In the age of Instagram, we are all food photographers. Go to any half-decent café nowadays and you'll notice many patrons pausing before they pick up their fork to take a few shots of whatever’s just arrived from the kitchen.
Consequently, most chefs nowadays devote a lot of effort to 'plating up' so their customers can do their marketing for them; it won’t be long before restaurants start installing professional photographic lighting rigs for their customers.
This global cult of food photography also means that fads can spread in a matter of moments, as regrams and imitations spread the latest trend. I can still remember my first, wide-eyed trip to Brooklyn, which was deep in 'dude food' like hot wings and gourmet burgers a year or two before Australia's hipster pubs and bars jumped on the artisanal bandwagon. But now, we see what's on people's plates in Tokyo, Paris and Mexico City as they're eating it. Trends like poke, deconstructed desserts and gourmet empanadas can flash around the world overnight.
But in an age of ubiquitous kombucha and kale, I find myself increasingly drawn to food that's at the other extreme. Daggy, wholesome, traditional food is what appeals the most, served by establishments that care more about their patrons’ comfort than how the space will look when a celebrity chef visits for an episode of their TV show.
Substance over style, the is a classic.
Source: French Food Safari
The more I try fancy food, the more it reminds me to appreciate the things that we've always eaten, and probably always will. No trickery, no surprises, and above all, no changes to follow fashion. Food that looks wholly unremarkable on the plate but tastes entirely excellent.
Like spaghetti bolognese, my family's default meal since I was a kid, and the first thing I ever learned to cook – a list that’s still shorter than it should be. It's hard to take a great photo of a mess of spaghetti strands with a lumpy red sauce splotched on top of it. Most people who are Instagramming pictures of a spag bol are probably doing so ironically. But I made a huge quantity of the good stuff last week while on an extended family holiday, and it went down an absolute treat both for dinner, and on toast the following day. Sure, it'll never be in fashion – but it's never out of fashion, either.
The same goes for pretty well anything involving melted cheese. Mac and cheese, , , pizza – no chefs are including them in a 12-course degustation, unless they’ve deconstructed them to the point of being unrecognisable.
But the umami explosion that results from pairing tomato with melted cheese is well-nigh unbeatable, especially when you want the kind of comfy meal that you can eat on the sofa in tracksuit pants. Daggy food is inherently comforting – nobody's trying too hard, and it just works.
: rarely on your Insta feed, but regularly on many dinner tables.
Moussaka is always good! Source: Feast Magazine
They’ve known this for a long time in Italy, the source of daggy food classics like chicken parmigiana – and of course the with cheese and tomato that might just be the tastiest comfort food on the planet. And for all of France’s exquisite culinary tradition, the most commonly-eaten item in Paris is surely the .
But you don’t need melted cheese for a delightful, daggy dish, and every cuisine has a few options of its own. Take at a Chinese restaurant – the most clichéd order imaginable, but probably one of the tastiest things you’ll order anywhere. Or chicken teriyaki at a Japanese joint, with that burst of sweet and savoury together, or the mighty flavours of at a Thai restaurant. I also challenge anyone to improve on a masala dosa at a South Indian eatery, or Vietnam’s mighty , one of the original fusion foods.
Vietnamese are made for taste, not photography.
Bánh mì, món ăn truyền thống nổi tiếng thế giới của người VIệt Source: SBS
This is easy, everyday food that doesn’t need a witty update, and tastes an awful lot better than it looks. Wherever you are in the world, it’ll remind you of home. And when it’s executed well, it’ll make you wonder why you ever bothered searching for the latest food on Instagram.
