It's de rigueur for most new restaurants to boast their "locally sourced" and "seasonally appropriate" ingredients in this farm-to-table-obsessed culinary landscape that places high value on fresh, unprocessed foods. But if a chef chooses not to disclose the provenance of his paella, how do we know whether the dish we're consuming has been lovingly made before service or nuked from a frozen container made somewhere in Albuquerque? The short answer is that we don't; but perhaps the bigger question is: should we care?
Over in France it appears that they do, according to a Times article about lawmakers passing a law requiring restaurants to use a special logo to indicate which dishes are "homemade." While we might admire the French for their impressive culinary history, it seems there's an epidemic coming to light whereby restaurants are passing off frozen, packaged industrial foods as bistro fare.
Restaurateur Alexandre Castagnet recalls service at a bistro before he took over: "When people ordered, they would pull out a bag of frozen lasagna, blanquette de veau or whatever was on the menu, pop it in the microwave and serve it on a plate," a practice he calls disturbing. "Tourists and other patrons had no idea that the French meal they were eating was actually industrially made."
If this kind of bait-and-switch goes on in a gastronomic capital of the world, surely similar acts take place in the United States, where the standards for "fine dining" are somewhat more relaxed. It's no surprise that the mozzarella sticks and fries and your local dive might come from a bag, but what about places revered for their creations; is it wrong for a restaurant to use industrial products? Justin Warner, chef behind Bed-Stuy destination restaurant Do or Dine, doesn't think so.
We use prefab vegetable gyoza in our "nachos". Why, when we make our own venison wontons, would we do that? Because they taste good, and they taste right. Nachos have no business tasting fancy. We want a certain amount of "commercial" taste in our food. You think [Executive Chef Mark] Ladner over at Del Posto is making his own Chex in his Chex mix? We put cereal in all sorts of stuff. Cinnamon Toast Crunk is one of our best selling cocktails. Why? People like it. They like the familiarity, the nostalgia, and the way in which it is both approachable and foreign all at once. If you don't get it, then you don't get it.
Besides the nostalgia and whimsy factors, Warner says it makes sense from a small business standpoint because it's easier to maintain consistency from service to service. "Ask any chef in NYC and they'll tell you that one of the most frequent battles is trusting a staff to do things consistently and in the method in which they've been instructed," according to Warner. He also points out the money-saving benefits (less waste) to using packaged foods. On the flip side, Castagnet declares that "if you run your kitchen right, it is just as cost-effective to use fresh products."
"The cost of unfair competition and the high costs of operating a small business when folks want to get quality at a low price has resulted in the disintegration of yesterday’s true mom-and-pop-made-from-scratch joints," bemoans chef Saul Bolton, an early pioneer in Brooklyn restaurants and current proprietor of Saul at the Brooklyn Museum and others. "Made from scratch now means you add water to a mix or add the seasoning packet." Bolton concedes that New York chefs are blessed with "an audience with a more expendable income," though labor and ingredients tend to be more expensive here.
So if someone can't taste the difference—and the cook isn't talking—does it really matter? The argument could be made that it's a form of deception, particularly if you're paying $20 for a plate of pasta you could have easily picked up in the frozen foods aisle for $3.99. Case in point, chef George Duran drew the ire of food bloggers when he served them a meal made from frozen foods. But what about if its just one element of a larger dish, like using frozen peas or buying pre-made tortillas to make chips? Has the product been manipulated enough to negate its less-than-artisanal origins?
Ignace de Villepan, marketing director for frozen food purveyor Davigel who fought against the proposed labeling legislation, has a relaxed view on what constitutes a good meal. If diners feel "that what is on my plate looks and tastes good, that I’m enjoying my experience in the restaurant, and I want to come back." For his part, Warner agrees: "The best way to tell if something is home made isn't by a label, but by educating one's palate as a consumer and understanding what processed food tastes like and deciding whether you like it or not."
With menu calorie counts becoming the norm and folks freaking out about GMOs it's not out of the realm of possibility that we'll see changes to menus alerting patrons about their dish's origins. It's a wonder Bloomberg didn't think of it when he was in office! But so long as you're enjoying the meal and it's not going to kill you, perhaps it's better to remain blissfully unaware that the restaurant meal you're enjoying came from the freezer.
