Last night we went out to a Japanese restaurant with a dear friend of ours, Gus, to celebrate my birthday. I’d never gone the Hibachi route, though I love sushi bars, so it was tremendous entertainment and great fun.
While it is easy to correlate the act of preparing food as a performance, especially in this case–and I’m wondering now if there is other ethnic cooking with such emphasis on the visual preparations by the chef…tossing a pizza comes to mind–with the performance arts such as dance and interpretative movement, I found it as an adventure in writing story.
Our chef was a particularly enthusiastic young man and had a flair for the dramatic as well as being a born showman. The "story" opened with an introduction by the narrator (the chef) of the players: filet mignon, shrimp, lobster, scallops, and chicken, to the audience (the diners). Within seconds, the conflict that the players will face: the stage (the grill) is squirted with oil and set up in a whoosh of flames. I believe the squid shivered on the sideboard.
A few eggs enter the stage and are spun and flipped around by the wind (a well manipulated spatula). Mt. Fuji is created by a graduated ring of onions spouting with flaming Saki. Then the earth (huge mound of rice) is planted (seasoned) and changes with the movements of time (two spatulas). Enter the little people of the land, the vegies, who travel the space as a tribe. A floret of broccoli may decide to leave this homeland and attempt a better life–being flipped in the direction of a waiting mouth of a bolder diner than I. Later, some of the shrimp tries to escape as well. The outlands (the floor) is the burial ground for these explorers.
Once the stage is cleared of the land and its inhabitants, the main players, the gods enter. There is war between beef and lobster for territorial rights of prime space. With much whooping and dancing by the chef, peace comes back to the earth, and all have moved on, to bring life reincarnated within the diners.
I loved it.
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