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Fine Dining — Page 3
That fierce debate is focussed on the precise chronology
of iconic food events, both Pre- and Post-Arugula, and
even during the actual Arugula Epoch itself. The debate
began at England’s University of Wessex (not incidentally,
the British refer to arugula as “rocket”),
fomented by the controversial food-denialist Dr. Ewan
Auger in his seminal essay, “A Brief History of
Fennel.” In a footnote to the essay, Auger categorically
states that both rocket (that is, arugula) and restaurant
patio heaters were invented in Great Britain. Not only
did he get it badly wrong, but little did he know the
trouble he would soon unleash the world over.
To set the record straight, the Pre-Arugula period (1971-78)
is characterized by certain iconic benchmarks in time,
such as, “Hi, my name’s Brad, and I’ll
be your waiter tonight” (1972), salad bar sneeze-shields
(1973), Kressman’s screw-top wine in the handy
one-litre format (1974), and the advent of pepper mills
the size of outdoor chess pieces (1971-present day).
Culinary historians now largely agree upon these dates.
What remains controversial, however, and what has yet
to be settled by accurate carbon dating, is the timing
of the introduction of uncomfortable hotel-banquet chairs
and pink nylon napkins into high-end Chinese restaurants.
Dr. Baugh Lam, dean of UBC’s Faculty of Food and
Modern Living, says, “We know now that the plastic
grocery bags [that the pink napkins were recycled from]
went into production in 1976. Unfortunately carbon dating
has proven wildly inaccurate, likely because the bags
themselves were recycled from leisure suits. And any
hope for accurate DNA sampling appears a dead-end too—what
little chop suey actually adhered to the napkins is
either virtually untraceable or simply petrifying.”
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What does raise
a bone of contention though, especially amongst
steakhouse anthropologists, is the advent of sauteed
spinach (as opposed to the Pre-Arugula creamed
spinach) as a side dish.
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When we confronted Dr. Lam with the clear evidence of
pink nylon napkins in a 1975 brochure touting the Double
Ecstasy Fulfillment Gardens Restaurant in Richmond,
he replied, “Well, there you go—this is
never easy and it’s far from being an exact science.”
After the actual Arugula Epoch, which lasted a scant
two decades beginning in late 1978, some issues have
been clarified while others remain clouded by time.
For instance, lengthy menu descriptions (1992-98), noting
the provenance of each ingredient, its organic growing
methodology, its harvesting procedures and the maiden
name of its mother, engendered not a whit of controversy.
What does raise a bone of contention though, especially
amongst steakhouse anthropologists, is the advent of
sautéed spinach (as opposed to the undeniably
Pre-Arugula creamed spinach) as a side dish. “The
2001 fire at the head offices of Hy’s Steakhouses
on Davie Street wiped out any definitive proof,”
says Dr. Sybil Kronick of Simon Fraser University’s
Department of Culinary Anthropology and Food Styling.
“Although we’re quite sure it was 1995,
I said more or less the same thing about the baba au
rhum/apple crumble changeover date, and just look at
how out to lunch I was there.
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