On food criticism

When I was 12, I developed a hankering for potato dauphinoise.

A newcomer to Australia’s dining world from a childhood of homemade wontons and breakfast laksa, I was convinced there must be a “Western food” culture beyond rubbery aeroplane steaks and my mother’s post-ballet bolognaise, something like what I saw on the plates of smiling blonde children in television advertisements, dished out with gingham oven mitts.

My mother hated cooking. Desperate to avoid another meal featuring depressive iceberg lettuce, I decided to step in, with root vegetables.

I had spent my early years watching my Hokkien nanny squeeze fresh coconut milk through calico and scale pomfret with a cleaver. I had no idea how to begin.

Wandering through a Perth supermarket, I picked ingredients I assumed must feature: milk, margarine (no one wanted saturated fat in the early 90s), Kraft Singles (the Kuala Lumpur of my childhood didn’t have a flourishing cheese industry), potatoes.

The result of all these ingredients tossed into a pan - the powdery-edged potatoes replete with raw, crunchy centre, swimming in a shallow soup-dish lake of man-made oil-topped milk, the gobs of melted plastic-cheese - was unequivocally, unremittingly vile.

I served it to a table of encouraging aunties, who responded with exclamations of joy. “Oh, aren’t you clever? So creamy!” “Doesn’t that look delicious? Yum, yum!” They ate the lot.

Thrilled with such a reception, I made it again when family friends came to visit, again for a pre-sleepover supper, again for mum and dad’s anniversary dinner. Each time, it was met with great aplomb. It became my signature dish.

It took a year for me to realise how truly disgusting my concoction was. But when I did, I was deeply, soul-crushingly ashamed, horrified at the suffering I’d inflicted, and smoulderingly angry at all the supportive relatives who’d lied to me.

South Africa’s food culture has, for decades, been the victim of unwitting sabotage.

Around the country, “foodie” magazines seemingly constantly fronted with ganache-covered cakes declare each new cookie-cutter cafe’s Red Velvet cupcakes “absolutely divine”, gush about anything “drizzled” with flavoured oil of any kind, and fail to confess that the restaurants they’ve just  ranked as “the best of” have given their objective reviewers free three-course meals.

I’m sure they mean well. But sycophancy is the enemy of good food.

Bistro menus have become about as predictable as a pre-pubescent collage made out of dinners from the Bloemfontein edition of Come Dine With Me: butternut soup with limp coriander, wood-fired something, defrosted hake masquerading as ‘line fish’, something flavoured with beef Knorr cubes and tinned tomato (optimistically described as a ‘tagine’ with dried fruit, a ‘curry’ with a teaspoon of Rajah’s, or a ‘potjie’ with mushy carrots), Thai chicken anything; if they’re really pushing the envelope, some variation on grilled calamari or an undercooked risotto.

If you’re a restauranteur wanting to make the top 20, toss some lamb sweetbreads onto avant-garde black slate and some pot plants in front of the carpark view.

The food isn’t terrible, and it certainly shouldn’t be, given the vast, glittering array of fresh produce, seafood, meats and sunshine the country has to offer. But, it is desperately uninspired and often, its execution - if you’re lucky - perfectly mediocre.

Eating is something humans have done since the beginning. It is one of the most honest reflections of our society and of ourselves, and it has evolved into one of our most honest pleasures. We should treat it with respect.

Here, in the coming months, we hope to go beyond celebrating restaurants where your steak isn’t overcooked and your water comes as you order it; to laud the establishments, fruit-squeezing markets, people and food experiences that exist for the love of eating, as much as we will demand better from those who need to hear it.

Criticism is crucial. Some of it can be wanton, unnecessary and rude. But, when constructive, it is also our only vanguard against tepid, bland mediocrity.