chefs there to make something as delicious with just ‘normal’ chicken, it doesn’t seem to be assumed that a restaurant these days can source quality chicken anymore. No, we must be told, “you aren’t eating chicken at Gimlet in Melbourne (because that wouldn’t be good enough), you are eating Eugowra chicken”.
Today, it is as if the meat’s name in a restaurant is more important than the chef’s name, or even the restaurant’s.
Comical. Ridiculous.
There’s nothing wrong with Eugowra chicken, it can be scrumptious. But this is what one would expect as a minimum from Gimlet (and the farmers of their produce). ‘Eugowra’ provides no extra or intrinsic meaning to one as a consumer (the first time one hears it). Is it a heritage breed, is it a place, is it a specific farm, is it corn fed, is it free-range, is it frozen or fresh? Coffin Bay oysters don’t tell you that they’re mostly Pacific oysters. Skull island prawns don’t tell you that they’re the biggest frozen tiger prawns out there. Great Ocean ducks don’t tell you anything, perhaps only that they might have waterfront views, which of course makes them better than wherever those ‘other’ ducks live. In the case of O'Connor beef, the O'Connor boys had a problem, Pakenham just didn’t sound too classy - the location of their abattoir. So, they were happy to name the product that comes out of their abattoir, after themselves. O'Connor beef. We see it again, and again, and again, in higher end restaurants, and so, we think it must be of good quality, without even understanding why.
And I guess this is the trend that is frustrating. We are not understanding why. Focusing on superfluous names that link produce to place creates a dining scene where the produce becomes the ‘brand name’ to meet the needs of vapid, uneducated patrons, who are most likely entering restaurants wearing brand names as well. Naming produce and place is a faux effort to connect restaurants to farmers and produce, whilst in reality, they are far more connected to distributors. And this is the trend that is out there, and stinks a little of marketing codswallop.
Imagine sitting outside a modish pizzeria in Collingwood, they’re serving up pizza with “Victorian Stanhope Mozzarella”. You might think it’s worth the extra few dollars, not knowing that Stanhope is just the location of Fonterra’s gargantuan cheese factory. Or, you’re having brunch in South Yarra, porridge is served, but it’s on the menu as “Sliced Yarra Valley strawberries with Wahgunyah oats”. Again, sounds deluxe, but Wahgunyah is simply the location of the Uncle Toby’s factory.
The problem with banally listing ingredients is that (besides being incredibly unimaginative) consumers start to look for these and subsequently change behaviours, feeding back into the system. The result is that you can’t go anywhere in Melbourne now without being offered LP’s cold cuts, Great Ocean ducks, Skull island prawns, and O’Connor beef. And we are being forced to pay the premium price, when Princi smallgoods make salamis just as good if not better than LP’s, at half the price. Menus are becoming incredibly derivative and boring, riding a wave of popularism for something that’s actually always existed in Australia - astoundingly high-quality produce.
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