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Can you eat "wrong?"

shrimp with parmesanWe've all heard stories about food "rules" - the chef who refused to serve a food writer for ordering a Diet Coke with her meal, the waiter who wouldn't bring ketchup to the table because the frites were "supposed to be" eaten with garlic mayonnaise. Ordering the steak well done is sacrilege! Don't you dare put extra wasabi in your soy sauce dish - the sushi chef has already put in the exact right amount!

Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Robert Trachtenberg discusses the issue of food rules with an essay on the Italian taboo against putting Parmesan on seafood pasta. Trachtenberg knows it's against the rules, that traditional Italian chefs claim it masks the delicate seafood flavor. But he's not buying it - he likes it that way. Chefs chastise him, waiters serve him in secret, whispering that they fear for their jobs.

Seems pretty silly to me, the idea of rigid food rules. On the one hand, I'm always keen to eat the "original version" of a food, the way it's supposedly been eaten for hundreds of years in Thailand or made by grandmothers in Mexico for generations, yada yada yada. Tasting things the way the locals eat them is a way of connecting with the culture, of expanding your own horizons. And certainly I wouldn't want to disrespect a culture or a chef by doing something truly rude.

On the other hand, sometimes you just know what you like and what you don't like. And why is it anyone's business to tell you different? I would be pretty darn annoyed if a waiter withheld my Parmesan because the chef felt the pasta was better without. If a dining companion warned me against putting more wasabi on my sushi I would probably tell him to shut up. I really like wasabi. The very phrase "It's a matter of taste" is used to point out that taste is subjective, and necessarily varies from person to person. And does food really need to be taken so seriously anyway?

What do you think about following/breaking food "rules?"

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