The New Rules of Dining Out

The post Covid world and its changed dynamic has exploded a new world order. Here is how the culinary world is responding to it.

- MAGANDEEP SINGH

This may sound drastic and yet hardly unbelievable, but the pandemic and it's aftermath will change everything as we know it. This inevitable catalyst stands to affect all aspects: From personal (contact-free payments) and inter-personal (fewer handshakes, more fist-bumps) to professional (multi-time zone virtual meetings) and even the socio-cultural (dining out, drinks with friends, theatre, cinema, travel). Although these are global evolutions, its effects are obvious everywhere, reiterating the interconnectedness of the world we inhabit.

CUISINES VS. COMESTIBLES 

Typically, we've had two kinds of regions places with a strong sense of local cuisine, and places where foreign cuisines came, stayed, before eventually transforming into entirely novel and different from the parent land where it originated. Most countries in Asia have an established culinary history, one which has lengthy notes on spices, condiments, cooking methods, and service rituals. It would be hard to mix up, say, a Japanese omakase meal with a Turkish kebab array. Contrast this with various countries in the West-America which boasts of frankfurters or french fries, or places like Ireland and Netherlands, which have dishes but no formal sense of an elaborate cuisine-where food was either hard to grow or tough to store for the long term and thus subsistence was more primary a concern than lavish displays of gastronomic wonders. And then, some of these countries invited migrants and the new populations brought a piece of their own culture along. As time passed, some dishes may have evolved and morphed into something not entirely unrecognizable but distinct enough nonetheless: London's Chicken Tikka Masala, New York-style pizzas, and even something as seemingly classic as a Tiradito.

NATURE OR NURTURE