The first time foie gras was placed before Snehal Fernandes, she looked at it for a long time. ?It looked so beautiful. It was glazed, shiny and exquisite. After a while, the chef hovered close,? she recalls laughing, ?asking me why I wasn?t digging into it! I was loath to spoil that lovely creation in front of me,? she said. It is believed that food is eaten with the eyes and drunk through the nose. And, food presentation is an art that can make or mar the dish.
?Presenting food properly requires a high level of skill, knowledge and imagination,? says Vernon Coelho, head of department, food production, Institute of Hotel Management, Dadar, Mumbai. A chef must have good butchery skills, know the different kinds of cuts, and should also be able to handle vegetables.
Presenting food creatively is much more than just placing a sprig of parsley on a plate beside the steak or the chicken. ?The key word in plate presentation is balance ? of colour, texture, size, shape. And then there is temperature. The food presented must be appropriate to the occasion. It must be matched to the taste and often the beliefs of the guest. Presentation must complement the food, not disguise or hide it,? adds Coelho. If any of these fail, the best of dishes are doomed.
Presentation is as important as cooking, says Ananda Solomon, executive chef, Taj President and corporate chef, Taj Business Hotels. Mumbai. ?To do that, a chef requires a platter and a soul. Food should be appealing to the eye, of course? he avers. ?A guest is paying for a meal experience ? aroma, taste, and the service experience. But a chef can?t be working so much on the presentation that the food looks pretty, but is not good enough to eat.?
You can?t fault a chef for making his creation look wonderful. Looks have their place, after all. But food can?t be made ?too beautiful?. There are some common bloomers, says Solomon, which ruin the meal experience. ?Butchery skills, for instance. When they go wrong, it results in three to four different shapes of poultry, meat, fish, seafood on the plate. This is unacceptable. Another gaffe is to add sauces that look good without matching it with the food on the plate.? He explains this further with an example: For instance, for a chicken-based dish, the stock used has to be chicken stock and not fish stock. ?Otherwise, predictably, the end result would be disastrous.
Food can?t be overly dressed. You can?t serve a tandoori fish and have a mound of onion slices on one side that takes centre stage. ?A garnish cannot overpower the main dish,? says Solomon. Concurs Coelho: ?A leaf of lettuce, a slice of orange when placed on the plate next to the steak, or a piece of fried chicken might add to the colour of the plate, but does little else. It is not functional and is more often than not, left behind on the plate. Chefs must use imagination and thought before applying a garnish.? Very often, he feels, if the plate has the proper balance of the five basic factors ? temperature, flavour, colour, shapes, texture ? no garnish is required. Where there is poor contrast, such as steak and baked potato, a simple garnish may be required for contrast. However, this should be appropriate to the food, and should be functional and edible.
Food presentation has changed a lot for the better in recent times. Though western food, say chefs, allow for a lot more experimentation with regard to presentation than Indian fare, not all Indian dishes can be dressed up.
Says Hector Pliego, executive chef, Renaissance Mumbai Hotels and Convention Centre: ?What puts me off is the tomato rose garnishes.? He says chefs have come to realise that intricate, manipulated presentations put off guests, for they don?t like to eat food that is handled extensively. ?Food should be appealing. But not so appealing that it will go waste. What does a guest do with parsley, those tomato garnishes and other carved vegetables? They all go waste. Even portion sizes have become small, thankfully. The world over, the trend is now more towards the natural.?
Food has to be dressed up. However, simplicity is the key. ?It is more attractive to have a simple plate presentation rather than a complex one. Elaborate designs are often confusing and time consuming,? adds Coelho. Food is meant to be eaten and shouldn?t just be about looking pretty behind the display counter.
A lot goes into the preparation of a meal before it arrives on the table. After the chef and his team have slaved over a meal, it is put to the final test. The guest has the final say, of course. After all he is paying for it! No matter how detailed, how authentic the meal, the guest?s verdict is final.