Is the Food Truth Out There?
One of the oldest is the Secret Ingredient Conspiracy Theory. This theory is subscribed to by people who have made restaurant recipes and gotten less than stellar results from their efforts, leaving them convinced that when famous restaurant recipes are printed, an ingredient, usually something small or unpredictable, is left off the ingredients list on purpose. Why would a chef reveal a recipe that would allow common folk to make his dish just as well as he? Wouldn't his restaurant lose business with all of those people making the dish at home? Ho hum. People who subscribe to this theory need to be reminded that a chef's/restaurant's reputation rests also upon what is attributed to them in print. As for losing business, not likely. An evening out is as desirable as it ever was, even for those who leave shiny stainless steel appliances and granite countertops behind.
A second food conspiracy theory can be called the Great First Recipe Theory or the Universal Restaurant Recipe Theory. This theory suggests that in the beginning there was only one mashed potato or apple cake recipe, etc., and everyone who cooks is still following it and only kidding himself that variations matter. This is your Uncle George talking: "You're going to pay how much for that piece of pie? It's just apple pie with some stuff thrown on the top. Mom used to make them all the time."
God bless Uncle George. Certainly there was an original recipe for everything sometime, somewhere, but variation and recipe refinement most definitely matter. Two acclaimed restaurant recipes with different variations can and do yield dishes that are quite unlike each other. Dishes made from these recipes will afford the diner a pronouncedly different taste experience.
A third restaurant recipe conspiracy theory (and one that holds water) is that it's not the recipe, but something about the ingredients that kick the dish up a notch. Yep. Could be. Often is. From the early days when Delmonico's and a handful of other restaurateurs began working assiduously toward quality control, the freshness and condition of ingredients has been an issue. Unable to find produce and food products worthy of their restaurant recipes, restaurant owners have been known to purchase farmland for the growing of their vegetables and fruit. At least one chef makes his own cheese. A lack of quality ingredients is often the culprit when at-home cooks prepare dishes from restaurant recipes that turn out to be good, but not quite up to restaurant standards.
A Fourth Restaurant Recipe Theory could be called The One That Got Away. Anyone who clips recipes has probably lost recipes. In addition to misplacement, there's always fire, flood, and a teething dog to eat the piece of paper (or even the book if it's a big dog) on which The Recipe is printed or written. This is the recipe that time and absence has bathed in a rosy glow. Cooks talk about these recipes with remorse, lamenting that they will never find another recipe for cheesecake, roast squad, or brown bean soup that will even compare with the one that slipped off in the night. Alas, it is gone forever. The restaurant where it was once served has closed and the chef who created the recipe and wrote it down only once is dead. All right. Some recipes are GOOD, but look at the playing field. With so many fine restaurant recipes to choose from and more being printed every day, it's naïve to assume that there is an actual best instead of simply a great recipe for anything.
A Fifth Theory insists that restaurant reputation or not, it all comes from a can, a mix, or arrives frozen in a box. What diners receive as a restaurant recipe dish is actually something pre-baked, frozen, and thawed out before being presented as real food. As for the restaurant recipes that dutifully appear in cookbooks and on web sites, those, like some "movie" novels, are created after the fact. Food distributors do supply many pre-cooked or partially assembled foods to caterers and restaurants and frozen food is a fact of modern life, but restaurants noted for signature dishes and fine cuisine usually make everything they serve from scratch.
Restaurant Recipe Theories Six and Seven are so far out there, they need no debunking. Six: somewhere there is a chef who sold his soul to the devil for the perfect crème brulee recipe. Please. Seven: through mind control, aliens have influenced the creation of some of our most prized restaurant recipes. By eating foods prepared from them, we are being prepared psychically and emotionally for the day when the Great Alien Food Council will return or some such nonsense. I wouldn't worry about it.
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