first of all, why do I have to tell the chef how to make the steak? “medium rare”? “well done”? those are words made up by wizards or something. second of all I don’t like how they taste. they’re super expensive and they just taste so boring. chicken goated steak boring. I’m in my early 20s so I’m getting used to some “acquired taste” things slowly like wine and coffee but steak is still so bland.
That reminds me of the sort of tropey way food and cooking always seems to be talked about in anime and manga where characters will just stop to monologue about how crucial [super specific ingredient] is to some dish and wax on about how it has to be so fresh and high quality and it’s not [dish] if it doesn’t have the best ingredients, which is obviously a cartoonish caricature but it reminds me so much of how certain Americans talk about steak or some regional “specialty” like they think putting ketchup on smoked pork is some sort of trade secret or good at all.
And then I think of the more or less exact opposite: videos from a Thai chef, I forget who, talking about how to make a dish and just being like “yeah the authentic way is to use [specific local ingredient] but that’s really just used because it grows all over the place and is easy to get there but it can be hard to find in the US, so just use this or that alternative instead and it’ll be fine, and then you can use this or that general sort of thing for the main bulk of it, but really what’s most important is that you’re striking the right balance of flavors…” and being 100% correct about every part of that.