Gourman: Table Customs

I prefer to start with a warning: if you are a person who does not tolerate criticism, like most of our compatriots, or who only reads what is politically correct, you should not proceed. It is likely to hurt your susceptibility.

A few days ago I went to a restaurant in order to write a review. However, what I saw around it surpassed any experience that the food has left on the table. When I got back to my computer, He was no longer thinking about what he had eaten, but about what he had seen on the neighboring tables, in this restaurant located in Urdesa.

The first thing that struck me was the lack of ingenuity and curiosity —which, had José Ingenieros seen it, would have qualified as culinary mediocrity– shown by diners with their orders. This restaurant has more than a decade of tradition and a relative acquired name, and strives to maintain a menu of more than 70 dishes, including starters, main courses and soups. However, of the 18 tables occupied at the site, 15 had already served a plate of Chinese noodles and another of rice.. It was not one or the other, but both dishes at the same time.

It reminded me of what the winner of the first prize at the Raíces Fair, Casa Manaba, told me, explaining that she had been trying to expose her colonche for three years, a wonder of dish, semi-forgotten of Manabi gastronomy, without much luck, until she managed to win the said award. Our gastronomic offer will never advance if our demand is mediocre, not to mention that, in addition to the lack of curiosity and openness to trying new things, the combination of rice with noodles or spaghetti is terrible, it is a terrible mixture.

The second thing that I could observe in 66% of the tables, that is, in twelve, was that the spoon was omnipresent. It was the instrument of choice for soup, main courses and dessert. It is curious that our customs regress a millennium, because already in the 11th century, not good customs but logic, it is discovered that depending on the type of food it is more practical to use certain types of instruments, such as the fork and knife, which They were already widely popularized in the 16th century, that is, more than 500 years ago.

Another observation that surprised me was the multiple activities that took place during the meal.

20% of the diners played with the only cutlery they used, the spoon, either pointing at their table partner or making puppets while gesturing. Of the total number of diners, eight were in beach slippers, and all of them considered it a good idea to leave them on the floor, while, on foot, their playful fingers seemed to be gesturing incoherencies to the sound of the restaurant’s cold ceramics. I wonder if the gastronomic offer in the city can prosper due to the lack of education of the demand. (O)