When Harry Met Saucy

One professional source I encountered suggested two ounces of sauce for an average size entrée. Two Ounces? What are you kidding me? Many upscale establishments believe a dish appears more elegant or refined when graced with a parsimonious serving of sauce.

If I were just a little more paranoid I would wonder whether this philosophy was generated by bean-counting restaurateurs. Yes, I'm well aware that a culinary ten commandment is that a sauce should not overpower a dish, but rather enhance it.

But then that pesky subjectivity creeps in again. What one chef considers appropriate may be deemed an inconvenience by you. Such as when you're scraping the edge of the plate in a futile effort to moisten those last few bites of your pork chop.

Pasta is a perfect example of this issue. Virtually all chefs warn about over saucing pasta. Interestingly, the further you move up the professional culinary ladder, increasingly removed from the common man, the more this axiom is embraced.

My peers will begin my excommunication proceedings upon reading this but I like my pasta with a lot of sauce. I want sauce in every forkful, as opposed to swishing each bite around, feebly attempting to coat it with the piddling sauce.

But that's my Id-based constitution. Generally speaking, I don't believe "less is more." Less is less. More is more.

Meanwhile, there are the people on the other side of the continuum. Some prefer their food with barely any sauce/dressing at all, or in a separate container so that they have complete control over its application.

I keep picturing Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally," perpetually driving servers nuts with her sauce-on-the-side requests. And although it's beyond my comprehension, I've even witnessed patrons order salads with no dressing at all.

So where does all this leave us? Well, as stated, while the home cook can tailor his or her creations to their own taste, the restaurant must establish their own sauce standard.

You my dear readers are left at the mercy of the owner's budget, the executive chef's inclinations, and/or the time-honored tenets of culinary tradition.

You can roll the dice and hope your sauce requirements match, or you can ask for extra, ask for none, or ask for it on the side. You are paying for it after all. But I recommend you don't mimic Sally's "other" behavior at the dinner table. That would definitely be too saucy.

• page 2 of 2
• previous page