Let’s say I decide to go to a nice restaurant for a meal. The dish comes out, and I ask for a salt shaker before I even taste it (I never have, btw). That is normally considered an insult to the chef or you are pegged as a neanderthal diner.
Why, then, is it normal for a waiter to offer you grinds of pepper all over your plate before you have even had your first bite?
Pepper is best when fresh, and its an easy way for them to provide an experience for diners where they feel like someone is giving them special care when it comes to their food, if that makes sense. Salt makes no difference freshly ground. Also, at least in the USA, generally no one will be insulted if you ask for salt; is that an experience you have often? And do you have to ask for salt often? Anywhere I eat they just have salt shakers available, it seems odd to me that they’d make people ask
Pepper grinders exist so you can make sure you’re not at a diner.
Because the food is almost always going to be salted several times during cooking, but pepper is best put on very fresh afterward and isn’t necessarily used on everything.
But also: Where do you have to ask for salt? I’ve never been to even a fancy place that didn’t keep salt on the table.
That is normally considered an insult to the chef or you are pegged as a neanderthal diner.
We go to very different nice restaurants
Because whether the chef will be insulted or not (They won’t) - everyone has different tastes and some people love a dash of pepper on things.
Yep, like me. I normally like my food spicy, and can usually tell whether a dish needs pepper or not.
Also, at the nicer restaurants, the waiter offering it to you is part of the tradition and experience. It can be seen as the restaurant being attentive to the diner. It’s not just pepper, they may offer to grate cheese as well, and I guess customers have come to expect such service as those restaurants.
the tradition and experience
Even though this happened over 20 years ago, I will never forget the experience I once had of a waiter grinding all the pepper into my lap instead. It was an upmarket restaurant, but I think perhaps he was on something.
I can’t stop laughing. Did you tell him, or did he just sit there grinding more and more pepper into your lap?
My wife and I went to an Italian restaurant in Vegas a few years ago. The waiter asked if we wanted Parmesan, pulled the tiniest cube of cheese out and held it up like a magician, and then never broke eye contact while he grated it. It was unnerving.
I didn’t tell him, just sat there in shock getting my lap peppered.
If it happened to me now I would say something, but I was young and not that assertive, so was probably like a rabbit in the headlights!
