AN UNUSUAL BOOK CLUB MEETING

The meeting was somewhat different.  Ordinarily we have two reviews,  but this time there was time for only one.  Ken reviewed a non-fiction work entitled The Man Who Ate The World, by Jay Mayner.  Mayner is an English food critic (grossly overweight, Ken said) who decided he would search the world for the perfect dinner.  He went to restaurants literally all over the world, including Las Vegas, Moscow, Tokyo, London, Paris, and Abu Dhabi in Africa.  He ate at a lot of very expensive three star restaurants.   I won’t mention the conclusions to which he came, but it certainly was eye-opening.

What made this review run so long was all the commentary made by just about everyone around the table.  What constituted the ‘perfect’ meal?  Why didn't Mayner try San Francisco or New Orleans?  Why the insistence on very expensive 3-star restaurants?  We came to our own conclusions.  First and perhaps foremost is that there is little if any relationship between cost and the quality of the meal.  We also agreed that ‘perfect’ is a poor term to use in this context.  What one person enjoys the most may not be what another does.   And some very good meals may be discovered in some of the most out-of-the-way places.  Depends what you like.  And what you feel like at the time.  Or what you had for dinner last night.  (I’d like a cheeseburger with fries, please.)


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