Food Plating & Service in the West: A History
Geography, time, and a shiny pair of plating tweezers
By Haniya Khalid | July 2024
“Our eyes eat first.”
If you’re not a chef, food presentation and portioning isn’t something you necessarily think about, but it’s an invariable part of your day. Whether it’s a selection of cured meats served with gravy on a bed of rice or a scoop of yogurt topped with granola and fresh berries, food presentation is inextricable from food consumption.
From gimmicky to tasteful, homey to gastronomical, how we serve our food has evolved and continues to evolve, taking cues from region and culture and reflecting the practices that influenced it.
The article is divided into chapters, each focused on a region, period, or a broader topic.
1500s – slop, bread bowls, and a Florentine influence on France
Before “slop” became a social media foodie term indicating a hearty, beany mush (see: Radicchio Salad), meals during the medieval period were often served as “slop” in bowls made of hardened bread: the older the bread, the harder, the better the bowl’s architectural integrity. This evolved over time, and in the 16th century, dining etiquette was informed by the marriage of Catherine de Medici of Florence to Henry II. The Queen of France is rumored to have exported with her to France an Italian influence on French cooking as well as the common usage of forks. Some historians have debunked this; you can read more about her influence on gastronomy here1.
1600s – Versailles & Marie Antoinette
In the 17th century, Louis XIV significantly influenced European culture, transforming Versailles into a global cultural epicenter. At Versailles, meals were designed to be grand, complex, and performative. Queen Marie Antoinette is renowned for her tragic life, controversial clothing choices, and love of hot chocolate and pastries. The media centered around her life perhaps unintentionally gave rise to her associated iconography: swaths of girly, decadent fabrics, endless parties, macaron towers, and arguably the first-ever recorded case of homestead cosplaying2.
1800s – Careme, haute cuisine, & mother sauces
Chef Marie-Antoine Careme (Antonin Careme) introduced the concept of “plating” to the world. A French chef of the early 19th century, Careme combined his background of working in restaurants and patisseries with his love for architecture to create elaborate structures often made entirely from sugar. He is often credited for the French ‘mother sauces’: Velouté, Bechamel, Allemande, and Espagnole, and for inventing the croquembouche. This detailed approach to creating complex, rich dishes utilizing a trained staff was called haute cuisine.
1900s – Escoffier, cuisine classique, & fine dining
French Chef Georges Auguste Escoffier continued building on the framework set by Careme, “haute cuisine,” defined by carefully constructed, well-presented meals (typically lots of small courses) prepared by a brigade de cuisine (hierarchy of staff). The simplification and modernization of haute cuisine resulted in what is known as cuisine classique. One of the main changes was to implement service ala russe instead of service ala francaise, i.e., where courses were served in sequence instead of being brought to a table/sideboard all at once.
Service a la Francaise
Service a la Francaise, “service in the French style” is when several courses are brought simultaneously & you plate your food yourself. It was popular from the Middle Ages to the late 1800s until it was slowly replaced by Service a la Russe. It is not unlike modern “family-style” or buffet service.
Service a la Russe
In the 1800s, Service a la Russe, “service in the Russian style,” became popular in the Western world. “Service in the Russian style” is when courses are brought one by one, and each course is individually portioned by the waiter. It was a class indicator and a mark of luxury because it requires more silverware and staff, and the food is warmer as each course is served separately. Prince Alexander Kurakin, the Russian ambassador to France, is credited for introducing service a la russe to France.
Escoffier worked closely with hotelier César Ritz at the Savoy in London, the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and the Carlton in London and – et voila! Fine dining as we know it was officially born.
1960s – Nouvelle cuisine
In contrast to the complexity and formality of cuisine classique, nouvelle cuisine became prominent in southern France with small portions, fresh, seasonal ingredients, and plating characterized by simplicity and neatness. The Japanese kaiseki plating technique heavily inspired the presentation. Nouvelle cuisine is characterized by using the freshest possible ingredients, lighter sauces, shorter cooking times, and drawing influence from the locality. It was brought to prominence by Fernand Point and his proteges; he is remembered for introducing crunchy baby vegetables as a key element of the plate. Is Fernand Point the person to thank – or blame – for our obsession with micro-greens?
This is a perfect segue to say that Nouvelle cuisine can be perceived as an early iteration of popular cooking trends that we see today: utilizing seasonal ingredients, undercooking vegetables to retain freshness, small and focused menus, fresh herbs, regional influence, and experimenting with flavor combinations.
Home cooking: kitchen gadgets & the industrialization of flour
While the upper classes enjoyed various formats and presentations of finely prepared meats, vegetables, and desserts, the middle to lower classes ate either at bistros in Europe, saloons in North America, or mostly at home. The introduction of kitchen gadgets affected the utility and presentation of meal preparation at home. While cheese graters can be traced back to the 16th century, modern-day peelers were invented between the 30s and 50s, and meat grinders have only been in use since the 19th century.
With the industrialization of flour3, the roles in the house run by a standard nuclear family greatly shifted. Before the industrialization of flour and the availability of domestic apparatuses, men played an active role in helping prepare meals, whether it was with bread or meats. The book More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave4 argues then that the advancements of kitchen tools ironically created more work for “mother”: with this newfound efficiency came extra time, time which was not designated for rest or relaxation but rather — time for more work.
1970s – 90s: Alice Waters, farm-to-table, and the anti-hippie movement
In the 1970s, Chef Alice Waters opened the dreamy restaurant Chez Panisse, and by 1979, Organically Grown Company was operating out of Oregon. Waters was a powerful champion of the sustainable agricultural movement that has only grown exponentially in the last few decades. A detailed history of the farm-to-table movement can be read here5.
The 1980s brought a contrarian anti-hippie movement that influenced many things, including dining. During the 1980s, food plating trends edged towards BIG and architectural, closely mirroring the ambition of the Reagonomics era.
Today: COVID-19 pandemic, mixed media, mixed emotions
With COVID-19, everyone retreated to their kitchens. For a few years, sourdough starters, Dalgona coffee, and banana bread were what we relied on to communicate and connect. Many of us who had always tied exploration to distance & physicality — were suddenly confined to a space. What could we explore, then?
Our kitchens, of course, and what we learned was that they’re the living, beating center of a house we took refuge in for years. They are waiting to be explored by their next patron in a cycle that measures equal parts heart and sustenance.
References (numbered)
1- The New Gastronome – Story of Catherine de’ Medici
4- More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave
5- Farm to Table – History – Light Speed HQ
References (general)
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