John Mariani Says Controversial Thing

Every once in a while Esquire magazine lets restaurant writer John Mariani slither out of his cage, and yesterday he came up with a "Dictionary for a Modern Diner." It has only twenty entries? Mariani gripes about modern-day diners who lack things like "manners," "pants," and "shoes." On his shit list: small plates and inattentive waiters. Also: molecular gastronomy: "The contrivance of cooks for whom good taste is secondary to mere sensationalism; the deliberate manipulation of an ingredient to be unrecognizable as food." [Esquire]