Pacing is everything

The only thing worse than interminable waits between courses is being rushed; just as you’re finishing one dish, the waitperson is lurking behind the partition, just aching to replace your plate with a new one.  Savor, enjoy, digest, relax – un unh; presto presto. The other night, granted not in France but the US of A, I had an hour and 45 minutes before the symphony began.  I had been warned when I made the reservation to be there that early if I intended to get out on time.  But was alone which usually means a faster pacing of plates so I made it clear that I was in no hurry and that I’d like to have a glass of wine as an aperitif. Baroom.  Almost two seconds later the amuse bouche arrives – delicious I must say – and I indicated that I’d delay eating it until my wine was poured.  No sooner than I resumed reading my New Yorker than a low level waitperson started to snatch away the amuse bouche and replace it with the entrée (starter).  “No, I’d like to have a glass of wine with the amuse bouche – please take the sweetbreads back to the kitchen until I’m done.”  And so it went.   Francois Simon used to write a column entitled the “Table d’Affaires” in the Monday Figaro Entreprises in which he rated the food, décor, price-quality and top chrono, i.e., fastest time in and out.  I thought when he started this notation that it was the beginning of the end of civilization as we knew it.  OK, if you’re on the trading floor of the Bourse and a buddy is covering you for 59 minutes for lunch, OK.  But if you’re a PDG or Minister of Defense in charge of acquiring tanks – you’ve got all the time in the world. When I started eating seriously in France many eons ago, one thing I looked forward to was having all the time  in the world to savor a three or four course meal.  One entered a large dining room, only 10-20% full, the tables were generously separated from each other, the room had good ventilation and sound paneling and the waitstaff was professional and, in concert with the kitchen crew, had impeccable timing.  Never too long between courses, never too short. Alas, those days are gone forever.  Except in the country or 3 star palaces, it’s every man for himself; tables jammed together, ceilings reflective of every whisper and the brigade often determined to get you out in “top chrono” setting time.  I look back with great nostalgia to a meal at Arpege, pre-veggie time, when the aforementioned “Minister of Defense in charge of acquiring tanks” was working on his double-single malt as we entered.  By the time we left 2-3 hours later, he and his vendor or supplier were still sipping their digestifs, having consumed a bottle each of white and red wine with their courses and cheese.  No slurred speech, no staggering around, they seemed to have absorbed it all pretty well.  I’m not sure if I’d want the Minister to fire the cannon in one of his tanks after lunch but he and his companion looked fine. A 2-3 hour lunch, standard 30 years ago, rare now, unless it’s due to staff incompetence.  Which is equally frustrating.  Sebastien Demorand, another well-respected chronicler of the mores and manners surrounding food service, commented on one meal where he waited forever for the menu to be distributed, ages for the wine to be served and an inordinate amount of time between courses.  And then there’s the old “razzle-dazzle them at the start and paralyze them at the end” game, practiced especially well by rushing waitstaff in busy brasseries.  While the courses are not precipitously delivered, each one arrives with great bustle, until it’s time for the coffee, a life-time, and the check, an eternity. A happy medium, folks, that’s all I’m asking for.  When I say we’re not pressed, I mean it; if I say we’ve got an 8 o’clock curtain, I mean it; if I’d like the check now, I mean it.   Pacing – “would you like to start with a drink – time passes – would you like the menu – time passes – would you like the wine list – time passes – my I take your order – time passes – here is the amuse gueule – time passes – here is your first course”; well, you get the picture.  To riff on Polonius’s most famous quotation – it’s not “neither a borrower nor a lender be” but “neither a rusher nor a dawdler be.” ©2006 John A. Talbott