Serving Food

The theme of this book is simplicity; both in terms of the food, which should ultimately taste of itself and, where possible, in its execution. It follows that presentation of food and its service should follow the same rules, for I dislike the whole business of painting pictures on plates. The only people who do this well are the Japanese and even then the impression that all Japanese food is painstakingly arranged is inaccurate. Food has its own innate presentation just as it has its natural seasonal rhythms. To me, anything which forces it to change its nature is wrong. There can be no absolute rights and wrongs here; no black and white ‘do this’ but ‘don’t do that’, and my kind of food would look plain silly or pretentious if it were not put on plates in a simple way.