“Give me a bite” Restaurant text About the menu for religious guests 08:40

There is no doubt that in Moscow there are highly professional chefs that are developing rapidly and constantly raising the level of the capital’s restaurants. The latest technologies and trends are used: fermentation, food that looks like inedible objects, a mixture of sweet and salty, fancy fast food, they surprise us with something new almost every month.

But there is one area that is by no means submissive – fast food. For some reason, every spring for Lent, a menu of “light fresh meals that are good for health” blooms, like snowdrops. But the post is not about losing weight or diet #5. The lentil dish is ordinary, there are restrictions only for religious reasons. Moreover, due to a lack of protein, on the contrary, fasting people often increase their portions and turn to carbohydrates. And competing with small portions of green salads and thin slices of sweet potato sprinkled with peas, this doesn’t seem like a satisfying and self-sufficient meal.

In general, then the point of creating a lentil menu is lost. In an attempt to reach an additional audience, restaurants themselves scare him off because there’s no point in wasting money and time on something that won’t bring you spiritual and physical satisfaction. Although people actually have a desire. Especially going to restaurants for lunch has become a daily practice. It is difficult to find a lean variety of dishes at home, but if you want a taste, you won’t go too far with a potato. After all, it seems pretty easy to make good portions of pasta with delicious tomato sauce and baked vegetables or vegan pesto, burgers with veggie chops, and include a variety of grains on the menu. You don’t need to be a pro in the lean kitchen to do this, you just have to do it without animal products, which is usually what any good chef should be able to do.

Another problem is that the waiters are not taught the concept and the rules are not explained. Even if there is a lentil menu, the staff in the establishment may not understand what the essence of it is. You want creamy shrimp pasta, you specify what you need without dairy products (seafood is acceptable on strict non-fasting days), they bring it without cream, but heavily sprinkled with cheese. Here, a question immediately comes to the waiter: do the people who bring you food understand what dairy products are in general; And a question to the chef: Why is cheese sprinkled on seafood pasta, contrary to Italian tradition? It seems that in 2023, when fasting vegetarianism and veganism as gastronomic ingredients became more common, everyone should have already learned how to please such guests.

Of course, there are still businesses with principled chefs and owners who aren’t always ready to greet guests halfway through and change for them. But restaurants are a business whose primary purpose is to increase profits, and here you have to decide: you are either principled or rich.

Another controversial topic is often vegetable “meat”. On the one hand, it is criticized for being against the idea of ​​fasting. It seems that you are trying to limit yourself, but you want to continue enjoying the usual flavor. On the other hand, the question is, why do you need it? Soy substitutes are a good source of protein, which is already lacking in the diet at such a time, and there seems to be no goal of losing health. It is also quite difficult to stick to a varied and nutritious fasting diet and you will have to spend more money, imagination and time to maintain normal calorie content and satiety, which does not quite fit the concept of fasting. . In any case, soy meat itself remains only a tool, and everyone decides for himself whether to use it or not.

In general, many modern trends even help create Lentil dishes. For example, the trend towards Russian cuisine and historical recipes opens up a wide scope for studying how our ancestors ate during Lent (there are quite a few, and therefore they were a natural part of life). Mushrooms, vegetable juices, vegetables themselves, cereals – all this is actively used every day in fashionable restaurants, but then suddenly it seems to be forgotten.

And to no avail, this is often an area that needs more practice.

The next step will be when restaurants realize that fasting isn’t just Wonderful and that believers at other times of the year also need meatless and dairy-free meals.

Especially on New Year’s Eve, when everyone is actively preparing for the holiday, while the Nativity fast continues in the church. But in pre-holiday meals, it’s all about bacon and caviar. Plus, almost everyone sometimes craves something meatless. A common story is that in the salad section, for example, everything is loaded with chicken, cheese, and shrimp. And it is not possible to order hot and salad together. In a well thought-out menu, in fact, you don’t even need to promote any lentil dish separately: there will already be enough variety so that a person with any food need can make a choice. Or waiters and chefs will have the flexibility to figure out how to fulfill those requests.

There are successful examples of fasting menus, but of course this is an area of ​​our restaurant industry where there is still a lot to change. For some, the motivation may be to increase the loyalty of guests, for others – the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in the culinary arts and marketing research. But even in limitations you can definitely find growth and improvement. Fasting is almost over this year, but there is only time to think about the next.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.