Pressdog.com

In the Midwest,
"Dining" is more like "Refueling"

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 03/04/99)

OK, Midwesterners, time to admit that we just don't know how to dine.

We know how to eat, sure, but we don't dine well. Eating for my people is all about minimizing time and costs while maximizing quantity. Quality may not even be part of our caloric intake value proposition. The ideal eating solution for us: cheap, fast and plentiful. Dining, on the other hand, involves fluffy stuff like atmosphere, conversation and relaxation. For "diners" that adds pleasure. For "eaters" it just wastes time we could be using to remodel our spare rooms.

You know what screwed dining up for us? Plexiglas hoods running the length of buffet lines. They're called "sneeze shields" in the mass-feeding industry. The Midwest is the Sneeze Shield Capital of the world. Your average Midwestern adult has been to so many buffets (or "smorgasbords" where I come from) he or she has become deadly with those huge steel buffet line tongs.

Buffet veterans can pluck an olive off the floor on one hop. I've seen people use the tongs to snatch crackers out of midair, kind of like a hockey goaltender plucking a puck out of the air with his (or her) glove hand. Twirl those tongs like a six-shooter and holster that weapon, mister. Striking.

The last time I visited the mega-buffet, we sat across from a couple who ate like they were trying to catch a plane. They came in, sat on the edge of the booth (the man actually rocked back and forth) until the waitress came within range. They shouted "We'll have the buffet!" and scurried to the line as if the Food Bandits were coming to steal it all away at any second. They returned to their table in four minutes.

What followed can only be described as "pie eating contest." No wasted motion, no talking, just focus and execution. They used a series of hand signals instead. They were done and out of there before you could say "roast beef, chicken or ham?"

If you want to learn how to dine, get your Midwestern self out to New York or Los Angeles. Taking on food out there becomes a production. It's wine, after-dinner drinks, courses, coffee, flaming items, hand gestures, loud laughter, giving orders to the attending waiter in hushed tones, bottled water, cognac and maybe some metaphysical existentialism. Plus maybe some cigars and the occasional animal act.

Out in glittering L.A., you get the added bonus of every waiter with straight teeth being an undiscovered actor. The last time I was there, our waiter confided that he had been a child star on the original Star Trek. I remember the episode with the Friendly Angel. He's slated for management now, he told us with only a little prodding, maybe a VP position. The outdoor restaurant where Spock Jr. worked had about four meals on the menu, and the maitre d' started explaining them to us before we were technically on the restaurant property.

Us: "Can we get a table for five, please?"

Maitre d': "We have braised chicken, lamb with sautéed peppers, new corn --"

Us: "Does this mean we get the table?"

Maitre d': "Clam chowder or a lobster bisque. Scallions and artichoke sauce on a rice pilaf."

Europeans also know how to eat. From what I could tell during a visit to Benelux in 1997, the average European lunch break runs something like four hours. In fact, I think some of the people in the outdoor cafes we visited in Maastricht, the Netherlands, had been there since the early '70s, drinking tiny cups of coffee one molecule at a time.

We Midwest Americans have no time to lollygag over food. We had five days of sightseeing to pack into four hours. Got to keep on schedule to maximize your Euro Travel Dollar. It's not efficient to sit around here and take our time eating. The biggest restaurant culture shock (aside from the fact that a large beverage in Benelux contains some 4.3 ounces of liquid for US$76) was the rule that you have to tackle waitpersons and threaten them in an ugly American manner to get your check.

My Euro friend Leslie says the waitpersons don't want you to think they are rushing you off by bringing your check before you demand it -- preferably while threatening to rain down nuclear weapons if they don't give it to you. It doesn't matter if you have been there long enough for your kids to finish college, you have to demand the check.

But Europe is a virtually sneeze shield-free contenent. Pity. I've got a glove-side move that can pluck a fly off the potato salad before it can even unfold its wings. Boo-yeah.

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