2y ago

Why Are Pepper Grinders A Thing In Restaurants?

Let's say I decide to go to a nice restaurant for a meal. The dish comes out, and I ask for a salt shaker before I even taste it (I never have, btw). That is normally considered an insult to the chef or you are pegged as a neanderthal diner.

Why, then, is it normal for a waiter to offer you grinds of pepper all over your plate before you have even had your first bite?

19 comments

Because the food is almost always going to be salted several times during cooking, but pepper is best put on very fresh afterward and isn't necessarily used on everything.
But also: Where do you have to ask for salt? I've never been to even a fancy place that didn't keep salt on the table.
- Really? Where I live salt on the table or lying around is something in cafes, not restaurants.
  
  In the USA I've never been to a restaurant that didn't have salt on the table. Do you mind if I ask where you live?
  I wonder what aspect of cultural differences are responsible with that, thats genuinely super interesting to me
Pepper is best when fresh, and its an easy way for them to provide an experience for diners where they feel like someone is giving them special care when it comes to their food, if that makes sense. Salt makes no difference freshly ground. Also, at least in the USA, generally no one will be insulted if you ask for salt; is that an experience you have often? And do you have to ask for salt often? Anywhere I eat they just have salt shakers available, it seems odd to me that they'd make people ask
That is normally considered an insult to the chef or you are pegged as a neanderthal diner.
We go to very different nice restaurants
Because whether the chef will be insulted or not (They won't) - everyone has different tastes and some people love a dash of pepper on things.
- Yep, like me. I normally like my food spicy, and can usually tell whether a dish needs pepper or not.
  Also, at the nicer restaurants, the waiter offering it to you is part of the tradition and experience. It can be seen as the restaurant being attentive to the diner. It's not just pepper, they may offer to grate cheese as well, and I guess customers have come to expect such service as those restaurants.
  
  the tradition and experience
  Even though this happened over 20 years ago, I will never forget the experience I once had of a waiter grinding all the pepper into my lap instead. It was an upmarket restaurant, but I think perhaps he was on something.
As a condiment it works so much better if ground fresh & people tend to know whether or not they like pepper with a specific type of dish or not.
As for the ritual, pepper remains more expensive than salt, but in the past pepper was extremely costly outside of the regions where it is grown, and not something that could be left on a table or necessarily with anyone except the head waiter, so to retain the "tonight we're being fancy" effect, some places still do the whole palaver.
Though I guess they just don't want people running off with the pepper grinders. Unlike the other stuff diners pinch from tables, big tall grinders with good mechanisms are expensive and suppliers don't tend to sell them at a discount or bundled for cheap with other items.
Have never been to a restaurant that did not provide salt at the table, including some that are as fancy as they come. There was a brief phase in the 1990s where one would get these rumours of some famous chef or other [they were never named, funnily] refusing to allow salt at the table & flying out of the kitchen to berate any hapless diner who sought it. Other than that, chefs know better than most that everyone's palate is different, and that the diner is the one putting the food into their body. No matter how sure a chef is of their own culinary genius, they're also pretty into wanting people to enjoy eating their meals, even if some of the nuances will be lost on those who add salt as a matter of course. It only takes a week or so to reeducate one's palate away from wanting added salt, but a meal out probably isn't the best time to start trying to make the switch.
I think it's because chefs are taught that there is a "right" amount of salt that they need to master.
On the other hand there is no "right" amount of spices (pepper it's a spice) it's more a personal and cultural difference.

19 comments