Case in point: Mrs. J. and I had dinner at a pretty good Italian place we’ve enjoyed in past years, and both entrees were bland to the point of needing emergency infusions from the pepper shaker.
With rare exceptions (hats off to the salsa at Chuy’s), this has been a noticeable problem in recent years. Either kitchens are catering to overcautious, hypersensitive patrons, or our aging tastebuds are becoming more immune to spicy inputs (I think there’s possibly a degree of truth to the latter, but not to the extent that would explain blah dinners out).
Anyone noticed this phenomenon? I’m almost to the point of carrying an emergency stash of basil and other spices with me when I go out to eat.
Some small places seem to be dialing back on the salt for health reasons. And that does, unfortunately, make me not want to eat there, because the food just isn’t enjoyable. I dislike over salted food, but I still want to eat it. This is, for health reasons, a bad state of affairs, but I can’t rally fight it, as a personal sensibility.
Could it be that the places you frequent are in decline? I’ve noticed that some restaurants start out strong, but the quality starts to slip. Maybe a chef left or the owner is focusing his attention on a new place, but if it’s a trend you’ve observed in a lot of places than maybe it is a trend I hadn’t picked up on yet.
It seems to me restaurants offer more dishes with cayenne, jalapeno, and habenero all the time. Maybe some older dishes are becoming blander (I haven’t noticed that), but the number of new spicy things seems to be on the rise.
Or maybe I’m just not eating at the same places you all are.
It makes more sense to let diners add salt/pepper/etc. to suit their own tastes than risk overdoing it in the kitchen. After all, you can add it, but you can’t remove it once it’s there.
yeah, this is part of it. some places take it way too far, though. One time I hit up the cafeteria at work and got a cup of lentil & spinach soup.
It tasted of absolutely nothing.
the other thing is that a lot of places (chains, mostly) vastly over-sell their “spicy” dishes. when they magnify such things as their habanero seasoning or ghost pepper sauce, I just assume it means they showed the food a picture of a hot pepper before serving.
I’m seeing the opposite: placed adding hot peppers to dishes. Admittedly, it’s only a slight flavor of it, but too many hot pepper enthusiasts are in it to brag about how macho they are and not how it fits in a meal.
I’m always happy when they reduce salt from their entrees. The best chain french fries in the universe – Nathan’s – have next to no added salt. That way you taste fries, not salt.
I don’t know about salty or seasoning. My tastebuds are rubbish. But I totally agree that it’s a much better idea - especially for the aging and fattening population (myself included) - that salt be limited and added later at the diner’s discretion. I have friends my age (just around 40) who are being told to lay off the salt, and are looking for lower sodium content in all foods.
I do know, like others have said, that the “spicy” spices are being added to meals at an alarming and exhausting rate. As someone who just has not developed the ability to tolerate much spice at all, it’s really hard to find something on a menu anymore that doesn’t require me to be “that lady” and ask for ingredients to be left off. If it’s even possible. A good chunk of restaurant offerings I am just avoiding.
No, not blander, I’m not seeing that at all. And there are far more spicier things available today than in the used to be.
Salt, yeah, maybe less salt. Soups definitely seem to be less salty than they were.
However, as someone who likes salty food, I have to say that leaving out the salt for the customer to add is not a welcome feature to me. I like my salt cooked in, not just sprinkled on top.
But blander as a whole? No, I think either the restaurant or the tastebuds in question may have declined.
I have not had that experience at all. In fact I wish restaurants would lay off the salt. I have no specific medical reason to avoid sodium, but just about every time I eat out, I feel like I do nothing but drink water and pee for the next 24 hours.
Part of our Deep State Conspiracy is adding fat and subtracting seasoning from restaurant food in the Red States, to kill you all with heart disease. Here in Brooklyn everything tastes just fine, thanks.
It’s not something I’ve noticed, as far as changes to restaurants I frequent. I have noticed it really depends on where you are. I’m in a pretty poor neighborhood at the moment that’s chock full of old rundown restaurants that are bland (or weirdly sweet, for the Asian food), but they seem to have a steady enough stream of aging regulars to keep them afloat for several more decades without needing to change a thing. The restaurants that are newer tend to have a better variety of well-prepared food, and generally you’d only see a decline if they changed chefs and/or owners. The same held true when we lived in a city where there was a higher number of restaurants to choose from and competition was pretty fierce.
At any fine dining establishment, I don’t even want to SEE a salt or pepper shaker on the table. I’m supposedly trusting the chef, and for most good places, that usually works and it’s all good. I think part of the phenomenon that the OP may be describing (which probably isn’t prevalent in Italian food) is the replacement of sodium for hot, HOT HOT. I’m not on board with that trend either. While I certainly like spicy food, at some point HOT just eclipses flavor to me, and I admit being a bit of a pussy when it comes to insanely hot foods. I don’t enjoy “nuclear” wings, or chili that tastes like nothing but habaneros. But I can appreciate the intoxication of real Sichuan Chinese, as painful as it may be, or even a small dose of Southern “hot chicken” from say, Nashville. But beyond that, count me out on the “needs to be hot just because” movement.
I don’t like over-salted food, either, but typically this has never been an issue in any high end restaurant I’ve attended, only from my own stupid over seasoning experiments.
It’s a nice thought, but a lot of foods really don’t taste the same if you salt after cooking rather than during cooking. I have a good friend who grew up in a family that felt the way you do, and she didn’t really understand what a difference it makes until we started cooking for her, especially once we got her to help us cook more often. It’s such a stark difference for me that if it’s a dish that can’t easily be adjusted during cooking (roasted potatoes being the most frequent screwup of mine) I’d rather just eat the underseasoned food.
The best way I can describe the after-cooking salting result for me is that I don’t taste the dish. I taste salt and then taste the other ingredients, but it never really mingles together right.
Spicy food is now more widely available in Canada than ever before. Lots of places have available Tabasco, Franks, jalapeño or sriracha if the food is too bland. Pepper doesn’t save everything; I like the chef to properly season food but de gustibus Yada — I like to see table side salt and pepper too.
Older Canadians (and many others) sometimes have spice racks with only three bottles and prefer bland food. This is inevitably the excuse made when bland food is served (Our clients don’t like spicy food). I do travel with spices, there is a very small and portable Tajin which sometimes saves the day.
Overall, though, I think more people prefer a little punch and spicy food is becoming more popular. Italian places here usually have a bottle of dried red chilies, which is a start.
