Restaurants and caterers hate vegetables
Since I’ve learned to love fresh vegetables and fruit, I’ve come to learn the restaurants hate them. Caterers do too.
An ex-girlfriend once commented that she couldn’t go to restaurants with me because I complained too much that they covered everything in salt, sugar, and fat (more on that complaint below).
I attended an event today that was catered. Everything was vegan, which a lot of people interpret to mean healthy and honoring vegetables. But as usual, everything was either sweetened or covered with salt and fat, or some combination. I’ll leave aside that all the utensils were disposable, but people acted like since they were made of bamboo or stamped compostable that they were good for the environment.
Restaurants and caterers without excepting in my experience cover vegetables with salt, sugar, and fat. I think they see them as healthy, which to them necessarily means they don’t taste good. If they want to stay in business, they have to make them “palatable.”
Back to the ex-girlfriend, after that conversation I told her I’d go to any restaurant of her choosing and would not complain. She chose a place. I didn’t complain. During the meal, she commented how a dish that traditionally wouldn’t have been fried was deep fried. She commented a different dish was too sweet and another too salty. I waited a few days until it wasn’t in the moment of the meal and politely pointed out her comments.
She looked back and recalled it and remarked she had done what she said I always did.
It wasn’t us. It was the restaurants. I guess also the American people, who demand palatability over flavor and honoring the vegetables and fruit.
Luckily for me, the CSA farms I belong to love fresh produce. Here’s a picture of one of their fields. I suppose most Americans look at a scene like this and think it’s virtue signaling and wonder how to use the kale to make a dish look healthy without ruining it, and what sauce to put over it and how long to grill it so it doesn’t taste like kale any more.
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