Eating in Courses

With the exception of restaurant dining, most Americans aren’t accustomed to eating in courses. On a weeknight, it is usually enough of a struggle to put together a dinner with meat or fish, a vegetable, and some kind of starch, much less to think about what to serve as a first course.

The trick is not to serve more food, but to deconstruct the main course so you are serving the same foods, just not all at once. For example, consider offering a green vegetable as a first course, and then you won’t need to serve a vegetable with the main. Or, serve a small plate of risotto or pasta as a first course (as they do in Italy), and then skip the starch with the main course. Breaking a meal into courses makes everyone (including the cook) pay a little more attention to the food and spend more time at the table. The vegetable salads included here lose some of their charm if they are served at the same time as the main course. They should instead be showcased before the main, on a large plate so that their colors shine and their flavors bounce off of one another.